Self-Registration LMS: 9 Reasons That Make It A Beneficial Choice
Whenever we relinquish control into a corporate learner’s hands, we become uncomfortable. Self-registration in LMS terms means that corporate learners are able to manage their own access to online training. This brings a huge amount of doubt for us, as administrators and system owners. Will participation drop off, or will uptake rates increase – only for corporate learners to abandon more online training courses part-way? Will we still obtain the user data required for our reporting needs? The good news is, there are plenty of good reasons why none of these concerns will become real issues. Manage a self-registration LMS with the proper consideration, and you’ll see more benefits than you expected.
Self-Registration Vs. Self-Enrollment
Before we delve into the benefits of self-registration, let’s clarify exactly what it is and how it differs from self-enrollment. Especially given that these two terms are often used interchangeably. Self-registration enables corporate learners to create their own user account in the system, while self-enrollment takes it a step further by allowing your corporate learners to enroll in a specific online training course by invitation. In most cases, this comes in the form of a code or link that enables restricted access. However, there can also be an open invite that they can click to immediately be signed up for the online training course.
Self-Registration LMS Provides Responsibility – And Freedom – To Corporate Learners
However you look at it, retaining all responsibility for learning at the doors of the L&D compliance report is inefficient. By the time you are reporting on people who have missed the online training course, it’s too late. Better to provide the opportunity for corporate learners – with gentle nudges here and there – to sign up themselves. Your messaging around self-registration and development will be critical in ensuring managers and corporate learners understand their roles in meeting expectations.
1. Ease Of Access To Online Training
A self-registration LMS allows corporate learners to quickly and conveniently create an account in your LMS. If you have self-enrollment enabled, they can also automatically enroll in relevant online training courses. Rather than waiting for an invite or a busy instructor/manager to sign them up. After self-registering, corporate learners can simply access the online training course via a private code or URL.
2. Self-Registration Means Autonomy
No need to wait for an admin – corporate learners can register on their own timeframe. This relieves the administrative burden and allows the individual take control of their online training experience. For example, the customer service team leader can merely send their subordinates the secret code, as they are already registered as an active user.
3. Promotes Reflection And Self-Discovery
Giving corporate learners control over their own course registration helps them identify personal skills gaps and look to fill them. This can be done in line with regular development discussions. They have greater autonomy, which gives them ample opportunity to discreetly discover areas for improvement.
4. Makes Communications More Powerful
With self-registration, you can add a link to an online training course anywhere. This helps to promote your online training courses in communications by issuing a call to action, to which the corporate learner can immediately respond.
5. Builds Social Learning
You can promote online training courses via your preferred social platforms – just include a link to target a specific group. They can access the online training course directly in the self-registration LMS, then come back and provide eLearning feedback via social platforms. This might include posting their achievements or asking for further information. Fostering a sense of competition and collaboration in this way increases participation and adoption.
6. Allows You To Gather Important Data
Administrators are still able to gather Big Data like demographic information, required for reporting requirements via the self-registration form. Just make sure you design that form to match every field in your reporting. Better yet, use AD integration to allow users to access with a single sign-on, which gathers all that information for you.
7. Restrictions Can Still Be Enforced
You can still limit access to certain online training courses via moderated enrollment. This means that administrators must approve self-registration requests if this option is selected for a specific online training course. This is useful for any sensitive or complex online training course that is only suitable for a limited audience.
8. Provides An Individualized Online Training Experience
A self-registration LMS still allows for an individualized online training experience. Use the input data from the self-registration form to personalize the online training content or path. This might include a welcome page with their name and course history, explaining the relevance to their job role. You should also detail what they will benefit from completion, as in any online training course. You can provide links to further reading and social discussion channels.
9. Supports Time-Sensitive Online Training
With self-registration, you can apply a deadline for course activation. This will allow corporate learners to comply with legal requirements for completing certain online training, such as safety or compliance online training courses. Corporate learners can simply sign up and access the certification online training course through the open invite to uphold company compliance standards.
In a self-registration LMS, employees access online training immediately; they make their own decisions and take control of their learning journey. A self-registration LMS leads to self-motivation: corporate learners can apply for online training courses immediately after a development discussion or annual review. Where necessary, there can be a limit on the type of online training courses available to an individual based on job role. Corporate learners only complete what is suitable (unless they have a development need, which can be agreed with the manager and administrator).
Conclusion
Taking away the registration process reduces the burden on the LMS administrator. It also increases your course uptake. Handing over responsibility to corporate learners helps further the opportunities for them to develop, leading to improved skills and better engagement. Hand the trust and responsibility for learning directly to the corporate learner and put them in control of their own career development.
Does your LMS give learners the power to register themselves and take a pro-active approach? Our online directory features the top LMS platforms with self-registration support. You can also create a shortlist of top candidates using our built-in filters. Such as highlighting solutions with certain features, spec support options, or pricing models.
