CMS Vs. LMS: Explore Their Key Differences And Choose The One That Suits Your Needs
Have you been thinking about buying a CMS or an LMS for your business? Are you confused about the differences and the benefits of each system? Are you just sick of lots of abbreviations?
Let's take a look at the benefits both systems can bring, so you can see which would be a good fit for your business.
What Is A CMS?
A Course Management System (CMS) is a tool that you can use to manage all the information about your training courses. Typically part of a training management system (TMS), a CMS is where you will upload all the details about your courses so you can easily track and schedule your entire course offering from one place.
If you integrate your training management system with your website, it will also give you the ability to sell your courses online and take secure online payment!
What Is An LMS?
A Learning Management System (LMS) is a system that enables you to run eLearning for your students. You can use an LMS to upload eLearning content for your students to access. Once they have signed up to your courses, your students will be able to access your eLearning courses at any time from their own computer or device and work through the courses at their own pace.
Benefits Of A CMS
Store All Your Course Information In One Place
Rather than working from lots of different documents or systems to keep track of all your course details, a CMS gives you the ability to upload every detail about your course into one system. This means it’s easy for you to keep track of everything, and to make edits when you need to, as you know there is only one version of the data to work from.
It also means anyone in your team can easily access the course information and know that everyone is working from the same document so that no confusion will be created with multiple versions.
Integrate With Your Website
If you have a Course Management System as part of a training management system you should be able to integrate your TMS with your website, allowing you to pull all your course information on to your website without having to upload it separately.
This saves effort and time for your team, and also cuts the risk of human error or forgetting to upload the information in all the places it is stored. Every time you make an edit on your TMS it will automatically be pulled through to your website, so your customers always have access to the most up-to-date information.
Schedule Resources And Instructors
Not only can you store all the information about your courses, but you can also assign things like resources, instructors, and classrooms to your courses to ensure that you also have everything you need for each course to run successfully.
Simply upload a record of all your resources and instructors, and then when you schedule a course you will be able to pick from all your available resources and staff. This will also prevent double booking, as things which are already assigned to other courses will not be available to select.
Benefits Of An LMS
Add eLearning To Your Offering
Adding another form of course delivery to your training offering is always a great option so that you can open yourself up to a vast amount of new potential customers.
When it comes to eLearning, you will now be able to offer courses to students who:
- Don’t live within travelling distance of your training centres.
- Aren’t able to attend class full-time because of a job or other commitments.
- Want to be able to learn in their own time.
You also aren’t limited by things like the amount of teaching time you have or the number of classrooms you have, as you can run as many eLearning courses as you want to! You also won’t be limited by class size, as you can have far more students signed up for an eLearning course at the same time than you would be able to with a classroom-based course.
eLearning is a great addition to your learning offering, as it allows you to expand your customer base exceptionally.
Track Your Students’ Progress Easily
A Learning Management System is a great way of keeping track of your students’ progress as they make their way through your training.
If your students aren’t in the classroom and getting face-to-face time with your teaching staff, you may be worried that it will be hard to keep track of what they are doing and how they are getting on with the course material, but your Learning Management System’s reporting functionality will allow you to see things such as:
- Who has started their course.
- Who has finished their course.
- Which module students are currently on.
- How long the course took them to complete.
- How long each module took to complete.
- Quiz results and how many attempts each quiz took.
Not only is this information useful for student tracking, but it’s also great for measuring the effectiveness of your eLearning offering and seeing where you need to make improvements to your course content.
Which One Is Right For Your Business?
The truth is Course Management Systems and Learning Management Systems do very different jobs, but they are both a great addition to your training business. The best option for you may be to find a Training Management System which comes with both a CMS and an LMS built-in.
That way you will be getting the functionality of both systems, as well as lots of other features, such as a CRM, a reporting system, a sales system, and marketing tools!
