Types of Online Learning Platforms

A key decision is what kind of technology platform to use when developing online learning – a curriculum, course, credential, or degree. It should be simple to pick an online learning platform, right? For 20+ years, learning management systems have been around, this issue has been resolved before, so can you just pick one out of the lot?

Well, not so easily. Understanding the types of online learning platforms and how they can help you achieve your objectives is crucial.

A high-level view reveals these options:

• Learning Destination Sites
• Traditional Commercial Learning Management Systems
• Open-Source Learning Management Systems
• Modern Learning Management Solutions
• Learning Management Ecosystems
• Custom Built Platforms

Let’s define each online learning platform type in more detail.

Learning Destination Sites

A shared website that provides courses from several different providers is a learning destination site. Much like how Amazon is the front end for many stores, think of this as a storefront.

Typically, learning destination sites allow you to use an authoring tool or a learning management system to author your courses and then either upload or connect the courses to the web. More or less, the sites manage registration of learners and eCommerce for you.

Common sites include Udacity, Udemy, Coursera, and edX. Many industries have their own niche sites as well.

Traditional Learning Management System

A conventional commercial Learning Management System is a type of platform that offers the basic features needed for an online course to be created and hosted.

It provides the means for course designers to build courses, store them, manage learning profiles, report grades and progress, and provides other basic features required for online courses.

There are over 700 providers of the Learning Management System on the market, and most of them target corporates for their‘Learning, Growth& Development’ programsthat are used for internal training products. Some do, however, have “extended enterprise” functionality, making it easier for external audiences to repurpose content.

Open-Source Learning Management System

An open-source Learning Management System is a type of software that, similar to the commercial LMS solution, provides the basic features required for the creation and hosting of an online course.

The distinction is that they are normally free of charge and can be personalized.

There are typically groups of vendors for each platform that can configure, host, and customize open-source learning management systems for a fee. Moodle, Sakai, and Open edX are popular open-source learning platforms.

Modern Learning Management Solutions

A new generation of modern technologies has arisen, with the well-documented dissatisfaction that consumers frequently have with conventional learning management solutions. These businesses concentrate on learner experience and often on unique pedagogies that in conventional LMS solutions are not well supported.

Companies like Docebo, Totara, Litmos, Motivis, and NovoEdare vendors in this group. Listing only these is unfair; there are many more, and the environment is constantly changing.

Learning Management Ecosystems

The learning management ecosystem is another kind of online learning platform. Organizations are trying to use best-of-breed “point” solutions for this model and knit them together into one framework.

Software for course authoring, evaluation tools, adaptive learning engines, eCommerce sites, and solutions for learning content management (to name a few features) are combined and provided as one solution to the learner.

With a custom front end, they are often constructed, creating the illusion of a single framework.

The University of Notre Dame’s NeXus network, which has Open edX (an open source LMS) at its heart, is an example of a learning management ecosystem. The framework combines and has a custom front end for more than a dozen other tech tools.

Custom Built Learning Platform

The complete custom designed learning platform is the last of the online learning platforms. With this approach, by concentrating on serving the business, learner, and pedagogy, you build all or most of the technology you need from scratch.

This method takes the most time and is the costliest in many ways, but you get exactly what you need and have full control over the experience and course.

HBX, a custom platform designed for Harvard Business School to offer very high end business degree courses, is a good example of a full custom learning platform.