Learning Roles: LMS Personalization
Welcome to the third article in our series of customization tips for your Accord Learning Management System. In our previous posts, you’ve seen that Accord offers more than a standard white label LMS. In the first article we demonstrated the flexibility of the Accord Home Page. The second article in the series covered the techniques available for adding or removing pages from the main menu, renaming menu items, limiting pages to specific groups of Learners as well as adding HTML content to specific pages.
In this article we will explore how customizing your Accord LMS through the Learning Roles tool may be used to create unique learning experiences for specific groups of Learners.
What is a Learning Role?
A Learning Role is a tool used for grouping and identifying learners within the Accord LMS. In a sense, the Learning Role is a proxy for Learners assigned a given Learning Role. The Learning Role itself can be enrolled to specific learning content, Instructor Led Training sessions and online courses. Through Learning Role assignment, Learners will be automatically enrolled in the content associated with their specific Learning Roles. Learners can be assigned a variety of Learning Roles, granting them a truly customized learning experience.
What are the properties of a Learning Role?
In addition to having assigned Learners and enrolled content, there are several special properties built into each specific Learning Role. As an example, Learning Roles will control the various assigned dates related to a specific Enrollment. Start Dates, Due Dates, Expiration Dates, Renewal Dates and Notification Dates are all controlled through the Learning Role.
How Are Learning Roles Assigned?
Learning Roles can be assigned manually to individual Learners or to a larger Team of Learners. Learning Roles may also be assigned through the use of Team Access Codes. Perhaps most importantly, Learning Roles can be assigned automatically based on certain data contained within a given Learner’s Profile. For example, if a specific Learner’s profile indicates that she is a manager, she can be automatically assigned to a Learning Role containing the required training for all managers. If she works in Customer Service, she may be assigned a Learning Role designed for customer service employees. If she is both a manager AND a customer service employee, the LMS is capable of assigning a Learning Role designed specifically for Managers of Customer Service Departments. For more detailed information on the properties associated with Learning Roles, please refer to the Accord Academy training videos or the Accord LMS support documentation.
Beyond Course Assignments
Because Learning Roles can be automatically assigned based on any combination of properties in a Learner's Account Profile, each Learner can be automatically assigned the type of training required.
The Accord LMS comes with the DNN content management system. As demonstrated in earlier articles within this series, DNN allows Accord customers to create their own Learning Web Site or customize the default site provided with the Accord LMS. Learning Role assignments allow customized Learner access and function.
LMS Personalization Available with Learning Roles
The following is a quick list detailing some of the personalization options available through the use of Learning Roles.
Customize the LMS Site Layout
The first two articles in the series demonstrated the flexibility of the Accord DNN platform. With this CMS foundation, the LMS can be customized for groups of Learners. Many of the White Label LMS’s offer the ability to customize branding for an organization, but utilizing Learning Roles with the Accord LMS platform allows for personalization at the Learner level. With Learning Roles, your Accord LMS can offer different pages and menus based on the Learning Roles assigned to each Learner.
Assign Social Learning Communities
The Accord LMS provides unique social learning communities which allow groups of Learners to share information and content with associated peers based on their Learning Roles. Using this approach, a group of Learners who share a Learning Role will be able to comment on training material, share relevant online content or upload course assignments for peer review.
Provide a Curated Course Catalog
Learning Management Systems are used for assigning and tracking required training. It is also desirable to be able to provide elective content for certain learning paths. The Accord LMS uses Learning Roles to provide a course catalog that matches the needs of each individual Learner.
In an earlier example, we looked at a Customer Service Manager. She was assigned certain content because of her Roles within the organization. In addition to various learning content she may have been assigned, there may also be a number of elective courses available to further facilitate her learning. She will be offered a library of content to choose from that will be relevant to her Learning Roles while hiding content that does not meet her needs..
Determine Available Resources
Resources, in this particular context, is un-tracked content that is offered through the Accord LMS. Resources of this type may be used without an Active Learner license. Learning Roles will determine what resources are provided to individual LMS users.
Role Based Communications
LMS Admins have the ability to send email messages to their respective Teams through the LMS. Admins can also filter these messages by Learning Role. If an administrator with appropriate permissions desires to send out a notification to everyone in sales throughout the entire organization, she could simply select a Sales Learning Role and the LMS would then automatically deliver her message to anyone throughout the organization who is assigned that specific Sales Learning Role.
News Article Posts can be Targeted by Role
The Accord LMS offers a news posting module included with our platform. This will allow Learning and Development teams to create and distribute articles relevant to specific studies. These articles can be shared with all users or they can be set to be available only to users who have been assigned specific Learning Roles. This learning management system functionality makes it easy to provide ongoing updates to Learners within specific learning paths.
Pricing Modifications for eCommerce
Clients using the eCommerce module included with the Accord LMS can use Learning Roles to control pricing tiers. For example, a role called ‘Preferred Customers’ might provide an automatic discount on certain products;
Putting it All Together
This article has listed quite a few ways that Learning Roles can be used to provide a personalized learning experience. Let’s look at an example that brings it all together. 'Sarah' is a manager in the Western Region Customer Service Department. The Accord LMS, when utilizing permissions set by the organization, has automatically assigned Sarah several Learning Roles which will personalize her training and Learning experience. In addition to her managerial duties, Sarah is also participating in the company’s First Aid Certification program.
- Sarah’s various Learning Roles determine coursework assigned to her.
- Sarah has access to a catalog of elective courses that have been selected for her based on her assigned Learning Roles.
- Similarly, the resources available to Sarah are those required by Managers, Customer Service Staff and First Aid Students.
- Sarah has been granted access to several social learning communities where she can communicate with fellow managers and other peer groups.
- As a Manager, Sarah has been provided access to web content not available to all Users.
- Sarah has access to news articles that are selected based on her Learning Roles. This will facilitate Sarah not being inundated with articles unrelated to her position within the organization
- Sarah’s Learning Roles will also determine when certain learning content is due as well as when it may need to be renewed.
In Conclusion
We hope that these articles have helped you to see that the Accord LMS goes far beyond the normal expectations for a White Label LMS. In addition to custom white label branding, the online learning tools that come with the Accord LMS system allow for a truly personalized learning experience. Be sure to check out our guide on homepage customization options for your white label LMS as well! Existing clients who have questions about any of these techniques can address them to the support team at https://support.accordlms.com.
If you are not yet an Accord LMS client, please feel free to reach out to our sales team for more information. If you like what you see, and we're sure that you will, our team will be happy to configure your own free evaluation LMS Portal so that you can experience the Accord difference yourself.