This is a big old question! A quick search will bring back the following (direct from Wikipedia): “A learning management system is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of educational courses or training programmes”. Boom.
These days, an effective LMS can do a lot of things for you. It can help get your learning content out there, it can tell you what your learners like learning about, it can track progress, it can suggest other learning that might interest you, it can help you create your own content and it can cook your dinner on a Sunday. Okay, maybe not the last one…
It’s your one stop shop for collating everything related to learning and development in one place. There are also literally thousands of systems. So, do take your time and make sure you understand your requirements before throwing yourself full force into the market. Of equal importance is to make sure that you know what content you want alongside your LMS, otherwise you will just end up with an empty shell that no-one goes to!
