sponsor editorial
Firing up the Few companies understand the potential of their LMS to stimulate cultural
engagement engine L
Is your learning platform an Engagement Engine wonders Juliette Denny?
earning management systems (LMS) and other online learning solutions are like vehicles that transport your learners along the Road to Success. Like any vehicle, a learning solution is only as powerful as the engine that’s running it.
change. A really great learning platform should be so much more than a featureless website that your learners are forced to visit occasionally. It should be a thriving community of learners sharing their knowledge, advancing their careers and helping each other. If your learning platform isn’t engaging your learners, this blissful Utopia will always be just out of reach. You need something more than a mere LMS. You need an engagement engine. A true engagement engine needs three parts if it is to work properly:
Gamification In 2014, the global digital games market was valued at $83.6 billion and it’s expected to reach $113 billion by 2018. That’s a lot of people engaged in gameplay. Gamification takes the elements that make games so compelling and then applies them to other, non-game areas (in this case, online learning). Training materials can be arranged in levels, giving the learners a clear idea of
how far they’ve come on their journey. Badges tap into the natural, human urge to collect things and they can be used to reward learners for their success. With leaderboards, the learners can also see where they stand in relation to
everyone else. Leaderboards send a visual cue to the learner which can spark friendly competition. This urge to compete gives the platform another engagement boost.
Social Learning Gamification features are engaging but on their own, their effectiveness is blunted. Without a social element, your learners will have to walk the Road to Success alone. Social features bring the learners together, which makes the journey easier to bear and more fruitful. News feeds, forums and live chat
facilitate informal learning, which makes up 90% of all work-based learning. Expert areas and dynamic frequently asked questions (FAQ) functionalities help reclaim lost learning, that incalculable mass of vital knowledge that falls through the cracks in every organisation.
Personalisation With your Engagement Engine running on gamification and social features, you already have a powerful tool. By adding the personal touch, you can make sure that your learners aren’t just on a journey – they’re on the right journey.
12 Personalisation in a learning management system works on two fronts –
organisationally and individually. Custom options in a learning platform let the organisation change the UI to reflect their brand, their mission and their values. On an individual level, the learners can customise their profiles, giving their
colleagues a better sense of who they are. The training content should also be personalised to meet each individual’s needs.
The Fuel Like any machine, the Engagement Engine needs the right kind of fuel to get the best results. But what powers an engagement engine? Just as all of your training goals should stem from the larger goals of the company, its vision and values are the lifeblood of the learning programme. The Engagement Engine is fuelled by the very things that make your company
what it is. If your mission is to provide exemplary customer service, this should percolate through everything you do – and training is no exception. If your learning platform can be classified as an Engagement Engine, your learners don’t just learn from the content they consume – the entire experience is designed to reinforce your message and encourage the kind of behaviour they need to exhibit if they are to deliver the company’s goals.
And most importantly… A fully-fuelled Engagement Engine can turbo-charge your learners’ progression towards their goals, cultivate a knowledge sharing community and ultimately transform organisational behaviour. But it’s not a completely automated process. It needs direction. It needs somebody to pull the levers, grease the cogs and push the giant red button. It needs an operator. Michael Schumacher. Steve McQueen. Vin Diesel. Regardless of how powerful
your car is, it’s nothing without an excellent driver behind the wheel. In the same way, the Engagement Engine produces the best results when it’s operated by a bona fide learning superhero. A great LMS administrator uses every element in the Engagement Engine to its full potential. Even with such a payload of features, the perfect Engagement Engine is designed to make the admin’s job as simple as possible. This leaves them free to switch gears, put their foot down and take their learners from nought to awesome in under 60 seconds! For more about the Engagement Engine visit
growthengineering.co.uk and download the Engagement Engine workbook.
Juliette Denny is chief ideologist and managing director at Growth Engineering
e.learning age april 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38