How to Track e-Learning in an LMS
As education technology is gradually evolving, there are a lot of e-Learning courses being offered through learning management systems (LMS). This not only equips students with better access to courses, material etc. but also helps teachers with evaluation of a learner’s performance. Right learning management system can prove to be an invaluable tool to help educators automate all tracking and recording activities and maintain learner records – score sheets, grade reports, certificates, and much more.
MagicBoxTM helps you track student progress and performance through its comprehensive LMS platform that offers videos, quizzes, and cutting-edge analytics.
e-Learning Parameters in an LMS
The e-Learning parameters that can be tracked using an effective LMS are:
- Recency: Educators can track when a user was last seen on the LMS;
- Frequency: Educators can track a learner’s frequency of the LMS’s use and trends;
- Duration: How long learners stay on the LMS when they visit;
- Virality: An LMS can help understand how many users are spreading the word about the platform;
- Rating: Learner feedback on course content, instruction, ease-of-use, etc.;
- Final scores: An LMS can track the final quiz score of learners, which it can then compare with the passing grade and update the completion status;
- Bookmarking: This is an important feature for helping learners continue where they last left a course at;
- Course status: Different ‘status values’ can be set in an LMS to indicate learner progress, such as Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Incomplete, Passed, Failed, etc.;
- Display learner name: An LMS can display a learner’s first and last name, which is useful for issuing course certificates
- Learner attempts: Whenever a learner accesses a course, an LMS can track it as an attempt and update attempt status with each go. Each attempt can be stored separately for LMS administrators to view;
Tracking techniques in e-Learning
To track the progress of an e-Learning module, an LMS uses different techniques:
Integrated LMS: Most LMS platforms allow tracking learner activity to varying degrees. For instance, it could generate and send daily reports to the teacher for course completion and other important data. MagicBoxTM allows for exporting reports using different formats – PDF and CSV – and applying filters to quickly view specific data. An integrated LMS works the best for advanced tracking and customized reporting. It seamlessly blends CRM, SIS, AMS and an LMS to provide a holistic education management solution.
Many times, an LMS will adhere to a standard, such as SCORM and Experience API, allowing for easy data transfer of learner activity and progress reports. Concerning the completion of an e-Learning course, an LMS typically uses two parameters: assessments and content completion. For assessments, learners must have a minimum grade to receive a certificate. For content completion, the learner must have viewed all pages of the e-Learning course and completed all mandatory tasks and quizzes;
Manual: This is the most basic tracking technique wherein student data is entered into the system manually, thereby offering minimal insights. Teachers can integrate this technique into courses by issuing a certificate of completion to learners, which they can share with a facilitator who keeps track of the number of learners who have completed the course and their scores as well. Asking learners to sign in and out is also helpful for monitoring attendance and time taken for module completion. Since all data has to be input into the computer manually, this is a time-consuming but budget-friendly technique;
Click: This technique involves monitoring the pages clicked on by the learners. Reports can then be generated using a web analytics tool for insights into how many clicks a particular module received; peak visiting times; how long a learner viewed a specific page for, etc. However, this tracking technique only deals with page views and doesn’t give insights for a course with Flash files, video presentations, etc.
Custom: There are two types of tracking techniques – database and clickstream. These can be standalone tracking options or can be added to an existing LMS-based technique for specific data. In the database technique, learners are prompted to input basic information when starting the e-Learning course. A web page collects this information to create a report with course completion data and learner activity. The clickstream tracking technique produces more detailed information generated using web analytics tools modified to produce a web log;
Web Server: Through this tracking technique, educators can monitor the frequency of a learner visiting the e-Learning course, pages accessed, and the time spent on the course. Peak viewing times can also be looked at in-depth, which are useful for scheduling synchronous learning activities in the future.
Benefits of tracking e-Learning through an LMS
Here are the major benefits of tracking e-Learning via an LMS:
- Comprehensive tracking: As opposed to manual tracking by educators, an LMS’s comprehensive approach means that every activity, big or small, gets tracked and factored into final, crisp insights;
- User completion: An LMS helps in tracking the number of learners who are completing an e-Learning course. Tracking user completion is useful for identifying what is and isn’t working regarding design, course material, and other factors;
- Business results: An LMS links the above information to produce business results. For example, administrators could draw a correlation between poor learning outcomes and inadequate teacher training.
- Compliance: An LMS that tracks course assignments and records other data is beneficial for protecting an organization in the event of legal action. With an LMS, you can extract learner history, course completion, and other vital information to demonstrate compliance with rules & regulations. A learning management system can really prove indispensable for compliance regulations.
While a focus on content curation and module layout is central to an effective e-Learning experience, it remains ineffective without tracking learner activity. By collecting and analyzing data on learning, educators can identify trends and ensure that students get the most out of their e-Learning experience. By employing effective tracking techniques using an LMS, educators can track important metrics and the students’ overall behavior. This, in turn, helps them customize modules and ensure that compliance standards are met.
Educators in the K-12 sector must invest in an LMS for effective tracking of essential e-Learning parameters.
To know more about MagicBoxTM and the various tracking elements it incorporates to track students progress and performance, contact us here.
