Because Skilljar specializes in powering self-paced online courses, we often get asked about the benefits of using an online training platform versus other types of customer support.

Many companies begin investing in customer success by creating support resources like the following:

• A knowledge bank of support articles
• How-to video tutorials on YouTube
• Virtual webinars or office hours

These are all useful ways to help customers answer specific questions. However, offering training provides incremental benefits. We define "training" as including these additional elements:

• Learner registration (whether public, private, free, or paid)
• A structured sequence of content and learning objectives (curriculum)
• Demonstration of knowledge through course completion, certification, a project, or an assessment.

The Benefits

Now that we've defined training, let's discuss the benefits of using an online training platform, above and beyond what what other types of support can provide.

The eLearning industry was no stranger to change in 2014. We saw the emergence of new technology developments, evolving training paradigms, and an increase in eLearning service providers. What developments will have the most impact in 2015? In this article, we provide our top 3 eLearning predictions for 2015.

If your training program offers instructor-led training (ILT) solely, you may be thinking about how you can expand your training strategy without massively increasing your training resources. Have you considered incorporating on-demand training into your program? The on-demand method is gaining popularity, growing from 16% of all corporate training in 2013 to 23% percent in 2014 (source: Chief Learning Officer). 

Today we're taking a look at success. How do you define success as a training manager? Every company has their own unique training objectives, so success may look a little different depending on those goals. Increasing your training ROI, however, is a universal goal that can impact the overall success of your company. 

Have you recently been introduced to the term "extended enterprise?" Perhaps you are a training manager who manages partner training. Or maybe you are tasked with improving your company's customer success. In this article, we look at what a company's extended enterprise is, and what extended enterprise training entails.

You've implemented an online training program, well done! Now that you've designed the curriculum, produced the content, chosen a learning management system, and authored your courses, that's it, right? Not quite. When investing in a customer or partner education program, it's important to define success metrics for measuring the return on your training investment.

In this blog post, we discuss the 4 most common metrics for measuring training ROI.

The eLearning industry is full of acronyms - in fact, the word eLearning itself is shorthand for electronic learning! Interested in learning the common industry jargon? Here is our handy guide to the top five eLearning acronyms.

1. LMS (Learning Management System)

A Learning Management System is a software system that is used by training organizations to deliver and track learning activities, with an emphasis on eLearning.

There are two common tyes of LMS systems: installed and SaaS. The installed type requires hosting on an organization's own server. The SaaS (software-as-a-service) type is hosted in the cloud.

The features that an LMS includes will also differ greatly. Depending on the platform, or a company's specific training needs, an LMS might include features like:

• Course authoring tools
• Course delivery
• Course catalog
• Assignments and gradebooks
• Discussion forums
• Analytics
• Student registration
• E-commerce
• Data integrations

You may be noticing the theme that LMS systems vary greatly. They are evolving rapidly, too. We'll be doing a full blog post on this subject to dive into these details.