With LXPs, the focus is the learning and learner ‘experience’. That experience part has three different aspects.
Firstly, it concentrates on how learners experience the learning they take. Secondly, it addresses the notion that learning itself needs to be regarded as a continuous experience, and not a single event. Thirdly, the concept of experience applies to the readiness of learners themselves to learn in an LXP environment.
Learning with an LXP mirrors the way we seek out and engage with information in our daily lives: for example, searching the web and using social media and apps. It prioritizes the capacity of learners to seek out information for themselves as and when needed.
LXPs are about collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. LXPs are not prescriptive about the way we learn or how we access our learning. These platforms are about pull rather than push, demand over supply. And they recognize that a lot of effective learning occurs informally, outside traditional areas of learning such as the classroom or the course. LXPs offer a gateway to explore learning, rather than providing a prescriptive dose of it.
LXPs significantly expand the scope of learning platforms, namely:
Learning lessons from social media and project management apps, LXPs create collaborative spaces that facilitate knowledge capture and sharing and promote social learning. The open, collaborative spaces offered by LXPs make it easy for learners to generate and upload their own content, capturing their experiences.
LXPs embody a more holistic approach that includes informal as well as formal learning and treats learning as a continuous process. The improves access to content and enhances learner engagement. The LXP increases relevance and accessibility by situating learning and training within the workflow.
With an LMS the key word is ‘management’. Learning management systems run, administer, track, and distribute educational content. An LMS makes it easier and more cost-effective to deliver full-length training courses. LMSs are designed to meet the training needs of sizeable cohorts of learners, especially in areas like onboarding and compliance.
LMSs prioritize the administration, management, and implementation of training in these ways:
Learning Management Systems have been the go-to solution for the delivery of training to many corporate learners. The key strength of the LMS has been its ability to manage formal training for large groups of learners who needed to be trained to a designated standard. LMSs are used for the efficient planning, roll-out, and reporting of training and ensuring course completion and attainment of required standards or competencies.
We can better understand the differences between an LXP and LMS if we contrast how they approach key areas of learning administration and delivery.
LXP: Learners are facilitated to take control and responsibility of their own learning. Collaboration, self-paced and social learning are encouraged.
LMS: Management and L&D determine what content is delivered and how. Learning is mandatory.
LXP: Personalized learning with access to a variety of digital resources including microlearning. Learning pathways are tied to personal goals and career progression.
LMS: Completion of longer form, formal course content with assessment tied to competencies.
LXP: Collaborative approach with learning by doing and on-the-job upskilling.
LMS: Clear and structured management of learning with clear learning outcomes.
LXP: Focus on individual goals and upskilling as part of career development.
LMS: Emphasis on attainment of standards and competence across a job function.
LXP: A wider range of data available including feedback on uptake and learner experience providing insights into skills gaps. Facility to gather data on informal or self-directed learning.
LMS: Basic tracking of learner attainment and reporting of completion, progress and assessment data.
LXP: Proactive, agile response based on data analytics to bridge skills gaps.
LMS: Reactive and structured response to established training needs.
The differences between LXPs and LMSs suggest gaps at the heart of Learning Management Systems from the learner’s point of view.
The implementation of an LMS tends to indicate a traditional approach to training increasingly at odds with business practices and needs. It is likely to treat training as a one-off event sealed off from the workflow. Learners sign up for the course, take it and then are considered qualified and done.
But these days we recognize the importance of learning being continuous and adaptable to changing requirements and circumstances. LMSs may make the lives of designers and managers easier, but they don’t necessarily meet the needs of modern learners. For that, we need to add LXPs to the training mix.
LXPs certainly represent a way forward for digital learning. Modern learners and professionals want a say in what and how they learn. They want their learning to be personalized to meet their needs and to allow collaboration with others. They expect to be able to learn on the go on their mobile devices and easily access learning in the working environment.
The LXP responds to the requirements of modern learners by:
With LXPs on the scene extending the potential of learning platforms is it time to ditch the LMS? The short answer is not necessarily. Instead of regarding the LXP as a replacement for the LMS, it’s worth considering the identifiable differences between the two types of platform as complementary rather than strictly either/or.
LXPs can work with existing LMSs from a technical, logistical, and educational point of view. LXPs can be integrated with existing LMSs, meaning you can retain and operate both in sync.
With the prospect of integration, it becomes less about LXPs replacing LMSs than about making the LMS invisible and enhancing access to it. One way of framing the LXP v LMS debate is to see the LMS as focusing on the back-end and to see the LXP as at the front.
LXPs generally come with a range of features and potential add-ons giving you the flexibility to configure the platform to best suit your organization’s L&D needs.
But there are some fundamental considerations for selecting an LXP:
An LXP is about improving the learning experience and responding to how today’s learners prefer to learn. LXPs are about engagement. They move learning fully into workflow allowing peer-to-peer training on the job. They’re ideal for soft skills training, such as communications and leadership, as LXPs are designed and operate in a way that encourages the development of those skills. LXPs and make learning immersive, adaptive, and continuous.
But LXPs don’t dispense with the need for formal learning or LMS-delivered full courses and validation and certification. LMSs still offer value in areas like compliance, health and safety, and cybersecurity where there is no margin for individual interpretation and adherence and completion of approved material is mandatory and a legal requirement.
In some ways analyzing the benefits of an LXP or an LMS is a case of selecting horses for courses – and resources. The areas of focus for LXPs and LMSs are both linked and distinct. What’s not in doubt is the LMS’s ability to extend the reach of learning. For that reach to be grasped though requires a sustainable learning environment.
The LXP’s mission to deliver personalized and independent learning can only happen where learners receive the support to mature as learners. It requires the creation of a sustainable learning culture where learning is part of working and the sharing of knowledge and experience is considered best business practice. Then you have the best of both world’s where learning platforms serve both the efficient administration and management of learning and the needs and development of individual learners.
Interested in learning more about whether your organization would benefit more from an LMS or an LXP as your learning platform? Get in touch to talk to our team of L&D experts.