Instant updates and LMS integrations: The perfect way to simplify content distribution

Let’s imagine that your eLearning authoring tool allows your busy L&D team to produce content at lightning speed. Perhaps, like Gomo, it comes equipped with features like:

• A course wizard to get you up and running quickly
• Copying and pasting functionality to take advantage of prior work
• An intuitive drag-and-drop approach to putting the essential elements together

But here’s the question: are these features enough to make your entire content journey an efficient one?

While intuitive authoring is a huge part of achieving efficiency, these aren’t the only characteristics your platform needs for a fast and effective authoring workflow. Read on for the lowdown on course distribution—and discover how to ensure this vital stage of the content journey is thoroughly streamlined.

Here’s why content distribution capabilities matter

Publishing and delivering learning content can introduce some of the most persistent forms of inefficiency to the content development journey. Plus, if you’re not familiar with—or lack access to—all the solutions and technologies on the table, those inefficiencies can start to feel unavoidable.

You don’t need to look far to see how this attitude might gain traction. Take the Future of Learning Technologies report (sponsored by our sister company, Bridge) for example. According to its respondents, one of the biggest weaknesses faced by learning systems today is a poor ability to integrate with other systems. If your authoring tool isn’t able to communicate closely with your LMS, you might be excused for thinking that there’s no way around the cumbersome SCORM or xAPI downloads and uploads that await every completed course.

Luckily, with the right platform, you can introduce substantial efficiencies by reducing (or even eliminating) your administrative efforts and file transfer time. Let’s find out how.

Take advantage of instant content updates

Not so long ago, it wasn’t unheard of for the content update process to be measured in weeks—no matter how small the changes might be. It’s not just a question of time, either. If the upload process is clunky or complex, it might involve significant IT resourcing. Plus, depending on how your LMS is hosted, there could be a financial element to your frequent content revisions.

When time, resources, and budget are all on the line, any efficiency gains in the world of content updates are particularly valuable—which is why features like LMS wrappers are worth pursuing.

An LMS wrapper is a tiny file you can upload to your LMS in place of a bulky SCORM package. Your LMS will treat the wrapper as if it’s a standard SCORM object, but your content will be hosted within your authoring platform. The result? Quick and simple uploads that, in the case of one Gomo customer, reduced the time it took to update content from weeks to seconds.

In short: if you need to make a change to a course, you’ll find those tweaks instantly reflected in your LMS—allowing you to sidestep a smorgasbord of potential inefficiencies.

Instant updates in action

It’s easy to see the uses for instant updates in a standard compliance setting—regulations are periodically changing, and related learning material needs to reflect those changes as the next learning cycle rolls around. But in some cases, your need for efficient updates will be a lot more urgent.

That was certainly the case for one of our customers, UK-based pub and brewery chain Greene King.

As a pub and restaurant chain at the height of the pandemic, Greene King needed to produce new and updated training materials in line with rapidly changing government guidelines. The organization often didn’t find out about new guidance any earlier than the general public, so it needed to supply its workers with swift, on-the-day revisions to existing training.

Greene King’s L&D function was able to rise to the occasion thanks to Gomo’s seamless live update and delivery features. Tweaks and revisions went live instantaneously, ensuring that learners received vital information immediately—and that the pub chain could continue to operate with full compliance.

Look for ways to integrate your authoring tool with your LMS

While instant updates might sound like the height of efficiency, it’s possible to take your content distribution processes to the next level by integrating your authoring tool with an LMS like Bridge.

With LMS integration features, your authoring tool will allow you to transmit your courses directly to your LMS with just a couple of button presses. More broadly, you’ll consolidate and simplify the cumbersome process of downloading, locating, uploading, and replacing your courses.

In short, an LMS integration allows you to sidestep SCORM uploads while enjoying all the advantages of instant content updates. Whether your existing process takes weeks or minutes, there’s no question that LMS integration represents an enormous leap in distribution efficiency.