In conducting this review of the 360Learning Collaborative Learning Platform, David found a market-leading LMS that comes with a whole host of content creation and robust integration tools.
I spend quite a lot of time looking at learning management systems and I am continually impressed by the innovation and invention that I discover from some of the leading providers. One such LMS that impresses after a recent review is 360Learning.
In 360Learning there is an LMS that has clearly been developed to meet and defeat some significant organisational issues around course creation and learner engagement.
Here are some of the key features of this excellent platform.
Fast Course Creation
The term democratising content creation comes to mind. The 360Learning team places a large emphasis on collaboration and decentralising content creation, and they are right to do so, making this a really interesting and impressive LMS.
360Learning is a fully capable LMS following the principles of SaaS for rapid deployment and in a functional tick box exercise this LMS is more than comparable to the usual SaaS suspects. However, what the 360Learning LMS has over and above the usual SaaS suspects is this evidence-led approach to effective, collaborative content creation in-platform.
Having a built-in authoring tool in an LMS is not new and has a lot of advantages in many circumstances. It makes it quick to build, quick to deploy and easily access new courses. 360Learning takes this a step forward with its clear understanding of the modern organisation and its approach to building courses.
Understanding Learning Needs
360Learning is smart as it gives an organisation a sounding bench to listen and understand what employees need to learn, are asking to learn and want to learn by watching what is going on throughout the organisation in terms of search and content usage patterns and employee feedback. From this bottom-up approach, a “Learning Need” can be declared and the capability of 360Learning to deliver engagement really kicks in.
Collaborative Course Creation
To be clear, Collaborative Learning is not cooperative learning with learners working together to overcome an issue. Collaborative Learning is a much more sophisticated approach to creating courses to meet business needs quickly alongside the subject-matter experts who know the business best.
Collaboration is about bringing a team together to quickly build out quality content in the context of the organisations identified learning needs.
360Learning allows for quick and easy course creation bypassing the tedious and time-consuming approach of storyboarding by going for an intuitive and iterative approach that allows teams to flex and subject matter experts to really be involved.
Research by 360Learning indicates courses can be created in as little as 11 minutes. Wow.
The elearning content authoring environment itself is super slick and very easy to use. Adding media is a breeze.
The wonderfully named “cheat sheet” page really helps and the question tool, with 10+ question formats, really does let collaborative content creators mix it up. Finally, there is the video element that is really very good and effective.
Video is made to work and make the learner think, we are beyond passive: 360Learning’s video features make it engaging and enticing for learners to be involved, answering questions, undertaking tasks using video, and the screencast demos for training in software usage skills are super special.
Adaptive elements to this learning approach are coming, that will be really cool.
Not only is it easy to build out learning, it is very easy to edit and keep courses up-to-date. Unlike SCORM, 360Learning is highly adept at managing more volatile content as it allows for quick and easy updates as circumstances change (product or service modifications for example) or learner feedback flows show opportunities for improvement.
With built-in Reactions and a one-click relevancy assessment (360Learning’s Relevance Score), gathering and acting on feedback is scalable for even small L&D teams.
Video feedback and a criteria rubric is also offered, and trainers can record messages and offer feedback on a 1:1 or team basis.
Feedback, taking an interest in employees is one of the simple but all too often forgotten elements in elearning and one, in my opinion that really can make a difference.
360Learning allows that making a difference moment to be easy. This is so important in the dispersed working environments many of us find ourselves in.
I am particularly impressed as to how 360Learning supports building out courses in different languages with a translate-as-you-build approach that really does work very well.
Strong learner engagement
However, the real benefit to the organisation of Collaborative Learning is the engagement factor. The reason? Well, the content is created by the organisation for the organisation.
One day your colleague is creating learning to solve a problem or share expertise, the next month you could be a content creator. This is the democratisation of content creation in action, bringing colleagues together to collaborate. 360Learning has some impressive evidence on this, proving it works.
We have mentioned Collaborative Learning and the bringing together of teams to create learning to solve a problem that the organisation itself has identified, but 360Learning can take this further with a project management feature to support building out more sophisticated learning expositions.
This is very comprehensive as it sets timelines and supports wider discussion and planning. This comes with the Enterprise version of 360Learning.
Great UI and UX
If we take a wider view of 360Learning, I am impressed by the design, the UI and UX is very smart indeed and yes, the course creation environment has the same high standard of UI and UX as the overall platform.
This is important as it builds familiarity and confidence to become a course collaborator. People don’t need technical skills to use the authoring tool – it’s as intuitive as writing an email or creating a presentation.
For the learner, the ability to build a rich profile is good and the Peer-to-Peer learning features are also very good.
Robust integrations
360Learning, while a capable LMS in its own right, is highly integratable with several large LMSs including Cornerstone and SAP SuccessFactors. This is a neat move and allows a large enterprise to benefit from the content creation collaboration approach quickly and easily that connects back to their HCM Suite.
360Learning can also offer an LXP capability with integrations into LinkedIn Learning, as 360Learning has an onboard LRS as well. In addition, there are integrations to Coursera, EdX, Skillsoft, Udemy and quite a few more learning providers.
It is probably fair to say that 360Learning has an obsession with collaboration – in a very good way!
Today, they integrate with Salesforce and over the coming months will roll out integrations with Microsoft Teams, Slack, and others. Their Open API is well documented and very capable of more integrations. The commitment to customer support appears solid.
When we last reviewed 360Learning we were very impressed by the data focused capability of this LMS and none of that has gone away. Data can be pulled by the API from different systems into 360Learning therefore reporting and analytics are still very strong, the LRS a nice addition. The LMS is capable of hierarchies that reflect complicated organisational structures and group architectures are well supported.
In Summary
360Learning is a most interesting learning management system for its approach to collaboration in the workplace and an impressive LMS for its UI and UX, and capability to build courses in context through collaboration.
The results are impressive indeed.
Learn more about this market-leading LMS at 360learning.com
