What is a Learning Path and How an LMS Can Facilitate it

A learning path provides organizations with an organized and efficient way to deliver a group of online courses together for learners to progressively build knowledge on a particular topic or program. 

 

It provides a more structured and automated approach to training and allows learners to stay on top of their training journey more easily. With the many benefits it provides, more and more organizations are leveraging learning paths with their Learning Management Systems (LMS). 

 

We’ll take a look at what a learning path is, the benefits it provides, and how an LMS can facilitate it to deliver your training program. 

 

What is a Learning Path?

A learning path is a group of courses on a specific subject or program learners go through incrementally, which allows them to obtain knowledge step by step as they move along it. Learners have more control over their training experience and can acquire and retain knowledge at their own pace more effectively. 

 

For example, when onboarding new employees, you have various types of training you need to provide, such as training on company culture, code of ethics, policies and procedures, and role-specific. A learning path will set these courses up in the order you choose, and you can enroll users to this path so they can progress from course to course.

 

Benefits of a Learning Path

 

Learning paths provide a convenient and organized way to deliver various training bundled into one group. Here are some of the key benefits of employing learning paths in your online training program:

 

• Create a structured training program – Learning paths bring multiple courses together into a single group to provide a structured and organized training journey. You can set the order in which courses get assigned, set prerequisite courses users need to complete to progress, and determine the timeframe in which a course becomes available.

• Reduce admin manual work with automations – With a variety of courses employees need to take within a training program, it can be time consuming to register your learners to each of those sessions manually. A learning path combines these classes into a single group and when users are assigned to it, they will automatically be enrolled in all those classes. 

 

If you have new hires entering the organization for example, you simply assign them to the onboarding training learning path and they will automatically be enrolled in the company culture, code of ethics, and policies and procedures classes. There is minimal effort involved to ensure your new hires are registered to the appropriate courses. 

• Effortlessly stay on top of training – Learners can keep track of their classes more easily through learning paths. It consolidates their training courses in one place so users do not need to figure out what classes they need to take and when. 

Admins have a simple way to produce a clear snapshot of learner performance instead of having to combine and analyze data from multiple reports. Rather than create a report for each onboarding course to see how users are progressing, admins can create a learning path report that aggregates the data from all of those courses into a single report. 

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How an LMS Supports Learning Paths

 

An LMS can help you to simply create learning paths and deliver them effectively. Let’s take a look at how an LMS can help accomplish this: 

 

• Create learning paths – Quickly create courses and group them to form a learning path to organize training on a topic or program. 

 

• Enable course sequence – Keep learners on track by setting up prerequisite courses learners have to complete to progress to the next class. 

 

• Learning path auto-enrollment – Auto-enroll users to learning paths based on their user property such as title or department, and location to automatically enroll them in all courses within that learning path. 

 

• Generate reporting on performance – Easily build reports to see learner progress and learning path performance. You can auto-schedule reports directly to your inbox or have them sent out to your team to keep track of everything going on within a learning path. 

 

• Provide learning path certificates – Automatically generate certificates that can be sent out to learners who completed all courses in a learning path. 

 

Final Thoughts: 

 

Learning paths are an excellent way to structure your online training and help guide your learners through their training journey. With an LMS, it will allow you to manage and automate your learning paths efficiently. It will also provide you with the tracking you need to make sure everything is running smoothly, and your team is progressing through the courses comfortably. 

 

SkyPrep provides a robust learning path feature that can help you to manage and deliver your learning paths successfully. Sign up for a Free trial and create your first learning path today!

Create your first learning path today!