Today’s consumers care about more than just the product or service they purchase. In fact, 80% of consumers care just as much about their experience. This also applies to employees delivering these products or services. 82% of employees say the technology they use significantly impacts their happiness and engagement at work.
What does this mean for your association? From course development to marketing to helping learners achieve their goals, the right technology is essential to every stage of delivering powerful learning experiences.
To ensure your association provides valuable learning content, look out for these learning management system features:
We’ll review each of these features in detail to help your association decide what it needs in an LMS. But first, here’s a recap of your LMS’s primary functionalities.
A learning management system is primarily used to organize and share learning content, as well as track learners’ progress over time. As such, it should be an end-to-end solution, offering features for managing every aspect of your association’s learning program, from content creation to course completion.
When trying to find the right LMS, search for a tool designed for your organization’s needs. While many options offer baseline features, like course catalogs and continuing education (CE) support, the strongest contenders offer a vast library of tools and features purpose-built for associations. Here’s why:
An association LMS offers:
Other LMS platforms lack in these areas for the following reasons:
We’ve broken down the most important learning management system features for associations into eight categories. Use the following features checklist to look for your association’s learning management system:
Your LMS should be easy to use for everyone who interacts with it—including your members, staff, sponsors, and guest content collaborators. User experience features ensure that every part of the learning journey is seamless, from processes on the back end to members’ interactions with your content.
A logo's color palette alone can boost brand recognition by 80%, and your association’s brand represents your organization’s credibility and professionalism.
With custom branding features, learning management systems enable associations to infuse their logo, color scheme, artwork, and other brand elements into the following resources:
Consistent branding ties your learning program to your association’s identity, ensuring members see your content as a true member benefit.
Accessibility features ensure an LMS is usable for all learners. A good learning management system complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which include:
Providing equal access to your content ensures your association reaches a broader audience and helps all members achieve their learning goals.
While responsive design falls under the umbrella of accessibility-centric functions, it stands out as its own feature because it vitally supports mobile access. Mobile accessibility is a rapidly growing consideration, and your LMS should make it easy to adapt content.
Responsive design optimizes how your LMS displays content for both your team and members. With this feature, your interface automatically adjusts to different devices’ screen sizes. For example, a course contributor might edit a presentation slide from their tablet, or a member might complete your course from their smartphone.
Whether your association serves members in a centralized location or across the globe, your content should be easily adjustable to meet their learning preferences. Multi-language support empowers learners to access your LMS interface and content in their preferred language. Automatic translation makes it easy to serve international or multilingual members, creating an inclusive learning experience.
The core functionality of any LMS is its ability to organize and deliver learning content. Content and course management features allow your association to create, track, and adjust your offerings to align with your audience’s needs.
Strong learning management systems offer unlimited storage, allowing associations to create a vast content library that appeals to learners’ needs and interests. With unrestricted content storage, you can produce limitless videos, presentations, quizzes, and other learning materials to support your large-scale learning programs. Additionally, this feature enables future growth, ensuring your association can scale over time and reach larger audiences.
The Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a set of technical standards that govern how eLearning products are delivered. This includes standardizing the way learning content is shared and played across different LMS platforms, meaning your LMS should support SCORM-compliant content in both:
To measure learners’ knowledge retention, your LMS should facilitate evaluations and assessments such as:
Reliable assessment tools are essential to validating learning outcomes, and they can also help you assess your courses’ effectiveness. Evaluations such as tests and surveys can help you identify gaps or shortcomings in your content, allowing you to adjust your offerings to meet learners’ needs.
Your association’s LMS should engage learners in collaborative experiences and facilitate communication for networking. Learner engagement and communication features allow for just that, fostering a sense of community among your association’s members.
Post-pandemic studies show that virtual events realize benefits such as increased registrations and greater ROI, making them a vital method for engaging your association’s members. The ability to host virtual events from your LMS makes it easy to plan and execute live sessions, webinars, conferences, and other events.
Key capabilities include:
Enabling members to connect in real time makes their involvement more engaging (and convenient). Attendees can participate from any geographic location, ask questions, and engage with industry leaders right from their computers or mobile devices.
Members may abandon the registration process if it’s time-consuming or confusing. Ensure a smooth sign-up experience by using your LMS’s dedicated registration tools.
These tools should help you set up compelling course descriptions paired with simple registration forms, so members can find out what a course is all about and immediately sign up. Your LMS might also send automated confirmation emails to reassure members that they’ve secured their spot in your course.
In a world flooded with digital communication, your association needs an effective strategy to keep its offerings top-of-mind. Email automation features make this possible, empowering your association to get in touch with members and non-members alike about course promotions, deadline reminders, and other communications.
For example, grab members’ attention by scheduling urgent course reminders, such as “Registration closes soon… Sign up now!” A learning management system that integrates with your AMS will make this process even more seamless by tracking all member interactions and informing your communication strategies.
58% of association revenue comes from sources other than membership dues, such as your paid learning content. A strong LMS offers monetization and membership management features, helping your organization sell learning content and memberships.
eCommerce tools allow your association to sell courses and event registrations directly through your LMS. This learning management system feature should provide secure payment processing, as well as pricing customization. This way, your association can offer:
Effective eCommerce features enable your association to monetize your learning content while catering to various members’ budgets.
Reach new audiences with extended membership functionality, which enables associations to sell their learning content through external organizations, like companies and chapters. This drives non-dues revenue and helps your association engage audiences that you otherwise wouldn’t have reached.
In line with the extended membership feature, a robust LMS allows associations to equip external organizations with the tools needed to manage users, assign content, and more. This is especially helpful for long-term partnerships where external organizations purchase your learning content and manage learners on their own.
Continuing education (CE) is a top reason why members join an association, so it should also be a top priority when choosing an LMS. These features help your organization track, manage, and verify members’ progress toward professional development requirements so they can achieve their goals and receive proof of completion.
A learning management system won’t be the only software your association invests in, but your technology should work seamlessly together as if you’re only using one platform. System flexibility and analytics features allow your team to streamline operations and access data-driven insights that inform your decisions across platforms.
Your LMS should connect with the other software your association relies on, including:
When searching for an LMS, look over your top contenders’ list of integrations before purchasing the software. This way, you can adopt an LMS without having to alter any other components of your existing tech stack or invest in custom middleware solutions.
To measure your course effectiveness and member satisfaction, your association must review relevant data—and your LMS should provide it. Real-time data on learning activities includes the ability to track learner activity, such as:
The right LMS will help your team create custom reports with multiple views, so you can analyze data however makes the most sense for your organization’s unique needs and preferences.
At the heart of your LMS is its administrative features, which allow your association to view system activity and complete daily tasks. An admin dashboard helps your team view enrollment, manage learners, update content, and more.
Credentialing is the key to validating learners’ achievements and professional development. These features are essential to ensuring members receive their well-deserved learning credits. They also position your association as a trusted source for industry education, enhancing your overall value proposition to members.
Learning management systems that integrate with ACCME PARS (Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education’s Program and Activity Reporting System) can automatically track and submit CME data to help learners receive proper credit. This is an essential functionality of an LMS for healthcare organizations, as members need these credits to continue practicing medicine.
This feature is also beneficial for your association, as it replaces the time-consuming process of manual reporting and minimizes opportunities for reporting errors.
Just as the ability to offer continuing education courses is vital, your LMS must also help learners earn appropriate credit for these learning accomplishments. This feature is especially critical for industries like the legal and engineering fields, which require employees to achieve learning outcomes in order to continue practicing.
Digital badges are a great incentive for participating in your learning programs. An LMS that offers badging integrations awards learners with these eye-catching credentials, which can be shared on members’ profiles in your AMS directory, LinkedIn profiles, and even resumes.
Create custom certificates that award learners while also reinforcing your association’s part in their achievements. These certificates serve as proof of career development and keep your organization top-of-mind as members review their learning accomplishments.
A recent survey revealed that only 19% of associations felt their organizations were “very” or “extremely” ready to integrate artificial intelligence (AI). However, AI is no longer a futuristic technology—it’s the way of the present. Modern platforms offer AI-powered learning management system features to enhance both efficiency and engagement. Here are the top features you should look for:
Allow your LMS to do the heavy lifting when you leverage AI-powered tools to generate assessment questions to test learners’ knowledge. Simply describe what you want members to learn and the test structure you need, such as multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions. Then, let the software generate the assessment for you.
Similarly, AI tools can help your association create engaging course content by generating:
These tools can accelerate the process of expanding your learning library.
A strong LMS doesn’t stop at technological capabilities. Your association is better positioned to succeed when it’s backed by reliable services from your system provider. Support features ensure your team gets the most value out of its tool and maximizes its capabilities.
When choosing an LMS, you should invest in much more than the software. Your purchase should also come with the vendor’s full support. To unlock the full potential of your LMS, you’ll need:
Your LMS provider should also help your association plan and execute successful virtual and hybrid experiences that engage your members. Vendors should provide professional assistance and full production support in hosting events and guidance on how to host unique event types, like workshops and training sessions.
A helpful LMS provider will support your organization’s learning strategy by helping your association design, develop, and optimize its offerings. This could include end-to-end content development or dedicated strategy support and workshops specifically tailored to your association’s needs.
In addition to services supporting your LMS use and learning content creation, it’s vital to partner with a vendor who can help your organization set and achieve your goals. This can range from sharing common Help Desk questions and answers to working specifically with your organization to address its needs. In the end, your association’s administrators and learners alike will be set up for success through your LMS.
Choosing the right LMS requires thorough research and hands-on exploration. While these 30 learning management system features are a good sign that indicates a comprehensive platform, this massive list can be overwhelming and leave your association wondering what’s most important.
The best step you can take to select the right features is choosing an LMS that is purpose-built for associations, like Blue Sky eLearn. Path LMS™ is the award-winning solution chosen by more than 900 organizations for their eLearning needs. With over 20 years of experience and nearly 100 experts on our team, we’re laser-focused on driving educational success across numerous industries.
With an association-specific LMS, you’ll know you’re using a platform meant to fulfill your organization’s needs. Request a demonstration of our leading software for a first-hand look at our platform’s offerings and make the right decision for your organization.
Path LMS is used by hundreds of organizations to deliver high-quality online learning, networking events, and conferences. Book a demo today!
