If you share our enthusiasm for the quickly changing work world, you will be keen to learn the trends this year in corporate HR, talent management and learning. This is the 11th year that Bersin by Deloitte has published their annual report and we couldn’t be more excited to summarize their insights for you. As the global economy continues to recover, technology continues to change and demographics continue to shift, Josh Bersin, Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, sheds light on the factors that will redefine the nature of work this year.  

Last week we summarized the top 5 trends in talent, HR and workplace learning strategies from Bersin by Deloitte’s 11th annual predications report. Today we summarize the final five for you in the article below. Continue reading to see what else will be trending this year in the wonderful world of work. Or rather, of roughly the 30% of you who are actively engaged at work, the wonderful world of play!

Yesterday marked an exciting day at Lambda as we finished our webinar on "Choosing the right Reporting Solution for Your LMS".  Thank you to the hundreds of people who came to learn, engage and provide their feedback! What became very apparent to us is that there is a clear gap and challenge when it comes to learning analytics and talent analytics. And understandbly so--the pressure in training and education to demonstrate the value of learning and development programs to c-suite executives is at an all time high. The need for executive level reporting is a huge challenge when it comes to getting the right data in a timely fashion and we feel your pain. Along with this, we heard the need for:

Shopping for an LMS is not easy. With over 600 options on the market, and so little time—how can you be sure that the product you’re allocating budget to will have everything you need? If only there was some sort of criteria… We have over 20 years of experience in training and learning, so we can shed some light on what to look for when shopping for an LMS that’s a right fit for your organization. 

The Face-to-face plugin for Moodle makes it easy to incorporate blended learning into your eLearning courses. Today’s learners—whether in corporate or education institutions—desire the flexibility to learn in ways that resonate best. We frequently hear how older generations want face-to-face training and how younger generations want a combination of in-person and online. Blended learning makes this possible and it is extremely effective. In a study with over 30,000 students, blended learning allowed students to achieve 25% more than their non-blended learning counterparts.

  Blended learning isn’t exactly new - different technologies have been slowly trickling their way into the classroom for many years now. Despite this, blended learning is often misunderstood. Here are a few common myths about blended learning we often hear:

One of the major challenges LMS administrators often face with online learning  is keeping their learners inspired and engaged in their course work and we have some great advice on how to overcome this. Here are a few tips on how to keep online learners motivated:  

Now that Moodle 2.8 is on its third minor release (Moodle 2.8.3)—we’ve had a solid quarter to review the features and see what’s jiving for our corporate, healthcare and education-based clients. Moodle 2.8 is hands-down the best version of Moodle yet and we couldn’t be more excited to share how you will benefit from the new and improved features. With Moodle 2.8, users are reaping the benefits of significant enhancements to gradebook, forums, analytics and the overall usability across all devices. Continue reading for the additional 6 features that have been approved by our team of Moodle developers.

We know that with over 300 options to choose from, selecting an LMS can be a tad bit daunting. It's a timely process that requires a lot of deep thinking and hard work. To make things a little easier, we have compiled everything you need to know to select an LMS, with tips on the process of creating an RFP.

One of the major decisions organizations have to make when implementing an LMS is whether to go with DIY (do-it-yourself), or outsourced hosting. Cloud-based hosting is an advanced form of hosting that incorporates greater support and service levels, and offloads the aforementioned duties to the managed hosting firm. Want more information on what to expect from an LMS? Attend our December 10th webinar to learn about the Top 7 Hidden Costs of Deploying an LMS. Register now!

It’s becoming evident that predictive trends are beneficial to the e-learning industry because they allow organizations to capitalize on these trends before they take off. Lambda has been in this industry for 13 years, so we fully understand the power of predictive trends. We talked to 7 e-Learning experts and asked them what trends they thought would have the biggest impact on the way we learn at work this year. Here are just a few of the tips we received.

A common misconception about Moodle is that it is only used by the education sector for the purpose of providing online learning. This is simply not the case given Moodle’s diverse functionalities and it’s proven utility in almost every industry. Moodle is used by organizations in a variety of fields, including but not limited to healthcare, government, enterprise and non-profit, in countless different ways. In our eBook, Corporate eLearning: Six Strategies for Leveraging Moodle,  we discuss six of the most common ways Moodle is used to reach business objectives by organizations of all shapes and sizes.  Here are the different areas in business that Moodle can assist you with:

The learning management system (LMS) market is growing fast and it doesn’t look like its about to slow down anytime soon. According to Forbes the LMS market was well over $2.5 billion and will grow to $8 billion by 2018 with North America leading the market share. Rapid growth in the LMS market can be explained by many factors but two key points that stand out are as follows:

Healthcare professionals work in high-pressure and high-stress environments, where they must be prepared on a daily basis for any and every situation, life-threatening or otherwise. So isn’t it safe to say that it benefits everyone when these professionals have the most effective systems for training, and education? Clinicians’ knowledge has to be up-to-date, and it needs to be delivered efficiently. The teaching, the practice, and the enforcement of this knowledge and information is an integral part of the healthcare system, and the inclusion of these components is why it works as well as it does. Let’s go over which aspects of blended learning can benefit the way clinical training is delivered in healthcare.

Deloitte University Press has released their Guide to Global Human Capital Trends for 2015. This is research based on interviews and surveys involving over 3,300 businesses and HR leaders from over 100 countries, asking HR leaders to determine the talent challenges their organizations face, and to assess their preparedness to meet these challenges. Each of these trends correlate with capability gaps - specific ones that would benefit from prioritization. This year, "softer" areas such as culture and engagement are becoming more prevalent priorities, involving revamping entire strategy to adhere to new needs. Here is part 1 of 2, of the top 10 global human capital trends for 2015.

Last week we provided the the first five out of ten global human capital trends, as reported by Deloitte University Press. Deloitte's report is research based on interviews and surveys involving over 3,300 businesses and HR leaders from over 100 countries, asking HR leaders to determine the talent challenges their organizations face, and to assess their preparedness to meet these challenges. Each of these trends correlate with capability gaps - specific ones that would benefit from prioritization. This year, "softer" areas such as culture and engagement are becoming more prevalent priorities, involving revamping entire strategy to adhere to new needs. Here is part 2, of the top 10 global human capital trends for 2015.

Current education reform debate in the US centers around the dilemma that high-quality teachers are in high-demand, yet the larger system in place to recruit and retain such teachers is ineffective. While the United States reports an aggregate teacher surplus, further analysis of these numbers indicate that there has been persistent teacher shortages for the past 40 years. Such shortages are indicative by geography, grade level and subject matter which is further multiplied when you factor in the falling quality of the average teacher.

The UN recently reported that the number of people who own mobile phones outnumber the people who have access to flush toilets. We are highly dependent on our mobile devices - we rely on them to do everything, from communicate, browse the internet, play games, take pictures, etc. Mobile learning, then, has been a long time coming. We will use the example of Moodle, a learning management system (LMS) that fully supports mobile learning.

We are pleased to announce the launch of Lambda Analytika to the market. Lambda Analytika is a robust reporting and analytics solution for open source learning management systems. With over 600 deployments under our belt, customer feedback made it clear that reporting and access to data was a major gap with the current native reporting functionality and plug-ins available in Moodle and Totara.

First, what is the difference between learning management and talent management? A common misconception is that talent management and learning management are synonymous, or interchangeable, but this is not the case. Talent management has to do with human resources and employees - attracting them, teaching and developing them, and keeping them inspired and engaged. Learning management has more to do with developing and designing strategies in learning. The goal of each of these is the same - that is  increasing productive outcomes and achieving business objectives. The difference though, is in the approach.

Lambda Solutions will be attending the ATD 2015 International Conference & Exposition in Orlando this year. Lambda looks forward to networking with industry peers, engaging and discussing with keynote speakers, and building relationships with training partners. Fellow attendees will include Apple, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Facebook, Yahoo!, and HBO.

There’s a lot of discussion around "mooks" these days, but few people actually seem to know what they are. MOOC, as it is formally spelled, stands for Massive Open Online Course. MOOC’s first emerged in 2008, but they were not widely known or utilized until 4 years later when Stanford University Stanford became the catalyst for a major shift to open enrollment online courses. MOOC’s succeed in providing a broader audience access to knowledge and learning. Students can go through these courses on their own time, which allows for a more flexible, adaptable schedule. Despite being popularized by one of the most well known universities in North America, they were also largely scrutinized by post-secondary institutions out of fear that they would be forced to cut down the costs of their programs since they were being offered for free online. MOOC’s were thought to be disruptive, because they widened access to education. Schools and institutions were afraid that MOOC’s would overtake them, and make them obsolete.

We teamed up with Limestone Learning on Wednesday to deliver a webinar on Measuring the Value of Training, and Turning Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation Upside Down. Measuring the value of training is a very complex process, but it is an essential component to any learning program. Let’s start with the obvious question - what defines good training? Good training should always have a purpose. It should inform, teach, improve, and ultimately, it should change. Introducing methods for evaluation, and actually tying them to performance will help identify if learning has occurred during and after training, and it will help determine whether job performance improvements have been realized. Additionally, having the ability to measure improvements in job performance will provide valuable data for measuring cost-benefits to the organization. If you missed the webinar we have made it easy for you to catch up - just click the button below. 

Moodle 2.9 is officially on its way. Moodle is the world’s leading Learning Management System. With more than 70 million users, Moodle is the clear market leader, with almost double the adoption of the two subsequent vendors, SumTotal and Blackboard, combined. Moodle is already far ahead of its competition, and 2.9 gives it even more edge. The update was heavily influenced by Moodle community feedback, so improvements will be found in major areas of concern. Moodle 2.9 boasts enhanced development in the areas of lessons, quizzes, and course management. There are 4 main areas of Moodle that will be enhanced in the new version: