November 29, 2021
If you are not using Adobe Captivate Prime as your LMS, what LMSs are you using?
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(15)
November 29, 2021
If you are not using Adobe Captivate Prime as your LMS, what LMSs are you using?
ATD Master Instructional Designer with over 25 years of experience. 
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I am working with some large non-profit groups, each with over 30K members. I am looking for a reliable LMS that I can use with as many as 25K active users that does not cost a ton of money. I am aware that the number of active users is huge and that limits me on LMSs that I can utilize, especially for a lower cost.

Have any of you used Captivate with outside LMSs for large number of students and been successful with the deployment and satisfied with the integration of the Captivate course on that LMS. Are there any features or functions that get lost when not using Prime as your LMS? Have any of you used Free LMS and had success or those LMS that pair with outside authoring tools such as Moodle, Teachable, Thinkific, etc.?

15 Comments
2021-12-14 16:23:20
2021-12-14 16:23:20

There are options that cost money (or more money than others) and ones that do not cost as much. In some cases, there are “free” options that can work nicely.

However, with a user base that large, you probably want to pay for something.

I have inserted Captivate projects into Brightspace, Canvas and Moodle. All work, no problem, so Prime doesn’t have to be what is used. I am actually not that familiar with Prime, but from all that I have looked at, it does look like a fine LMS. But it does cost money.

As Greg has stated, scalability and flexibility are something to consider as well. You don’t want to be paying for 25k users every month if most months have 5k.

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2021-11-30 19:01:07
2021-11-30 19:01:07

You may need to consider a solution that will offer you a plan based on monthly active users.

Just make sure that the active user count resets each month. This may allow you to go with a lesser plan but then you end up doing a little bit of management of those users.

Example:

You have 40K accounts in the LMS but you are only allowed 5K active users each month based on your plan. At 5K users per month – you could theoretically run 60K users through each year. It would mean setting up strict rules around the timeframes of when each group of 5K has access so that you don’t exceed 5K logins per calendar month. Again – you would want to ensure that you understand how the LMS company defines an active user.

That may or may not work in your scenario if it is not possible to have groups re-certify in different months and all 40K must do it in December or something but it is at least a thought to consider.

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Greg Stager
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2021-11-30 19:24:08
2021-11-30 19:24:08
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Greg Stager
's comment

For the nonprofits that will work and I have thought about going with an option like you state. But for the another one that is not non-profit they are wanting all 40K+ members to take the course and receive a Certificate of Completion by a certain date…and in 2022, they want it done by March 1. That does not leave a lot of time to implement the LMS. I can build the course in that time, but not sure if an LMS will be ready to handle a divided load. Also, the organization is not ready to release the information about each member taking a course quite yet, as it may not be well received. However, it is possible that a few less than the 40K will take the course, but we have to prepare for that amount of users accessing the LMS/Course in one month. I wish we could do something like the first letter of their Last Names for each month, that would greatly reduce the amount of active users, but the organization wants everyone to have a certificate by the start of the “official Season” of their activities.

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Donald Dehm
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2021-11-30 19:45:42
2021-11-30 19:45:42
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Donald Dehm
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Find and procure an LMS to support 40K users, configure it to meet the needs of the company, get trained up on administering the LMS, develop content, test content, train the future users, launch said LMS and run all 40K through it, etc by March 1?

I won’t say “impossible” but I also wouldn’t hold my breath. I wouldn’t want that stress.
A company with 40K+ employees could probably – one would think – cover the cost.

I get the impression that you are an independent contractor helping out multiple companies…?

I don’t even get the impression that the company is really all that interested in using an LMS long term as a business strategy. They just want it to deliver one course for a certificate…?

At that point why not build your course and host it on Udemy or some other platform and let them deal with the user load? Then you can market the course to the company. They can pay you for every user that takes the class. Not sure how that would work – just thinking out loud at this point.

Otherwise – if they do want it as part of a sound business strategy – they should slow down and do it right. A March 1 deadline, to me, for all that still needs to happen, is unrealistic for a good launch.

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Greg Stager
's comment
2021-11-30 19:52:28
2021-11-30 19:52:28
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Greg Stager
's comment

Greg, that is exactly it, I am am contractor who was brought it last month as a consultant at first. Then they quickly realized how difficult it may be to get a full time LMS. So now I am looking into creating the course with Captivate and implementing it into a Udemy, Teachable, Thinkific or similar platform that can charge per user and I get a cut of each paid user. Even if it is $0.50 per user, that is still a potential of $20k for one course…and I must say that I like that number!!

I am just wondering if I can use Captivate as my Authoring Tool and use on one of those platforms. I mean after all an LMS is an LMS and should be able to support a Level 1 (passive) or Level 2 (Simple) Course with a Certificate upon passing a quiz. Do you think it may be better to just build the course in one of those platforms and then see if the organization would want to invest in an LMS for use in the future?

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Donald Dehm
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2021-11-30 20:09:08
2021-11-30 20:09:08
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Donald Dehm
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I recently went through the process of vetting multiple LMS platforms to determine the one that would be the best fit for our company use case. That process alone took almost four months from first demo/trial to final contract signing.

In that experience – I found that not all LMSs are created equal in terms of SCORM support. My goodness – I even came across one that required you to upload all the files separately rather than as one zip file. That’s hundreds of files. Some platforms have nice high upload limits – like 2GB – and some were as low as 10MB. I have no idea what sort of compatibility Udemy will have related to SCORM – perhaps another on this forum can speak to that end. I think it would be worth asking about that.

If you can make it in Captivate – do it. At least then, you retain all the resources and original files that went into it and from a portability standpoint you can take it wherever you need to. Building a course using native LMS tools will make it difficult for you to take elsewhere if you need to. It is your intellectual property – so at least bear that in mind.

I do think it is worth having the discussion of here is what we can try to do now to solve your problem (Udemy or something like that or perhaps even a local file server where they can access the materials could be OK if they don’t need an LMS for the tracking the first time around – just track it locally) but then to also discuss some long term options. See where it goes.

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Greg Stager
's comment
2021-11-30 20:34:30
2021-11-30 20:34:30
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Greg Stager
's comment

Thanks Greg!!!

I appreciate you sharing your experiences in vetting some LMSs. I know this is not going to be easy at all, but I am keeping as positive as I can to help them get everything in line for March deadline. I think maybe creating the course in Captivate and then uploading to whatever platform may be the best situation. I may not have an LMS in place by the deadline, but like you said, there are workarounds for that if needed.

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2021-11-30 12:55:27
2021-11-30 12:55:27

Thanks for the reply.

I have looked at Moodle, and while the free version sounds great on paper, it requires hardware and software that the Non-Profits just simple cannot afford/maintain/manage. So I have to look at the Cloud version of Moodle, but the site limits users to 1K users for around $15K a year, not bad, but I need 30 – 40 K  users, which Moodle cannot do on its own, so it needs to go to the next level which increases cost.

It is the massive size of these organizations that is really throwing me for a loop to find an affordable, efficient, and affective LMS that they can use. Captivate Prime is great, but at around $4 per user, that adds up fast when we are talking about 40K users. In one organization, it may be all 40K signing on within a month to take a course to earn a Certificate (done yearly).

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Donald Dehm
's comment
2021-11-30 13:02:56
2021-11-30 13:02:56
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Donald Dehm
's comment

Too bad… Did you talk with the Adobe Prime team already?  About the non-profit side of it?

Or do you have access to good programmers to set up a custom solution?

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Lieve Weymeis
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2021-11-30 14:08:09
2021-11-30 14:08:09
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Lieve Weymeis
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I have talked with Adobe about a non-profit discount and while it is a good percentage, it is a huge number to overcome when dealing with the mass number of users. I am still continuing to work with some agents to see if we can work out a deal, but sometimes the big money upfront can scare off the BOD of these Nonprofits. I am also working individual chapters of one of the Non-Profits to use to showcase to the main non-profit the effectiveness that eLearning can provide. I just happen to like Captivate and the functions and features that it allows, so much better than all of the less expensive options. The Authoring tool is the easy part to convince them on, it is that mass amount of money for the LMS that is proving to be the hard part to justify.

I think that each Nonprofit has volunteers that do their IT and programming, but I have not been informed that they will take on the task of building, operating, and maintaining the LMS from the start, which is why I am looking for  Cloud version so that no one person has all the hardware/software in one location. With non-profits there is often a lot of turn over, so personnel come and go, and that creates a logistical nightmare with hardware to host the LMS.

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Donald Dehm
's comment
2021-11-30 14:17:46
2021-11-30 14:17:46
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Donald Dehm
's comment

I really hope you find a solution. If  I can help anyway, do not hesitate to contact me. Most of what I do is for free…

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Lieve Weymeis
's comment
2021-11-30 14:26:12
2021-11-30 14:26:12
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Lieve Weymeis
's comment

Thank you so much!! I truly appreciate the offer!!!!!

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Donald Dehm
's comment
2021-12-16 15:10:44
2021-12-16 15:10:44
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Donald Dehm
's comment

Hi Donald, I (team of two) maintain several Moodle sites and author for a non-profit. If there’s anyway I can help out let me know.

 

Thanks Chris

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Christian Lee
's comment
2021-12-20 16:45:32
2021-12-20 16:45:32
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Christian Lee
's comment

Chris, thank you!!!!!! I am trying to work out with the organizations about LMS choices and other things now, hopefully after the first of the year they will have made a decision.

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2021-11-30 12:44:17
2021-11-30 12:44:17

Sorry but I am not talking from experience, as would be better. I hope you get some users to answer who do have that experience. Just want to ask if you have looked at Moodle?

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