Find the best Social Learning Platforms
What is social learning platforms?
To put it simply, social learning is learning from and with others. A social learning platform allows users to collaborate, share and comment on their organization's formal and informal learning experiences on a secure and trusted network. The solution includes course sharing and commenting, course ratings, course discussions and blogs, all of whic... read moreCompare Products
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Absorb LMS
Absorb LMS
Absorb is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) engineered to drive business productivity and deliver a top-tier learner and admin experience. Absorb LMS is a powerful and flexible software that allows its customers to fi...Read more about Absorb LMS
Tovuti
Tovuti
Tovuti is an all-in-one, cloud-based solution designed to activate the potential of organizations through creating, delivering and tracking online training and education. The end-to-end solution gives users everything they need to...Read more about Tovuti
Docebo
Docebo
Docebo scales from 500 learners to thousands without skipping a beat - from content creation, management, delivery, through to measuring the business impact of their programs. ...Read more about Docebo
VAIRKKO Suite
VAIRKKO Suite
eLearning Cloud is a cloud-based learning management solution (LMS) from VAIRKKO that enables organizations to provide training to their employees. The solution allows users to distribute learning content to company employees, cre...Read more about VAIRKKO Suite
eloomi
eloomi
eloomi’s learning and development platform is the simplest way to drive growth – for your people, teams, culture, and organization. eloomi is easy at every level, with four scalable modules, spectacular design, a flat learning cu...Read more about eloomi
SkyPrep
SkyPrep
SkyPrep LMS is a cloud-based learning management solution that offers a platform to training administrators for creating, managing and selling training courses. Key features include custom branding, automated learner enrollment an...Read more about SkyPrep
Kallidus Learn
Kallidus Learn
Kallidus Learn is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) featuring certification and compliance management, a built-in course library and SCORM compliance. The system is suitable for large and midsize organizations in a va...Read more about Kallidus Learn
360Learning
360Learning
360Learning is the LMS for collaborative learning, and it’s changing the way companies train employees, customers, and partners. Turn your experts into L&D collaborators with a built-in collaborative authoring tool, automate compl...Read more about 360Learning
CoreAchieve
CoreAchieve
CoreAchieve is a cloud-based learning management solution that enables businesses to streamline processes related to content creation, compliance, audio/video employee training and more. Professionals can utilize the platform to d...Read more about CoreAchieve
Travitor
Travitor
Travitor makes it easy to create, deliver, and track training. Plus get hundreds of top-rated courses in Compliance, Business, Safety, and Personal Development included. Help your teams do great work with featured courses like H...Read more about Travitor
LearnUpon
LearnUpon
At LearnUpon LMS we’re on a mission to help you unlock the power of learning. Combining our award winning LMS and our industry-leading Customer Experience team, we pride ourselves on being a trusted partner to over 1,300 businesse...Read more about LearnUpon
ExpertusONE
ExpertusONE
ExpertusONE is transforming how today’s companies train their employees and how learning resources are found, shared, tracked, collaborated on, and retained. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, ExpertusONE is a leading global enterpr...Read more about ExpertusONE
CANVAS
CANVAS
Canvas by Instructure is a cloud-based learning management system for every stage and style of education. Available to institutions of all sizes and types, from individual K-12 classrooms to universities to companies with a blende...Read more about CANVAS
Relias Healthcare LMS
Relias Healthcare LMS
Relias LMS is a cloud-based solution that helps small to large businesses manage and streamline learning and compliance needs of employees. The centralized platform enables users to develop and deploy training programs for selecte...Read more about Relias Healthcare LMS
Cornerstone LMS
Cornerstone LMS
Cornerstone Learning helps you provide a connected learning and growth experience for your people. Create a personalized development and growth experience that inspires people and accelerates transformation. Get a solution designe...Read more about Cornerstone LMS
Thought Industries
Thought Industries
Thought Industries offers a cloud-based customer training platform designed to suit the needs of business across multiple industries including software, manufacturing, professional training, continued education, continued medical ...Read more about Thought Industries
Edvance360
Edvance360
Edvance360 Learning Management Software is a cloud-based learning management system that provides online learning programs for K-12, higher education and corporate training departments. The system features online lesson management...Read more about Edvance360
GoSkills
GoSkills
GoSkills LMS provides businesses of all sizes with the ability to easily train their teams online. With its built-in course library, your team will have access to CPD-accredited training in Microsoft Office, Project Management, Co...Read more about GoSkills
PeopleFluent Learning
PeopleFluent Learning
PeopleFluent Learning is a cloud-based learning management system suited for midsize and large organizations. It features content management, skills and compliance management, social learning, reports and e-commerce. PeopleFl...Read more about PeopleFluent Learning
OpenSesame
OpenSesame
OpenSesame is an elearning course provider that offers more than 20,000 courses covering business skills, safety, compliance, technology, industry-specific and certifications, and it is suitable for the training needs of organizat...Read more about OpenSesame
Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 16, 2023In today's internet age, continuous learning and interaction is necessary in all businesses. Every organization wants its employees to get engaged with their learning and complete their e-learning courses as well. In the past, these may have seemed mutually exclusive, but social learning has flipped the script. Learning doesn't need to be a lengthy or time-consuming process, but rather an experience that's quickly accessed, executed and enjoyed by everyone within an organization or community.
Social learning involves learning through observing other people's views, behaviors and attitudes, then looking at the results of all those actions. Later, the learner adapts those attitudes or behaviors and models them. Therefore, with social learning, the knowledge sharing process is quite spontaneous and automatic, as learning happens just by watching others in action or while interacting with them.
If used properly, social learning is the ideal learning approach for learners/employees of most organizations. Hence, we wrote this Buyer's Guide to help you better understand how a social learning platform works and detail everything you need to know before making the final purchase decision.
Here's what we'll cover:
What Is a Social Learning Platform?
Common Features of Social Learning Platforms
Benefits of Social Learning Platforms
What Is a Social Learning Platform?
To put it simply, social learning is learning from and with others. A social learning platform allows users to collaborate, share and comment on their organization's formal and informal learning experiences on a secure and trusted network. The solution includes course sharing and commenting, course ratings, course discussions and blogs, all of which allow learners to share knowledge and interact with one another.
Such solutions also help organizations improve employee engagement by providing the necessary data and tools within a single platform. Also, system administrators can create customized learning experiences for each employee/user from any type of data or content stored in the system.
User profile in the Spoke social learning management system
As with most complex challenges, selection of a suitable social learning platform is much easier when it's broken down into parts. In the next section, we'll break down the most common applications and features of social learning platforms.
Common Features of Social Learning Platforms
Vendors offer a variety of functional breadth and depth in their social learning platforms. The best social learning platform vendors might offer some or all of the following differentiating capabilities:
Live chat | Quick communication method for learners who are looking for instant knowledge sharing. If you need quick help, view the list of 'available' learners and contact them immediately in real time. |
Social stream | Display all the latest news, updates and announcements from all learners. Also used to share each learner's key achievements since it's visible to all on the platform. |
Groups | Create distinct groups based on specific knowledge criteria, such as job roles, experience levels or training topics. Similar learners get an opportunity to experience better knowledge sharing discussions. |
Experts area | Allows learners to access the knowledge base of a variety of different 'subject matter experts' who act as knowledge silos. |
Surveys | Allows you to identify what your learners exactly want to learn. Send a quick questionnaire to your employees seeking feedback on which type of content they enjoy or need the most. |
Give our advisors a call at 855-998-8505 if you need help determining which vendors offer which specific features.
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Before you start evaluating different social learning platforms, you'll want to know what buyer category you belong to. We believe almost all buyers fall into one of the below categories:
Corporate training professionals. Social learning platforms are quite necessary in the corporate training domain. Highly regulated industries, such as financial or insurance, require their employees to remain updated on important news in order to better comply with various government and industry standards. Social learning platforms help employees quickly learn about the latest industry events.
Education-industry professionals. Schools, universities and other educational institutes are another major category of buyers of social learning platforms. One of their primary purposes is to facilitate the spread of knowledge among students. Content such as assignments, course information, a teacher's knowledge base, syllabus and test information can be securely shared on social learning platforms for students to access from any location.
Benefits of Social Learning Platforms
Some of the benefits of social learning platforms should already be clear from our discussion above, but they can be distilled as follows:
Enhanced collaboration and engagement among employees. When employees are learning from each other, collaboration among them improves significantly. In addition, you'll also develop a robust learning community that'll grow stronger each day and will reinforce itself.
Capture and leverage organizational knowledge. While it's important to focus on the training needs of your employees, it's also critical to remain open to the possibility of your employees teaching a specific topic or two to their peers or seniors. Hence, a social learning platform helps leverage the collective knowledge of your employees on different topics on which they have good understanding. The platform also encourages employees to think outside the box and share their ideas with other employees.
Key Considerations
Social learning platforms can be purchased either on their own, or as part of a learning management system (LMS) suite. Keep the following considerations in mind while you evaluate vendors to build an effective shortlist:
Does the software support integrations? Check with the vendor to see if the social learning platform supports integration with your existing software, such as your learning management system (LMS) or human resources (HR) software. Quick integrations would be helpful to import and export data efficiently.
Is the software scalable? You'll need to check with the vendor on scalability of the social learning platform you're considering as it will help when your organization grows. The software must be able to support multi-location IT network infrastructure of your organization for when you grow in future.
Does the vendor offer customer support? Check whether the vendor offers 24/7 support, support only during business hours or none at all. Other than that, ask for what support options are available, such as email, phone or live chat.
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