New Training Management System for LMS Enrollments Arrives

The new enrollment system used for the Learning Management System (LMS) has been, at long last, deployed. We have been working on exciting enhancements and added functionality across the entire application to better support your management of the Blended Learning Training. The legacy system was written in a codebase that offered the need of an update to be able to apply these new features and I’m glad to share the beginnings of them with you today.

For starters, we renamed the system. Formerly called the Enrollment Application or Administration, it is now the Training Management System or TMS for short. We have rethought the system in many ways and are planning on adding a lot of functional tools for your training locations that go well beyond enrollment in near future.

The user-experience and interaction have been an important aspect of the design. Clean organization with appropriately grouped functionalities have been included throughout. The functionality you are used to is still here much in the same way it was before. Lessons learned and simple evolution have provided the tools to offer more and more efficient use of the system.

The first change to be noticed is the website address.

Upon utilizing your shortcut, or typing in lmsadmin.njatc.org into your browser address bar, you will be redirected to manage.electricaltraining.org The name states what is being done on the site. You may choose to save this as your new shortcut to managing your electrical training for the LMS.

Upon access two carefully crafted changes right away will exemplify the new user experience.

The Login Page — This simple authentication page no longer poses confusion for users by resembling the LMS login page. This access page now clearly distinguishes itself from the Blended Learning LMS site. The typical user has a role that dictates the need of one system versus another. Either one manages the training (TD and TDA), or one facilitates/takes (Instructor/Student) the training. Diverging their display avoids the previous issues found by many, including myself, of trying to login to the wrong one accidentally.

The Landing Page — This page has been modified to offer more support to the user upon arrival to the system. The page is accessed after login and then also by clicking on the logo when later using the system. The previous version of this page acted as a simple homepage where the choice of what to do next lay ahead. The page now includes a few notable additions. The top describes briefly (just like the legacy system) what this tool is meant for. Below that, is a TMS Notifications area, that when present, offers the etA a way to deliver quick messages to logged in users about the system. The lower left gives quick-launch access to all the short help videos available for each and every section of the system. The lower right is a view of the latest Blog entries, including links to gain access.

A really important item crafted for the TMS is the inclusion of a help icon, located on each page at the top right. When clicked, this icon provides an efficient way to view a short video tutorial on the actions available for the page. The video is focused on the topic at hand, but also allows the user to peruse the other topics as well, if desired. If you get stuck or turned around on a particular section of the Training Management System, a quick click here is likely what you will need to get moving again. Clicking on the icon will:

Access the video for playing
Offer Closed Captioning when turned on in the Vimeo controls – You have to click the CC in the lower right of Vimeo…same for turning it off.
Deliver a downloadable PDF transcript with screen shots to slow the narration down if needed and offer quick reference docs for later use. — I know I moved very quickly through the content. That is because we planned for the pdf transcripts and you may watch, pause, or replay whenever needed.
Grant access to the rest of the video library if wanting to learn more about each page of the TMS.

If you are a longtime user of the Enrollment Application, it will likely take only a few minutes to get up to speed with this new system. That said, the videos are there to identify the navigation and updates to each page when needed. The training library itself will continue to provide update training but also is intended for new Training Management User training. Finally, when future planned enhancements are included, the videos will be updated as needed to keep in step with the changes.