Video is the most effective medium for communication and one of the most widely used tools for learning and training. Studies show people retain 95% of the information they see in a video compared to just 10% by reading text. Naturally, for organizations using a learning management system (LMS), LMS video hosting is a widely demanded functionality.
An LMS is a common tool used by educational institutions and corporations to train and educate their students, trainees or employees. But unlike video platforms, an LMS is not designed to effectively stream and accommodate videos; as they are not readily playable and users have to download videos every time they need to watch them. They also lack several common or vital features necessary to provide a fully conducive video training & learning experience.
If your video platform is not integrated with your LMS:
Would you use your LMS for text-based training? And a separate video platform for video-based training?
The answer lies in using a online video platform like VIDIZMO that integrates with your LMS, and allows you to add your videos right next to your text-based training material.
To help better explain, we’ve compiled a list of 8 major reasons why an LMS falls short of your video hosting needs and why you need a video platform for reliable video training & learning.
YouTube’s popularity has played a huge role in shaping people’s experiences and expectations when it comes to videos. Most people (and especially millennials) are widely accustomed to high-quality videos and anything less is considered a downgrade. However, an LMS is not designed keeping in mind an HD video playback experience. Even solutions that provide video support do not offer an interface that is familiar or easy-to-use for most users. For the modern employee or student, a simple and easily navigable platform is important for a smooth and quality video-based learning experience.
While an LMS does not provide the best video experience, a video CMS is as simple as YouTube. It, in fact, looks like an internal YouTube for learning. With an LMS integration, users can choose to view videos through a standalone YouTube-like portal within the application or see embedded videos right next to their courses.
An average adult is said to have a maximum attention span of 20 minutes. That being said, no matter how much an individual attempts to refocus on a long course or program, realistically, they are likely to get distracted or have lapses in attention. Microlearning helps break down lengthy, monotonous courses into shorter pieces, which helps learners focus on a topic, digest information more easily, and quickly review previous topics. They also provide meaningful breaks to make sure viewers remain attentive to the content and conduct knowledge checks using quizzes and assessments for better retention.
Breaking down lengthy training videos means organizations need the content to be easily searchable and manageable, quickly playable and viewable in a user-friendly interface. A video CMS helps trim long training videos into shorter videos, provides tools for organizing media such as playlists and learning plans, and allows content to be easily searchable across the platform for quick and structured learning.
In order to make sure your learning videos are effective, it’s important to make sure your students or employees are easily able to find and review the content they are learning about. Searching for the right video with the information you’re trying to find and then looking for that information creates an unnecessary hassle that can inhibit an individual’s ability to learn and focus. For large corporations and institutes, there can be more than hundreds of videos to search from.
Unlike an LMS, most video CMSs provide in-video search capabilities and video transcription to make information more accessible. Hosting videos on a video streaming platform, in contrast to LMS video hosting, organizations can enable students, employees or trainees to search for information inside a video and easily fast forward to where it occurs on the video. Transcribing the video also helps index the information inside the video that makes search results more accurate when looking for a video.
Moreover, certain video platforms can capture insights and provide greater accessibility for videos using artificial intelligence services, such as facial recognition to capture trainers in video and fast forward to when they speak, topic inference to search for specific concepts and content, and translation for video transcripts into other languages.
Most digital media such as images, audio files and presentations tend to fall between the ranges of several kilobytes to a few megabytes of storage. On the other hand, videos can range anywhere from several kilobytes to gigabytes, depending on their length, number and quality. For example, a 10-minute training video can average take up an average of 600MB and an hour-long video can exceed 2GB, which can limit and put a strain on storage for an LMS. That number also rises exponentially for high-resolution videos, such as 720p or 1080p. The sheer size of a video file can also strain the network and bandwidth and make it difficult to share the video from one location to another.
An LMS is not designed to boast significant video management and streaming capabilities. A video CMS, on the other hand, provides infinite and scalable storage for managing large amounts of videos. They similarly enable sharing videos of any size quickly and easily, which can be challenging and difficult for other mediums or systems. Furthermore, for significantly larger organizations or institutions, video platforms can also leverage technology such as content delivery networks or CDNs to stream and share content across more distant and geographically widespread locations.
Read our blog on how to share large video files.
People no longer use just desktops or laptops for watching videos. More than 50% of the global internet population is estimated to be mobile traffic. Devices such as smartphones and tablets have become popular with people on the go or those more accustomed to using other devices. Most modern organizations and institutions now employ a ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) culture. As such, content such as learning videos should be accessible and playable on any digital device, especially smartphones and tablets. For an LMS, video hosting can be quite tricky; videos come in different formats, codecs, streaming protocols, etc. that affect their compatibility and limits their availability on devices.
Video streaming platforms enable accessibility and streaming for videos from any kind of device. This gives learners the ability to watch training & learning videos from anywhere, and from whichever device is available or convenient for them. This also grants them the flexibility to learn at their own pace or on their own time if their schedule is too packed or busy.
One of the most vital features of an LMS is its ability to provide detailed analytics for monitoring a learner’s performance. For videos, however, an LMS only supports the most basic information, such as whether someone clicked on a video or not.
A video CMS provides more comprehensive analytics, including details such as how long and frequently someone watched a video, overall viewing trends such as which parts of a video were most viewed and whether or not they watched a video to completion. These analytics are essential not only to track the progress for a learner, but also to analyze what kind of training videos are most preferred and effective for training and learning, so you modify your content and improve your program.
Certain training and learning activities need to be done in real-time and live video streaming is a common medium for conducting training conferences, seminars and workshops with learners and employees online. Live streaming or webinars are especially useful for organizations and institutes to deliver a real-time learning experience to trainees at distant locations.
Even the most prominent LMS however, does not support live video streaming capabilities and must be integrated with a video platform. A video CMS, on the other hand, comes with built-in live streaming and webcast solutions, for streaming real-time training sessions to a large number of people and locations. Additionally, video streaming platforms allow you to automatically record your live videos for on-demand viewing once the session is over for those who missed the broadcast or want to review the session.
Interactivity keeps learners actively engaged and keeps them focused by making them participate in learning activities, such as answering a quiz or filling in a survey. Interactivity also helps break the monotony of a training program, and can be a beneficial tool for obtaining feedback, such as making knowledge checks to evaluate the performance of an individual learner or a group.
While most LMS do a great job of embedding interactive features in most learning materials, it does not do so with video. A video CMS provides features such as the ability to insert quizzes, polls, surveys and assessments within a video for a more engaging learning experience. These elements help keep learners actively engaged and provide valuable feedback on their progress and performance. Some platforms such as VIDIZMO even allow organizations to provide certifications with complete performance statistics, and automation for sending learning reports to specific recipients at scheduled intervals.
For most institutions or corporations, the type of infrastructure where they can store their content can be a huge determinant in choosing the kind of platform they can use for their organization. For example, training & learning videos for enterprises are likely to contain proprietary or sensitive information that requires them to keep their videos in a private cloud or on-premise datacenters. Some organizations may also prefer one cloud provider over another due to regulatory factors; some organizations may need their video data to be stored within data centers in their countries or regions in order to abide by their national or regional policies. For instance, an LMS like SuccessFactors only runs in the cloud whose data centers are based in Germany. Video data might even have different requirements for legal compliance than other traditional LMS data.
Most LMS solutions don’t provide many different deployment options, especially when it comes to data for videos. Most video platforms, however, are available under a variety of options and are designed to be compliant with legal requirements across multiple countries, regions and industries.
An LMS is a reliable tool for managing traditional learning content, but it’s still lacking when it comes to hosting and streaming videos. Most LMSs are not built or designed to manage videos. Furthermore, since an LMS is a platform for all types of learning material, it lacks the more specific features and functionalities offered by a video CMS. This can pose a challenge for organizations looking to use more video content for their training & learning purposes. For these reasons, we consider LMS video hosting to be unreliable for training and learning and instead recommend a video streaming platform that can be used on its own as a consolidated solution or integrated with an existing LMS to enhance its functionality. Naturally, we recommend VIDIZMO.
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You can also download our whitepaper for a detailed guide to video for organizational learning and development.