It’s been a while since I wrote the post on recommendation engines in LMSs. In that time I have thought and discussed the idea with a few colleagues. What I heard from them is that even top tier LMSs have a VERY long way to go before they reach the sophistication that say Amazon has achieved. I too recall that the LMS we ran at a company I worked for before could not find a course when the search term “Credit Report” was typed, because the course title and description contained the word “Credit Reports.” (The search on this brand of LMS still works this way!!!)
This is problematic. The enterprise user is used to Google when they search for stuff at work (that doesn’t involve an enterprise systems) or at home. They expect search to work well and use it as THE way to find relevant content. I know there still are a few who like browsing catalogs, but that strategy fails when there’s content that should be placed in multiple catalog section, is placed in just one catalog section.
Searching for content is the first thing people do in LMSs, before they take a course, before they view their transcript or grades. I suggest LMS vendors focus on this and build systems that keep up with what’s happening with search in the consumer arena. Otherwise Enterprise LMS users will search Google rather than their LMS for courses or other related content.
Then again, that might not be such a bad thing!
