Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.
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DigitalChalk, by Sciolytix
Score 8.0 out of 10
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The DigitalChalk LMS, from Sciolytix gives users the tools and control to launch engaging, interactive, online courses. Users can create courses featuring animated PowerPoint, SCORM content, HD videos, audio, quizzes, exams and more.
Absorb LMS is appropriate for any continuing education organization or company that wants a reliable platform to host enduring educational content. It has been a great experience in terms of building and designing courses, monitoring learner progress, and as another touch point for learners to access other resources our organization offers.
Digital Chalk is perfect for organizations who are looking for an easy to use Learning Management System and don't need all the bells, whistles, and bulk of the LMS giants, like Cornerstone or SuccessFactors. Digital Chalk doesn't require an administrative specialist to learn a whole new language and environment with endless options and settings. It's very easy to use for both learners and administrators, and yet at the same time provides the exact functions you need.
Usability - Both the User and Admin Experience is so simple and intuitive. The admin tools are clearly defined and laid out, yet the functionality makes it still powerful.
Integration - We used the Scheduled Data Imports and Exports to connect with our HRIS tool. After the initial configuration, it has worked reliably and gives me all the custom data I need to make assignments and reporting a breeze.
Design - I know it's covered a little bit in the Usability above, but the site just looks fantastic. There are a lot of options to customize and fit your branding requirements and all of the thumbnails/posters/billboards/etc give a very visual and appealing look to the LMS. Much better than I've seen in other products.
While I used the platform, it improved its integrations with PowerPoint, making it easy to convert slides to the DigitalChalk format.
The editing layers for audio underneath the slides is very user-friendly and easy to use.
While we didn't use the quiz randomization, I liked how there was a structure built to it so that those who had more robust usage situations than ours would be able to improve engagement and assess learning at a higher level.
Uploading documents is perceived as hard for employees, especially with video uploads.
Sometimes the program lacks and then an employee has to start all over.
Spacing courses is possible but not with a certain amount of time, which would be useful if the next course could open after a week/month instead of when the employee finishes the previous course.
The administration of Digital Chalk is very easy. The function I think may be missing is an easy way to add revisions and assign them to the students who need them. For example, when you update a piece of a course it would have an indication that it is version xxx and would ask who would like to assign it to - everyone who has taken it before or just new students.
It would nice to have the system recognize when a student has already completed an element of a course that may be used in another course. For example, if video A is part of courses 1 and 2, and the student already watched it in course 1, it would ask the administrator if they should get automated credit for it in course 2, as well.
We have no plans to move away from Absorb at this time. It has all of the functionality we are looking for in a learning management system and we have a lot of info stored in our LMS system for trainings including all of our current and past employee transcripts. It is also getting easier to manager with being able to connect the LMS to ADP to update employee reporting/department/location/etc. We don't have a need or reason to move away from Absorb at this time.
I know the support team is hard at work! We are currently dealing with a confusing issue where our buttons don't connect to the pages we assign them, and they have been looking into this for a number of weeks. I hope they will unravel the issue soon so we can role out our modules!
As I mentioned previously, Digital Chalk's customer support is excellent. I also got a reply back within an hour, and it was usually the same person. So, they were familiar with our needs and how we were using the system. Honestly, most of the time we had to contact their support, it was an issue on the user's side, not in the software. Yet, they still helped identify the issue and consulted on how to fix it.
Our organization previously used LMS365, which did not support eCommerce and had difficulties supporting external users. (My understanding is the issues with external users may have been directly related to our Microsoft implementation and not directly LMS365's fault, but it was nonetheless a deal breaker for us.) Docebo was the runner up in our LMS selection process and I spent significant time chatting with the team at Docebo. It seemed like a strong competitor to Aborb. Ultimately, Absorb was both slightly more cost-efficient for our scenario.
DigitalChalk gave the organization the hands-on ownership of content creation and delivery while meeting our usage case of hands-off course management on a daily basis and extending the reach of the course content and certificate to as many people as possible. It's easy to use, very cost-effective to implement, and the overall experience means that the course participants get what they need out of the course without a lot of effort on their part.
Course enrollments and completions have increased by 500% since implementation
Employee visits to our learning centre have increased by 300% since implementation
Cost saving from a time perspective as we can automate a lot of the admin work we used to do.
Pre Absorb we had about 3 or 4 e-learnings that were available. We now have over 100 that are accessible to all employees
Ability to seamlessly integrate with Workday and Udemy allowing all learning to be in one place, people data to be imported from WD, and very comprehensive reporting
DigtialChalk's ROI is positive - the cost model of low up-front costs to get started, then paying a small amount per course participant means that organizations implementing DigitalChalk as their platform get more than their money's worth from it. It returns profit quickly and on a consistent basis.
The asynchronous nature of the platform, combined with the targeted usage situation of hands-off course delivery and management, means that resources to create, deliver, and maintain courses can be held with either one person (like an instructional designer) or even an outside contractor. This means that there's little impact to the fixed operating costs involved with hiring someone else to manage it.
