Summary
LXP: what is it?
When we talk about the Learning Experience Platform, we are referring to a platform that enables the user to have learning experiences that are not limited to the acquisition of internal content alone, but also to the creation and sharing of material external to the platform. In fact, in an LXP, the user can produce introduce additions and updates look for specific or functional pathways to skill acquisition.
An LXP is equipped with software, dedicated to training, that facilitates the creation and enjoyment of content through suggestions processed by an Artificial Intelligence. This means that when a user completes a pathway or finishes browsing a topic, the LXP suggests related content for him to accompany him to the next stage of learning. A process very similar to that which occurs with social channels-for example, when we watch a series of videos on YouTube, the latter tends to guide our subsequent choices by suggesting similar topics. The user is thus directed not only to choose business content, but can also draw from external resources, either on the Web or made available by other users or organizations.
LXP can be seen as a kind of search engine that leads the user within a very large catalog in which he has the opportunity to build his learning path on the skills of his interest, with no limits in finding content.
When a user completes a pathway or ends the consultation of a topic, LXP suggests related content to accompany him or her to the next learning stage. In summary, the platform algorithm derives the content to be proposed to the user based on three main criteria:
- The user’s previous experiences in order to propose content appropriate to the knowledge already established;
- The experience of other users, for example to suggest;
- Personalization of learning, directing the user to specific courses and content, in line with the goals to be achieved.
So, it is inferred regardless of the possibility of being guided by Artificial Intelligence, the user of an LXP is very independent and can decide independently how to move, choosing other courses or parts of them.
What is the purpose of an LXP
The Learning Experience Platform was created with a specific function: that of facilitating users’ search for content.
It is possible that a company, with years of training behind it, also retains a vast and varied repertoire of training content, which users must be enabled to easily retrieve.
An LXP is also an excellent tool for managing content, new and archival, intended for learning that makes the user autonomous and, at the same time, the company more aware of the actual skills of its resources. In fact, thanks to the analytics of an LXP, it can acquire information related to training moments, ranging from users’ acquired knowledge to their interests and preferences, so as to set future paths; this is untraceable content, but still verified for reliability and educational value, an aspect that combines the possibility of forming freely with the security of not running into incorrect or incomplete information.
An additional reason why companies use LXPs is that they allow them to Monitor any gap between skills demonstrated and professional roles acted. Information of this kind makes it possible to develop a mapping of the user’s knowledge and skills, such that it takes into account the interventions to be made to close the gap between position held and skills possessed.
Features and functions
Based on the above, we can take stock of the main features of an LXP:
- The user is the protagonist of his or her own training path, defining it independently based on his or her own learning needs and aspirations;
- Artificial Intelligence can facilitate the learning experience with suggestions that take into account requirements and goals;
- The algorithm is able to make suggestions due to the detected skills. They examine: gap between position and skills, training need expressed by the user, skills of other users on related topics;
- The user is at the center of the process and, thanks to AI, the company has full awareness of the notions it could learn, following a specific path.
These are the distinctive features of LXPs. How, however, do they represent a benefit to the user and the company?
Benefits in use
The main feature of LXPs is algorithm-assisted search.
This makes it possible to create content internally with which AI-suggested insights will be integrated based on user experience, allowing the user to sweep 360 degrees on one topic or switch to another based on affinities identified by the AI. An aspect, moreover, that is improving with the development and integration of increasingly powerful AI: ChatGPT can now offer you a range of recipes based on what you have in your refrigerator-imagine similar potential integrated into a Learning Experience Platform! The user’s educational experience thus becomes something even more personal and easy to manage independently by fostering proactivity.
Differences between LMS and LXP
LXPs are not the only platforms involved in training processes. There are also LMSs (learning management systems). One wonders, then, why the need for a different kind of platform was felt when LMSs, in their scope, were doing the job perfectly.
The reason lies in the major difference between LXP and LMS: that is, in the way learning and training is conceived.
On the one hand, we have LMSs for which everything has to be predetermined and programmed, step by step, down to the smallest detail, so that even tracking user behavior is facilitated throughout the course of the activity.
In this way, it is the structure of the training course that gets more attention, and the work of Instructional Designers is focused on making each narrative pathway immersive and engaging. Content is often delivered through microlearning methodology and articulated on a narrative track that may include moments of verification, gamified dynamics and other moments of interaction.
On the other hand, we have LXPs, the nature of which makes the structure of training paths much freer and more customizable, precisely because of the aspects mentioned above.
The center of everything is no longer the content or its structuring, but the user with his or her skills, actual knowledge, and needs. He thus becomes, in a sense, the chief designer of his own training, helping to create a pathway that places a number of carefully selected external resources alongside internal resources; although these resources are not traceable in the true sense of the word, it will always be possible to monitor the user’s choices, evaluating the goodness of this new pathway and the possibility of proposing it to other users as well.
LMS VS LXP. Which one to choose?
Having come this far, you will have realized that LMS and LXP are not completely overlapping in purpose, content, mode, and functionality. However, they can be to the effectiveness of training.
An LMS definitely turns out to be the preferable choice when one decides to maintain a more rigid control over the training process, since its ultimate goal is the achievement of well-defined learning objectives, to which the entire course must lead.
When, instead, to prefer a Learning Experience Platform?
In general, in all situations where you want to give the user more freedom, an LXP would seem to be the ideal solution.
Think, for example, of a context such asInformal Learning. Among its main obstacles, in fact, we had identified the problem of verifying the authoritativeness of materials. Something that an LXP, and its integrated AI, could provide more control over, while still leaving the user free to make his or her own choices. In addition to this, the learning experience can be enriched and complemented by the training proposals developed by the platform based on the choices made by the user; for example, based on a path, it is able to propose content that can be a good complement to those already selected.
It is, in essence, shadowing along the educational journey that the user chooses, without placing obligations. The helm remains in his hands, but LXP is his ideal right-hand man. In short, an unobtrusive counselor.
Will it be the future?
In recent years, LXPs have entered the training market and have proven to be a more than viable tool, to the point of igniting a debate about whether they are more or less effective than LMSs. A debate, as we have seen, with no real basis since both have strengths in which they excel. Are LXPs therefore the future? The most likely future prospect will be to accept the challenge of integrating the two platforms by combining the benefits of both into something new.
