LMS Solution for Simple Partner Compliance Training

Background / Requirements

I’m just starting consulting with a company that has a single course (might eventually be broken into a few different course) that needs to be delivered to an audience of 600-1000 partners as part of a larger certification process.  Thus, they need to be able to report back out who’s completed the courses.  Courses will be authored using a Rapid Authoring Tool.  This may grow to be a little bit more than this, but likely not much.

So, that’s a pretty simple set of LMS requirements.  It worries me just a bit that I might be missing something important that will turn into a Learning Management Systems (LMS) Selection Gotcha?

Fast Selection

And while this wasn’t the basis for the post One Week to Select an LMS – No Way, it’s a situation where I’m not seeing the need to spend a lot of time going into a detailed selection process. But it’s almost like my background with and knowledge of all the different LMS products (see LMS Satisfaction Features and Barriers, Low Cost Learning Management Systems, Rapid Learning Management Systems and Open Source Learning Management Systems) feels like it’s hurting me in this task. 

Current Thinking

So, without a lot of thought, here’s what I’m currently thinking and I hope folks will weigh in…

I was a little surprised when I realized how much some of the mainstream SaaS LMS products (Articulate Online, Learn.com, etc.) would cost.  Something like $500/mo.  And we wouldn’t really be using much of the functionality.

We are definitely considering doing something like a hosted Moodle solution.  Pricing is very attractive on some of these.  However, the interface and user interaction doesn’t quite align with what we want.  Still , it’s definitely in the running and other than interface, I’m not sure what I’d get with other LMS solutions that I don’t get with Moodle. 

I’m also looking at whether we could just put the content on one of the social learning hubs such as LearnHub, Coggno, odijoo which seem to offer a way to put this up for a very attractive price (Free).  We have the advantage that the content here is not sensitive, so if someone else took it, more power to them.  I don’t have direct experience with these systems and worry a bit about the risk associated with doing it this way.  Thoughts?  Anyone have much experience using these social learning hubs for that kind of purpose?

What else should I consider?