We took the most popular LMS and compared their dashboards. This research was for our inner use at first. But we thought you’d like it too.

First, let’s see what we were looking for.

How to Compare LMS Dashboards & Analytics

When you start comparing different K-12 LMS, it can quickly get confusing. Someone new to EdTech wouldn’t know what to look for. But it’s not so complicated.

Here are the main questions to ask:

• Does it support experience tracking?
• What can the dashboard tell you?
• How expensive is it?

Does It Support Experience Tracking: xAPI & Caliper?

Without experience tracking, you will have pretty basic analytics. This is the first thing to check when comparing dashboards in LMSs.

If you don’t know what it is, this article explains experience tracking standards like xAPI, Caliper, or SCORM. Take a look at it for an in-depth guide.

But here’s the main idea.

Fifteen years ago, there was SCORM. Learning analytics was basic. If your LMS supported SCORM, you could check simple progress data about your students.

The analytics were only collected from browser LMS. Mobile apps weren’t around yet, neither were AR, VR, or simulations.

Interestingly, many years ago all LMS assignments had to be passed online. If students lost internet access during the test, they had to start over.

All you could analyze were:

• Grades;
• Progress and completion;
• Attendance.

Not bad, but also not very in-depth.

Today, we have xAPI and Caliper. With these specifications, you can analyze data about any student action. Mobile or desktop, offline or online.

eLearning developed a lot over the years. We have videos, simulations, and learning games. But how do you check student progress there? SCORM is not going to help much, but xAPI and Caliper analytics will.

Here are the types of things you can check today:

• At which moments do students pause or rewind a video?
• Has a student opened new browser tabs while passing an online test?
• Did a surgery student make the correct incision in a VR simulator?

Anything students do can be analyzed. So, if you want in-depth reports, make sure that the LMS supports xAPI or Caliper Analytics.

xAPI and Caliper are very similar technically. Caliper is made for perfect LTI compliance. Meanwhile, xAPI is the successor of SCORM.

Some apps only support xAPI, while others have Caliper. If your LMS supports both, you can integrate more games and tools into your ecosystem.

What Can the Dashboard Tell You?

Let’s say you’ve collected a lot of student experience data. You have a spreadsheet that keeps history about all the log-ins, course views, grades, and so on.

What are you going to do with this data? It’s not processed yet, so it’s hard to make sense of.

The LMS should have a good way of displaying the information. Charts, tables, filters, and reports should give you a 360 understanding of your system.

Here’s what you can expect from a robust LMS:

• Adoption Reports to understand your investments. Schools can buy lots of software. Adoption reports show which of the tools actually help your students grow. Track course enrollments and see how often the learning tools are accessed.
• Check course quality. Design better courses and see how content correlates with engagement and grades. See which parts of the content are skipped through or paused.
• Understand the learners. Identify at-risk and exceptional students. Learn what drives their performance. Compare grades with district results. Track last course access, assignment completions, or time spent consuming content.
• Use AI tools that analyze student performance.
• Personalized learning programs with AI. Analyze student performance and create optimal learning paths. Monitor performance to locate at-risk students.
• Create custom reports and AI models. Get customized data and charts.

Whether you are a school administrator, educator, or K-12 content provider, you can use analytics to your advantage.