Need an LMS? Look at Inquisiq EX. June 28, 2007
Posted by B.J. Schone in eLearning.Tags: Development, eLearning, LMS, SCORM, Tools
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I’ve heard so many LMS horror stories over the past year that I thought I’d share the great experience that I have with my LMS vendor at work. We use Inquisiq EX, which is offered by ICS Learning Group. Inquisiq EX is a very affordable LMS which is available as a hosted service or as a behind-the-firewall installation. We installed it almost a year ago, and it has turned out to be one of the best decisions we’ve made. (This is not a paid advertisement, I swear.)
Features
Inquisiq EX has all of the basic features of an LMS. You can upload and track SCORM-compliant lessons, manage information for live training sessions, manage users and groups (or connect to an external user directory), organize courses in a course catalog, and more. If Inquisiq EX doesn’t have a feature you desire, chances are ICS can develop it for you. They’ve done a bunch of custom work for us, and it’s been well worth the money.
Customer Service and Support
I’ve had nothing but excellent customer service from ICS. They’re always quick to respond, via email and phone, and they never get sick of my questions (which surprises me).
I won’t hide the fact that we occasionally encounter small bugs with Inquisiq, but thankfully we haven’t run into any show-stoppers. If we do encounter issues, ICS responds immediately and provides a fix. (I think we’d all be fooling ourselves if we thought there was any type of bug-free information system.)
ICS also has an online ticketing system for tracking support issues and an online knowledgebase.
Convenience
I fully realize that there are some excellent (and free) open-source LMSs out there. However, I run a one-person eLearning department and I don’t have time to tinker with the LMS software or be responsible for its uptime; that’s not my area of expertise. Inquisiq gives me the ability to focus on my courses – and not worry about the LMS.
Do Your Homework, But Remember Inquisiq EX
The eLearning Guild has done some great research on LMS vendors. Check out the research reports if you are seriously in the hunt for an LMS, but make sure you take a look at Inquisiq EX. I don’t believe they are featured in the report because they aren’t one of the BIG players. (Brent Schlenker – if you’re reading this, please get ICS Learning Group some visibility!! They deserve it, big time, for having such a quality product.)
Read more about Inquisiq EX here.
B.J. Schone
Eric Matas
kevinthorn
eLearning Weekly 
I have to echo your comments about customer service. At my last job we used Inquisiq and while I did not deal directly with ICS, I only heard good things about their support and willingness to help. I never heard any complaints about them, and my experience with the software was very good. I’m researching LMS solutions now for my new job and they are on my short list because of their reputation and price.
B.J.,
I appreciate the kind words about the eLearning Guild’s research.
As for getting ICS Learning Group some exposure, here what needs to happen:
1) A tool/service provider needs to create a profile at http://supplier.elearningguild.com.
2) Once this is done (and the company and its associated products and services are approved), Guild members can “find” this company’s products, indicate that they use it, rate it, etc.
It looks like ICS Learning Group recently created a profile and added its products to the Guild’s supplier database. If you are a Guild member you should log into the Guild web site, update your profile, and indicate that you use Inquisiq EX and rate it as you see fit. You should then take the Guild’s LMS survey as weigh-in on the product.
And ICS Learning Group should tells its clients to join the Guild so we can get some measures on the product.
Steve Wexler
Director of Research and Emerging Technologies
The eLearning Guild
B.J.,
Thanks for this piece on “non establishment LMS’s”. Its quite difficult for some of the newer and better LMS vendors to break through the noise to get our products reviewed and exposed on the Guild or other elearning directories. I should know .. our eLeaP™ Learning Management System (LMS/LCMS) is one of the few simple, secure and scalable LMS platforms out there. Complete with e-commerce modules, reseller modules and total SSL encryption for course ware.
Great support is absolutely critical, hence our multi-tiered support system: phone, fax, email, online support system and in person live support.
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