LMS comparison checklist

What should an LMS be compared on?

Put the same 60 questions to all three candidates, word for word. The answers separate in the nine categories below, and the call is made on the blanks in the 32 P1 must-haves rather than on a total score.

Items across 9 categories

P1 must-haves

Items TouchClass rates △ on itself

Download the checklist (60 rows, CSV) The 9-category decision table

The 60-item checklist

The question to ask first, and what disqualifies a candidate

Mark every P1 item where your current LMS is △ or × first, then check whether a candidate rates ◎ or ○ there. Where the candidate is also △, split it out as a pre-adoption task.

The nine LMS comparison categories — the question that decides each one, what disqualifies a candidate there, and how TouchClass rates itself
Category · P1 must-haves	The question that decides it	What disqualifies here	TouchClass
A. Learning strategy & outcomes 1–6 · P1 3	Can one slice be validated with 50–100 learners over four weeks, leaving the incumbent LMS in place?	Quotes only ever assume full replacement. Participation, completion and admin workload cannot be agreed as metrics up front	◎2 ○4
B. Learner experience & accessibility 7–14 · P1 4	Is the mobile app native — push, offline storage, biometrics — rather than a wrapped web view?	Progress on web, iOS and Android does not reconcile. The app is a browser window in a shell	◎6 ○2
C. Admin operations 15–22 · P1 6	Can an administrator go from assigning a target group to auto-judging completion and issuing the certificate, unaided?	Completion judgment, certificate issue or permission separation comes back as a vendor work request	◎4 ○4
D. Content, authoring & assessment 23–30 · P1 3	Can one of your own PDFs or slide decks become a course without code — and can you take that content out when the contract ends?	Ownership of customer-created content, and the export format on termination, appear nowhere in the contract	◎7 ○1
E. Engagement, LXP & AI 31–38 · P1 0	Is the demo filling its time here while P1 blanks in A–D and G are still open?	No P1 item here is deliberate. A proposal that covers gaps in other categories with features from this one has the order backwards	◎7 △1
F. Data & analytics 39–45 · P1 3	Does an administrator download the non-login and non-completion reports, or ask the vendor for them?	Report export is a vendor request. AI analysis output feeds promotion, appraisal or compensation unfiltered	◎5 ○1 △1
G. Security & privacy 46–53 · P1 8	Will they hand over the certificate itself, its certified scope and its validity period as documents?	Certification is answered as "we hold it" with no scope or expiry. Any one of data residency, encryption at rest and in transit, or SSO is unsupported	◎6 ○1 △1
H. Integration & scale 54–57 · P1 2	Will they quote the method, cost and timeline of HRIS and groupware integration separately, now?	Integration cost stays "to be discussed separately". There is no written peak-concurrency load-test result	◎2 ○2
I. Implementation, cost & contract 58–60 · P1 3	What is the three-year total once setup, content migration, integration and operational support are added to the licence?	Only an annual licence is quoted; setup, migration, data export and notice terms are absent	◎2 ○1

All 60 items, available as a CSV download

Nine columns: priority (P1 32 / P2 27 / P3 1), how to verify, owning function, a blank "Current LMS" and the TouchClass rating. No form, no login.

Download the CSV (60 rows)

The ratings are based on the FAQ, security and certifications, integrations and pricing pages. The item set draws on World Learning LMS RFP, WCAG 2.2, ISO/IEC 27001, ISMS-P and NIST SP 800-63.

Disclosure

The three items TouchClass rated △ on itself

Across the 60 items the ratings come out ◎ 41, ○ 16, △ 3 and × 0. Split the three below out as pre-adoption tasks.

Item 35 · E

Skills graph and career paths

Interest-keyword curation and personalized recommendation are supported. A structured role-and-competency skills graph, with career paths built on it, takes separate design work.

To prepare: a role-to-skill sample table, HRIS fields and the pilot's target roles.

Item 43 · F

Separation from high-stakes HR decisions

The AI recommendation and analysis features exist. Keeping their output apart from promotion, appraisal and compensation is not something a product feature settles alone. It takes the customer's data-use policy, a human review step and audit logs.

To prepare: an AI-use disclosure, a human review procedure and a permission policy.

Item 53 · G

Screen-capture prevention

Capture logging, masking and watermarking are supported. On iOS, complete blocking is an OS-level constraint and is not claimed; the response level is defined by combining logs, masking, watermarks and download policy.

To prepare: capture test results, the download policy and the security notice shown to learners.

Zero × is not a boast. These 60 questions come out of the operating scope TouchClass works in, so a favourable self-rating is structurally inevitable. Compare the tables the candidates filled in themselves rather than ranking on a total. Content packaging standards such as SCORM and xAPI sit outside these 60 items, so an organization that must migrate existing SCORM assets should add that as a separate P1 and put it to every candidate.

Demo design

Covering all 60 items in five demos

Tell every candidate in advance which item numbers each session covers, and the conditions stay equal.

Time a file conversion
Turn one of your own files into mobile content and short-form — and time it. Attending: L&D. Items covered 23, 24, 27, 28
Use the learner app first-hand
Use the learner app first-hand: enrol, comment, save, receive a push. Attending: L&D, learner reps. Items covered 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 31
Run the full admin path
In the admin console, go from assigning a target group to issuing a certificate. Attending: L&D, audit. Items covered 15, 16, 17, 18, 21
Live or QR attendance in parallel
Run one live or QR-attendance session in parallel. Attending: L&D, business. Items covered 20, 33
Reports against security evidence
Review the statistics reports and the security evidence together. Attending: IT, privacy, audit. Items covered 39, 40, 46, 47, 51, 52

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Should we pick whichever product scores highest?

A total score is a function of how many items there are and how they are weighted, which favours whoever wrote the questions. Mark the P1 items where the current LMS is × or △, then check whether a candidate rates ◎ or ○ there. Where the candidate is also △, that is a pre-adoption task.

Can we compare without replacing the LMS we already run?

Keep the first evaluation to 50–100 learners, four weeks, one training task and one or two KPIs, and leave the incumbent in place. Running one slice alongside it needs no integration to start, and before-and-after pilot reports turn the call into a number.

How far should security be checked?

All eight security items, 46 to 53, are P1. Do not stop at whether a certification is held. Request the certificate itself, the certified scope, the validity period and the surveillance-audit history, then cross-check them against the data-processing agreement. TouchClass holds ISMS-P and ISO/IEC 27001, with data in the AWS Seoul region (security and certifications).

Can the checklist be sent to candidate vendors?

All 60 items are published as a CSV with no form and no login. The "Current LMS" column ships empty, so candidates can fill it in on the same scale (◎3 / ○2 / △1 / ×0) and the comparison table assembles itself. A response with no △ anywhere is itself worth noting.