Previewed at ASTD 2014 in the USA and launched around the world on the following day, this latest version of the LMS software as a service (SaaS) from the disruptive cloud eLearning- solutions provider facilitates new ways of enhancing users’ engagement in learning.

"The idea behind gamification is that if you can help your employees to enjoy - even a little bit - what they do, you should reap rewards in terms of employee motivation and productivity," explained Josh Squires, the Chief Operating Officer of Docebo EMEA.

Alessio Artuffo, Docebo’s Chief Operating Officer in North America, added, "You implement gamification by running competitions against your performance objectives, learning goals, or key performance indicators (KPIs), making sure you set the pace of competition and ensuring the top performers are displayed on a leader board. It’s also important that you reward your participants - even the ones who’re struggling in comparison with the others."

This process of adding motivational elements within a learning framework or system to increase user engagement is based upon game theory and game mechanics. While it takes a systematic approach to rewards and recognition programs, it adds a human incentive layer and provides an effective motivation framework.

This means the use of leader boards, badges, and high scores, as well as competitions with announcements of the winners. Winners get tangible rewards for doing good work in a safely competitive environment.

Docebo’s LMS version 6.3 introduces a gamification app that allows administrators to create badges – or awards – that learners can win for achieving things inside the LMS. Earning these badges creates a ranking for each user.

"Gamification can be a powerful tool within your learning-and-development arsenal," said Docebo’s Josh Squires, "but, initially, you need to gather data, talk to experts, and begin with some pilot projects to see what works for your work culture.

"Nonetheless, identifying learning and skills-development strategies that are easy to relate to within a technologically familiar environment is paramount for a successful human resources or training department.  Gamification is a great starting place – and the new version of the Docebo LMS makes it all possible."

Version 6.3 of Docebo’s LMS also addresses the growing concern among learning-and- development (L&D) departments around the world for both a larger quantity and quality of social learning – which can result in higher levels of worker engagement. One way to build engaging, enjoyable online courses is to design an interactive course with advanced gamification features; another is to deliver a course online within a social-learning environment.

"If you want to build engaging, enjoyable, and effective online courses, you have to know about – and use - social widgets," commented Claudio Erba, Docebo’s CEO. "The new social widgets in Docebo 6.3 allow for trainers to design fully interactive courses, which, in turn, makes learning more effective."

Some of the new social widgets within the Docebo LMS are

• forum: a place for discussion, free or moderated, on one or many topics
• comments: a place to leave opinions, feedback, or questions about a course
• assignment: a place where learners can upload new materials and share them with other users or with the teacher / trainer
• blog: a place to express ideas and share these directly with the learning community, as well as rate posts and comments in order to make their learning process more interactive, engaging, and social.

All these widgets are shown on the same page as a course, allowing developers to create a completely interactive and social environment to achieve the desired learning goals.

"The Docebo LMS’s social widgets - comments, forum, blog and assignment - are easy to setup, and learners find them easy to use," said Alessio Artuffo. "Trainers can customize the environment for each course to ensure users get what they really need."

Docebo’s other new product features enhance web-based training (WBT), instructor-led training (ILT), and blended learning. In particular, the time-zone feature, a new feature located in the Advanced Settings area of the software, allows administrators to deploy online and blended training seamlessly around the globe, taking into account the world’s different time zones.

"The Docebo LMS connects people to knowledge, knowledge to people, and people to people," said Claudio Erba. "Its easily applied technology helps remove the barriers to humanizing workplace learning.

"We believe that the extra features in this new version of our software platform further enhance our product offering and will amplify user-driven learning experiences. In turn, this will further help to make learning engaging, increase knowledge retention, and, hence, facilitate the transfer and application of that knowledge to the workplace."