How to Get Social with Totara Learn?

Discover how social learning LMS functionality transforms knowledge sharing in organisations

In today's rapidly evolving workplace, the most transformative learning happens not in boardrooms or training centres, but in the everyday exchanges between colleagues. According to Bersin by Deloitte, 80% of employee learning occurs in interactions with peers and supervisors in the workplace. At Hubken Group, we've witnessed this shift first-hand through over 20 years of delivering award-winning e-learning solutions to organisations across the UK and beyond.

After all, we’re social animals, so collaboration, sharing and personal interaction are central to enjoyable learning, and our physical remoteness has made that more apparent than ever.

Social learning functionalities enhance knowledge sharing by fostering a collaborative and interactive learning environment that transforms how organisations capture, share, and apply knowledge. This approach utilises social interactions like discussions, peer feedback, and shared content creation to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills across your entire workforce.

In this article, we look at why you need to develop a social learning strategy and how Totara’s existing functionality can help you deliver it.

The Four Pillars of Social Learning That Drive Knowledge Sharing

As Totara's longest-standing Platinum Alliance Partner in the UK, we've identified four critical ways social learning functionality transforms organisational knowledge sharing:

1. Facilitating Communication and Collaboration

Real-time interaction forms the backbone of effective knowledge sharing. Social learning platforms offer features like live chat and discussion forums, allowing for immediate communication and knowledge exchange. When a manufacturing technician encounters an equipment issue, they can instantly connect with experts across multiple locations, sharing photos and receiving real-time guidance.

Our award-winning Totara Learn implementations excel in this area. Totara Learn includes a range of different forum types. Learners can search for existing discussions on given specific topics and learn from others as well as share their own perspectives. This creates dynamic knowledge networks where expertise flows naturally across organisational boundaries.

Peer feedback capabilities ensure learners can provide and receive feedback on each other's work, fostering a supportive environment for improvement and knowledge refinement. We've seen compliance teams use peer review features to collectively improve safety procedures, creating more robust protocols through collaborative input.

Shared content creation represents a paradigm shift from top-down knowledge distribution to collaborative knowledge building. Platforms enable users to create and share content, such as articles, videos, and presentations, promoting a truly collaborative approach to organisational learning.

Most importantly, cross-functional knowledge sharing breaks down departmental silos by connecting individuals from different teams and departments. This encourages the sharing of diverse perspectives and expertise that would otherwise remain isolated.

2. Accelerating Knowledge Dissemination

Faster learning occurs when employees can learn from their peers' experiences and expertise, dramatically accelerating the learning process and reducing the time it takes to acquire new skills.

Increased engagement through social learning features like gamification and social streams makes learning more engaging and enjoyable, leading to higher participation and knowledge retention. Studies show that 78% of employees believe that social learning enhances their productivity and effectiveness at work.

User-generated content exponentially expands available knowledge resources. When employees become content creators, sharing their expertise through videos, wikis, and presentations, organisations tap into their collective intelligence. Just like Wikipedia, Totara Learn's wiki tool enables an individual or group to create a piece of content with all amendments and updates tracked so learners can see who changed what.

3. Fostering a Culture of Learning

Mentoring programs that pair experienced employees with less experienced ones facilitate systematic knowledge transfer and skill development. Our Totara Learn platform enables structured mentoring relationships while providing informal knowledge-sharing opportunities.

Open discussions create spaces for dialogue and knowledge sharing that encourage employees to ask questions, seek help, and contribute their own insights. These discussions often surface innovative solutions that wouldn't emerge through formal training channels.

Recognition and rewards for knowledge-sharing contributions motivate participation and create positive feedback loops. Gamification elements within an LMS, such as badges, leaderboards, or points, can encourage social interaction and healthy competition among learners

4. Enhancing Learning Outcomes

Improved knowledge retention results from social learning activities like discussions and peer feedback, which lead to better knowledge retention compared to passive learning methods. When learners have the opportunity to discuss, repeat and reflect on what they've learnt, there's more chance they'll remember and utilise what they've been taught.

Increased motivation stems from making learning more engaging, collaborative, and rewarding. Our clients consistently report higher completion rates and voluntary participation when social learning features are properly implemented.

Better problem-solving emerges from the collaborative nature of social learning, enabling teams to leverage diverse perspectives and expertise. Complex challenges that might stump individual contributors often find solutions through collective knowledge sharing.

Why Totara Learn Excels in Social Learning

Purpose-Built for Collaborative Knowledge Sharing

While many LMS vendors bolt on social features as afterthoughts, Totara was purpose-built for collaborative learning. Totara Learn's social learning capabilities aren't add-ons-they're integral to the platform's architecture:

Advanced Forum Architecture: Supporting topic-specific communities where knowledge naturally accumulates
Collaborative Workspaces: Create public, private, and hidden workspaces that mirror your organisational structure
Intelligent Content Recommendations: Combined with Totara's AI recommendations engine, you can ensure learners receive personalised content that is relevant to their role
Seamless Integration: Centralising social learning within the core LMS rather than requiring multiple disparate tools

Enterprise-Grade Social Learning Features

Many of our clients choose Totara Learn because it delivers robust social learning without compromising security. User-generated content, peer discussions, and collaborative projects all operate within enterprise-grade frameworks that meet stringent regulatory requirements.

Advanced collaboration tools allow you to create virtual sessions for learners to connect. You can set up groups of learners such as project groups and set up single or multiple groups potentially running these simultaneously or concurrently with a tutor dipping in and out to facilitate learning and interaction.

The Hubken Difference: 20+ Years of Social Learning Excellence

Proven Implementation Methodology

What sets Hubken apart isn't just our Platinum Alliance Partnership status with Totara - it's our battle-tested approach to LMS implementation and management that maximises knowledge sharing from day one. We've refined our methodology through hundreds of successful deployments across diverse industries.

Our comprehensive approach includes:

Knowledge Sharing Assessment: Helping you design and map community structures that mirror natural knowledge flows within your organisation
Analytics-Driven Optimisation: Using data to continuously improve knowledge sharing patterns

Award-Winning Results That Prove ROI

Our Brandon Hall Group Silver Award for Arriva's compliance solution, along with the multiple other Totara and industry awards that we've won over the years demonstrates how we transform your LMS into a platform that is truly special and unique. regulatory training into collaborative knowledge-sharing experiences.

See our full portfolio of award-winning case studies →

Dedicated Support That Scales

While some LMS providers place limits on support interactions, every Hubken client receives unlimited admin support underpinned with a dedicated account manager. Our UK-based team understands the unique challenges facing UK organisations and provides ongoing optimisation of your learning platform.

Moreover, unlike other most other Totara partners, Hubken provides Totara upgrades free of charge and have developed a hassle-free way of ensuring your Totara platform is always up-to-date with the latest features and security patches. This alone save our clients thousands of pounds every year!

Time to get social

We hope this has given you some food for thought about how to make social learning a bigger part of your online learning programme and why Hubken should be at the heart of it. We’re pretty sure that your learners will thank you for it.

Ready to see social learning in action? Book your free Totara Learn demo with one of our experts.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Totara Learn enable social learning and collaboration?

Totara Learn provides comprehensive social learning features including advanced forum types where learners can search existing discussions and share perspectives on specific topics.

The platform offers powerful seminar tools that allow you to create virtual sessions with project groups running simultaneously or concurrently, with tutors facilitating interaction.

Key collaborative features include wiki tools for group content creation with tracked amendments, chat functions for both ad-hoc and scheduled expert discussions, and assignment tools that enable group submissions with customisable parameters. These integrated social features transform passive learning into dynamic, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing experiences.

What are the key questions to ask before developing a social learning strategy?

Before implementing social learning, organisations should evaluate five critical areas:

whether your brand identity integrates into your LMS to create familiar, comfortable learning environments;
if learners are aware of and actively using discussion forums for collaboration;
whether users are creating comprehensive profiles with images or videos to represent themselves;
how easily learners can find both formal courses and informal content;
and if you can access user behavior data to understand how learners interact with content and each other.

Addressing these foundational elements ensures your social learning strategy aligns with organisational culture and user expectations for maximum adoption and engagement.

How do Totara Learn's workshop and assignment tools support peer collaboration?

Totara Learn's workshop tool enables advanced peer-to-peer assessment where learners grade each other's work based on instructor-defined criteria.

The system includes scoring mechanisms for both giving and receiving peer reviews, with built-in tools to identify potential bias or outlier reviews that may require attention.

Group assignment functionality allows instructors to set submission parameters requiring specific numbers of contributions from all group members, encouraging collaborative completion.

These tools create structured environments where learners develop critical thinking skills while building knowledge through peer interaction and feedback, essential for professional development and workplace collaboration.

What makes Totara Learn different from other LMS platforms for social learning?

Totara Learn stands apart through its purpose-built collaborative architecture that integrates social learning as core functionality rather than bolt-on features.

The platform offers unique capabilities including customisable forum types for topic-specific communities, flexible seminar tools supporting multiple concurrent groups, and comprehensive wiki functionality with full change tracking for collaborative content creation.

As an enterprise-grade solution, Totara Learn provides advanced user behavior analytics, seamless mobile collaboration, and robust security frameworks that meet regulatory requirements while maintaining engaging social learning experiences. This combination of flexibility, security, and genuine collaborative design makes it ideal for organisations serious about transforming knowledge sharing.

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