Choosing a learning management system is a five-to-ten-year commitment in disguise — migrating student records, course content, and integrations later is expensive and disruptive. This checklist is for academic IT leaders, training directors, and L&D teams running an LMS vendor evaluation before a purchase or renewal decision.
Before You Start
- [ ] Identify who owns the final decision, and who has veto power (IT security, procurement, faculty/instructor representatives)
- [ ] List every existing system the LMS must talk to: student information system (SIS), HR platform, payment/billing tools, gradebook, and single sign-on provider
- [ ] Set a weighting scheme before you see a single demo — decide upfront how much security, usability, and integration each count for (e.g., security 20%, usability 30%, integration 25%, cost 25%)
- [ ] Confirm your historical data retention needs: do completion dates, assessment scores, and certification timestamps need to migrate with full audit trail continuity for regulatory purposes?
Core Functionality
- [ ] Can instructors build and structure courses without submitting a ticket to IT?
- [ ] Does it support the assessment types you actually use — quizzes, rubric-based grading, peer review, proctored exams?
- [ ] Does it handle your content formats: video, SCORM/xAPI packages, interactive media, live session embeds?
- [ ] Does it support offline or low-bandwidth access if your learners need it?
Integration and Data
- [ ] Does the vendor provide a documented API for import/export, not just a one-time CSV migration?
- [ ] Will an LMS that doesn't natively connect to your SIS or HR system create more manual work than it saves? (Nearly half of institutions report LMS integration as a persistent pain point — get this answered before signing.)
- [ ] Ask directly: what happens to historical grade and completion data if we switch vendors again in five years?
- [ ] Confirm single sign-on (SSO) support for your existing identity provider (SAML/OAuth/Google Workspace/Microsoft Entra)
Security, Privacy, and Accessibility
- [ ] Confirm compliance posture for the regulations that apply to you — FERPA for US education, GDPR/DPDP for international or Indian learners
- [ ] Request a current WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility conformance report, not just a verbal assurance
- [ ] Confirm data residency and backup/disaster-recovery terms in writing
- [ ] Check role-based access control granularity — can you restrict what a teaching assistant sees versus a full instructor?
Vendor Evaluation Scorecard
| Criterion | Weight | Score (1–5) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course authoring & assessment tools | 20% | Test with a real instructor, not a sales demo | |
| SIS/HR/SSO integration depth | 25% | Ask for a reference client on your specific SIS | |
| Security & compliance (FERPA/GDPR/WCAG) | 20% | Request documentation, not assurances | |
| Total cost of ownership (3-year) | 20% | Include implementation, migration, and per-seat scaling costs | |
| Support & implementation timeline | 15% | Get a named onboarding lead, not a generic support queue |
Red Flags to Watch For
- No documented API for data import/export — only a one-time migration service
- Accessibility claims with no current VPAT or WCAG conformance report
- Pricing that scales unpredictably per active user without a cap or negotiated tier
- Reference clients who all use a different SIS/HR stack than yours
How to Use This Checklist
Score every finalist against the same weighted scorecard, with the same evaluators, using the same test scenarios. Where the LMS needs to connect to your SIS or HR system and the vendor's "integration" is really just CSV exports, treat that as build-vs-buy signal rather than a checkbox — custom middleware is often cheaper than the workaround cost of a bad fit.