What’s the Best Way to Assign Learning: Learning Paths, Checklists, or Certifications?

 At a Glance

• Learning Paths allow you to bundle a set of courses into a structured training program. Learners progress through the required and elective courses in the learning path. Learning paths are the foundation of course-based training in the LMS and are typically assigned through groups or directly to individual learners. For additional flexibility, you can use categories to group learning paths.
• Checklists add the ability to assign a broader mix of activities beyond LMS courses — including resources, external tasks, text instructions, and sub-tasks — along with stronger administration capabilities such as due dates and points of contact. Checklists are ideal when learners need to complete activities beyond just completing courses; new hire onboarding is a typical use case for checklists.
• Certifications add sophisticated administration, tracking, versioning, and credentialing to the training pathway. They are designed for formal certification programs that require exam-based validation, ongoing recertification, approval workflows, certificate issuance, and lifecycle management. Use Certifications when training completion alone is not sufficient — when you need to formally certify, track expiration, and recertify learners over time.

Choosing the Right Approach

Use Learning Paths when...

• You need to assign a sequence of courses to learners and want them to progress through the content in a structured way.
• Your training is primarily course-based and does not require activities outside the LMS.
• You want to organize courses into required and elective groupings within a single program.

Learning paths are the right tool when the goal is straightforward course completion. They are not the best choice for activities that happen outside the LMS, approvals, expiration, or formal credentialing.

Use Checklists when...

• Your program includes activities that are not LMS courses — such as reading a document, completing a form, attending a meeting, or submitting a file for review.
• You need to assign due dates to individual tasks and track overdue items
• You need to automatically assign due dates relative to a learner’s hire date (e.g., complete a task within their first week on the job).
• You want to designate a point of contact for specific tasks, so learners know who to reach out to.

Employee onboarding is the most common use case for checklists, since new employees typically need to complete a mix of training, paperwork, introductions, and other activities that span multiple systems and formats.

Use Certifications when...

• You need to formally certify learners — not just track course completion but issue a meaningful certification that represents demonstrated competency.
• A learning curriculum culminates with a final exam and you want the system to enforce and track that requirement that learners pass the exam.
• There is a need to recertify on an ongoing basis (for example, a learner must meet a set of initial requirements to get a certification, then must undergo annual recertification).
• Learners can satisfy the same training requirement through different methods (online course, external training, test-out, or classroom).
• Enrollment or credit requires admin review and approval.

Certifications are the most capable and most complex of the four options. They are the right choice when compliance, credentialing, or professional development programs require a formal, auditable record of certification that persists over time.

 Capability Comparison

The table below compares the capabilities of each approach. Use it as a reference when deciding which feature fits your needs.