The age of online classes has been picking up momentum lately. The idea of attending lectures or training from the comfort of your home has persuaded many educational institutions and businesses to invest in Virtual Classrooms.
The learners now value Quality Education + Convenience. This led to numerous coaching academies and businesses starting – eLearning. eLearning makes it possible to cater to individual needs and vastly improve the learning methodologies.
The recent COVID-19 disruption and the possibility of other pandemics further cemented the importance of online learning. Physical classes are unable to navigate these difficult situations with ease. Such institutions find it hard to cope with these challenges.
The on-going digital transformation and the upcoming 5G networking standard will further increase the urge for online classes. The constant lag and bandwidth issues during online streaming sessions will become a thing of the past.
All the above reasons warranted an immediate upgrade to eLearning & this was made possible via the Learning Management System (LMS).
What is Learning Management System (LMS) and What should it include?
Learning Management System (LMS) is an eCommerce application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of educational courses and training programs.
Depending on the needs of the organization, an LMS will come to include a plethora of features and functionalities. Some of the indispensable possibilities required within an LMS are listed below.
- A clean & easy to use interface for both administrators and learners.
- Low implementation and life-cycle costs – easy course registration and management.
- Compatibility with mobile devices.
- Gamification elements to reward, rank and increase retention of learners.
- Powerful safety features to ensure the data stays secure and corruption-free.
- Data extraction to get insights that’ll improve, regulate and refine learning.
- High level of automation – with very little LMS administration support.
Top Benefits of eLearning for Owners
Let's go through all the benefits that institutions and businesses gain by implementing an effective Learning Management System (LMS).
Scalability
Accommodating new users, course material, or any other kind of expansion will not become an issue with LMS. The ability to integrate more requirements with ease is what makes LMS such a preferred learning tool.
A proper LMS will support your organization as it grows. It is not restricted to the preliminary model and can upgrade to include any new development. Now, take your company to unimaginable heights with an evolving LMS.
Recurring Revenue
The Subscription model of online courses ensures a steady stream of revenue. The course content stays online. New users will buy the course content, across a lifetime for as long as it is relevant and informative.
Some go as far as creating the content once and selling it forever – without adding any extra value. LMS is a system where the uploaded study materials can be purchased on and on. Under the renewal model, users stick around – hence the flow of funds never stops.
Reduce Costs
Offline classes collect hefty expenses. The expenses come to include rents, utility bills, labor, and other miscellaneous costs. But, when you take these classes online, you'd mitigate these charges to a great extent. All the study material is now digitized, saving you enormous money. The need to print out thousands of copies of notes, booklets, training guides, and other paperwork becomes redundant.
Top Benefits of eLearning for Tutors
Ease of Teaching
Tutors can now take these classes from a place that is suitable and convenient for them. There is no need to pull themselves to a coaching center every day. The online interface helps even to record endless hours of classes in a stretch and upload all of it in one shot. The plethora of features and functionalities further simplifies the teaching standards. Also, they can schedule a live session at a time that is convenient for them.
Analytics
The inbuilt analytic tools also helps the trainers to pinpoint areas within the course that need more polishing. The tools help with monitoring the performance of students. The same tools help to identify struggling learners. Aside from detecting modules that need a little bit of fine-tuning.
With sophisticated reporting, it becomes possible to craft unique strategies for a learner. On top of that, measure the impact of your learning programs. Doing so, your company gains a ton of intricate details to polish and restructure the courses.
Gathering data helps to make informed decisions. The use of analytics helps to create personalized assessments and learning materials. LMS also allows companies to track progress. The progress helps to identify areas that need further improvement in real-time.
Advanced Tools
The wide array of features and functionalities create an engaging and interactive learning experience for users. Such features also make it possible to improve the delivery of subject matter to learners. They, too, find it easy to comprehend complicated info. Peer collaboration is also possible – via chats and discussion forums.
The use of charts, graphs, 3D modeling, and other engaging tools ensures there is no drop in the Quality of learning. Use captivating animations to put your point across. Thereby conveying the subject matter better and enhancing the impact of your training. The High production value of LMS courses increases retention and engagement.
Automation
A lot of manual chores like grading, assessments, roll-call, and other miscellaneous time-consuming tasks can be left to LMS. As a result, teachers focus on the needs of learners and on improving the curriculum standards.
The automation makes it possible to give feedback immediately. This is due to the inbuilt mechanism which reviews coursework in a matter of seconds. With eLearning, it’s quick and easy to pull all the measurable data. Gather information like course completion, engagement numbers, time log, and more directly from the LMS.
Top Benefits of eLearning for Students
Besides the apparent reduction in time as learners no longer need to shuffle between coaching centers and their home – there's a wide list of other benefits of eLearning.
Continuity
In a scenario, where your offline classrooms are affected by any disruption – the faculty and students remain confined and vulnerable. But such an event can be circumvented if eLearning is in place. Natural calamities can strike and make it difficult to reach such places.
Virtual classrooms happen from anywhere in the world. Learners have the convenience to adjust the classes according to their schedule. Learners get to drive the course at their own pace. Due to which learners no longer need to expose themselves to outside threats.
Convenience
When the classes shift online, the learners no longer need to drag themselves to their academies every day at a fixed time. In fact, with eLearning, students get to figure out a learning schedule that is convenient for them.
In the earlier scenario, learners would need to attend the classes at a particular time slot. But, eLearning can be adjusted around their schedule. Pre-recorded online sessions allow students the opportunity even to attend skipped or missed classes.
Finance
Running back and forth between the institution and the home is exhausting and expensive. Learners would have to bear the transportation costs. The costs would come in the form of fuel costs, ticket charges, or any other commuting expense. Thereby costing the individual hefty charges on top of what they’d be paying for their classes anyways. But, with eLearning, they no longer need to worry about this issue.
Fewer Distractions
In your personal space, you are less likely to encounter unknown elements and other irrelevant people. A familiar environment means learners stay more calm and relaxed while learning. A soothing learning experience is conducive to knowledge retention and a better understanding of concepts. It allows the learners to submerge themselves in the curriculum without worrying about surrounding interference.
Top Benefits of eLearning for Course Creators
There are many resources available for those who are new to eLearning course creation. These handy benefits provide creators a unique way to create a beneficial course. Such courses, then help learners succeed, and stay accountable for their training.
Microlearning
The new way to deliver a packed, informative, and productive learning experience. What we have come to know as short and sweet can be accomplished. LMS allows course creators to squeeze all the vital content into one neat and crisp package.
When course creators make the course and its modules - right to the point, they’re able to keep the attention of their candidates for longer. Also, learners are more likely to opt for such a course knowing that they’d have a qualification and necessary knowledge sooner.
Course Builder
Course creators can easily create and sell courses. The ability to drag and drop within a course builder allows them to develop multi-layered courses easily. Not just that, but course creators get to reuse their content - making it easy to spin-up new courses.
Aside from this, deliver quizzes, award certificates, manage learners, download reports, and much more. All you need to do- set the price, choose the pricing model, and publish it on top of the ability to interact with learners.
Multi-language
The ability to build courses in any language lets course creators penetrate new regions and access other demographics. When your course creation interface gives support for many languages – it becomes easy to change the language used in any part of your site.
Such an LMS will optimize the user experience by localizing the process and put an end to geographical boundaries. Learners can easily switch between languages - at the click of a button. As a result, you shorten implementation times and increase user adoption.
Gamification
Multimedia and other interactive elements make it possible to simplify course content. Such features assist in delivering a better teaching experience. With the help of this, content creators can set a better and stronger narrative around their syllabus. The use of rich animation will also improve engagement and increase retention times.
Content Management
Content management is another useful and necessary component. CMS supports the latest international standards (SCORM and Tin Can/xAPI) for eLearning. Beyond this, the management system allows upload of documents, videos exams & links to web content hosted elsewhere.
How Can Virtina Help with the Learning Management System for a Better eLearning Experience?
Here’s everything that the eCommerce experts at Virtina can do to assist you in implementing an Learning Management System (LMS).
Omnichannel
LMS makes it possible to give a consistent experience across all touchpoints. It is easy to deploy the training on multiple sites. Ensure uniformity in learning and the delivery of messages across several locations.
Learners can access info from anywhere. A seamless cross-platform learning experience means there is no need to be native to any one platform. The features of LMS help to gather and reflect on the data from the previous experience with ease. Even physical deliverability and mobile learning come true – as distributing study content becomes uncomplicated.
Payments
Any unauthorized intrusion will also compromise any sensitive information. The experts in Virtina can integrate a secure and swift payment gateway.
It'll handle all the recurring payments from the subscription model. The same payment solution will deduct a pre-decided fee on a timely basis.
Be it credit card, debit card, PayPal, Gift Cards, or anything else – we’ll select the one that meets your requirements after analyzing the service provider costs and required features. Without the payment aspect, you would not be able to monetize your courses.
Migration
If your LMS system fails to deliver, then it’s time for a switch. When the LMS doesn’t support active engagement, meaningful connections, easy communication, and formative feedback – you know it’s getting dumped.
The inability to scale is another reason for migration. When the in-built features or incoming add-ons are not as effective as they should be, then expect a transition to another LMS.
Such institutions are often unclear about the LMS and sit facing multiple issues that never get resolved – not knowing about migration. The experts guide you through the entire migration cycle and help to move to another LMS with ease.
Certificates
The need for rewarding learners after they have cleared a particular tier is essential to make them feel valued for their earnest efforts and participation. Certificates are another way to show the credibility of your course. As such, most institutions can't do without this in their LMS.
Companies require the ability to manage certification templates and work with predefined certification templates. Beyond this, be able to create a unique certificate by course or curriculum. So, reward your users and achieve higher enrolment rates while keeping them engaged until the completion of the course.
LMS Selection and Integration
Often, the LMS selection is left to biased analysts. The analysts might recommend the least effective and misaligned learning solution. This ends up costing the company in the long run. Also, with many LMS's in the market, selecting the best platform becomes quite overwhelming.
It would help if you had the expert guidance of professionals here to help you pick the right LMS system. We ensure that the LMS is in perfect sync with your teaching or learning requirements. We install the LMS that includes the right set of features to meet your business needs. Virtina looks to gain an in-depth understanding of your company before picking an LMS platform.
The industry is full of choices, and it can feel tedious to weed through all the different LMS solutions. Leave the selection process to us. We are capable of performing the daunting task of selecting the right LMS. The perfect LMS will come to meet and may even exceed your expectations.
Physical Products
Even though the courses will serve as the principal source of income, it is possible to invest in other avenues to multiply your earnings. One thing to do is to sell educational materials on the site, which turns your site into a full-fledged eCommerce store.
The products here could come to include books, CDs, pen drives, or other merchandise for your brand. This part of the site will be accessed by users who aren't subscribed to any of the courses. Thereby not limiting the audience that can buy from your site. In other words, even guests can access this side of the site and buy goods.
Subscription Model
The subscription-based learning system means you need to have a model where all the registered users are carefully charged, and their subscriptions are renewed on time. This model mustn't create an overlap over the existing Subscription and incurring extra charges.
Complex implementation requires astute developers. The expert developers must be familiar with the ins & outs of a subscription system. The last thing you’d want is to start another subscription for the pre-registered users.
Popular Learning Management System (LMS) Platforms
There’s no limit to the number of platforms out there to fulfill eLearning requirements. Thus to save your time, we have listed the best and most popular LMS platforms.
Thinkific
Thinkific comes with a strong set of user-friendly features, email marketing tools, membership site integration. On top of that, you get to an admirable 24/7 customer support. Their growth package offers course creators high-powered tools to scale their eLearning business.
They have a free plan, basic plan ($49/month), pro plan (99$/month), and a premier plan, which costs $499/month. In the basic package, you only get to test the core features. However, the premier plan is perfect for advanced customers that are ready to build an education empire.
Teachable
Teachable is another popular learning platform – it is fully responsive, gives multi-language support, quiz creation, course compliance, student feedback, and so much more. You can even leverage a wide variety of built-in marketing tools to grow your business. Aside from this, get a comprehensive dashboard, course-wide student insights and SSL certificate.
The basic plan starts at $29/month, the professional plan is priced at $99/month, and the business plan at $299/month. All three plans come with Instant payouts & the ability to add unlimited students. No transaction fees, graded quizzes, advanced reports, and priority product support is available in the professional and business plan.
TalentLMS
TalentLMS is a cloud-based learning platform that is ideal for creating online courses and sharing them with remote teams. It offers the best online training solution. The mobile compatibility allows you to access training from anywhere. Also, TalentLMS features a Files repository, restrictive learning paths and an assessment engine for extensive reporting.
The automation helps to put repetitive administrative tasks on autopilot. The analytics helps to generate reports and make better decisions. They have a range of plans, starting from the free plan all the way up to the premium plan that costs $429/month. The higher plans support more users, unlimited courses and unlimited email support.
Learndash
Learndash is another widely popular online course platform that integrates with WordPress. The platform has a powerful feature called focus mode. Focus mode is a dedicated virtual learning environment to remove any distractions. Besides this, the platform also includes the ability to award points, create dynamic forums and build powerful courses.
The Learndash basic package starts at $159/month, the plus package is $189/month, and the Pro package is $329/month. All the packages are equipped with advanced quizzing, certificates and badges, course forums, drip-feed lessons, email notifications and more.
Selection of Learning Management System (LMS) Isn't a Simple Task
In all fairness, selecting a Learning Management System (LMS) isn't as simple as it seems. Inadequate understanding of the various features can lead to a wrong selection. Wrong LMS in place will then drain resources and money in the long run.
The repeated failures and fixes of the LMS will also take up a lot of effort. As such, every company must go to great lengths to establish its needs. The needs will then serve as parameters for the LMS selection.
The LMS will need to address the central requirements of your learning programs. Only then the said LMS can be considered a viable long-term solution. If your internal team is having trouble finalizing the right LMS for your company – then get in touch with the eCommerce LMS experts at Virtina.
