In recent years, we have seen the closure of many schools and colleges around the globe as the COVID-19 pandemic mounted. The entire education system was switched to online learning. Today, professors and students use eLearning platforms for their studies and courses. So you want to learn how to create an eLearning platform that digitally connects teachers and students? Let’s get started!
What Are the Benefits of Custom eLearning Tools?
Virtual learning platforms are no longer just for online courses. Companies are now also using online courses to train their employees.
The marketing benefits of having a corporate e-learning product are immense. It acts as a platform that organises customer feedback and brings customer loyalty since customers feel heard and understood in their feedback.
Furthermore, corporate e-learning products can market the company’s existing products or services better and create demand for new products or services.
Additionally, the product strengthens customer relationships by allowing for direct communication between the brand and its customers – providing access to educational content or offering discounts on purchases.
Corporate e-learning products are essential for competitive discernment since they allow brands to easily stay ahead of their competitors in terms of customer experience.
Investing in an eLearning platform for a corporation offers numerous advantages.
- Flexibility: With eLearning, your company employees can easily combine work and study and are not limited to one classroom, city, or country. Students can attend classes from anywhere, with instructional material quickly delivered and accessed digitally.
- Learn at their own pace: This is one of the fantastic things about virtual learning platforms: your students can learn at their own pace. They can log into your desired courses whenever it suits them or go back to a previous course to clarify something they missed.
- Quick and enjoyable onboarding experience: An eLearning platform also allows organisations to scale up quickly when adding more staff. It aids in onboarding new hires efficiently by providing a consistent, high-quality training experience without the need for classroom space and expensive instructor fees.
These advantages of virtual teaching platforms and applications, as well as the growing need for them, are guaranteed to attract the interest of both SMEs and large enterprises.
Ultimately, investing in an eLearning platform is an excellent way for corporations to ensure their employees have access to high-quality educational materials while effectively cutting costs.
Now the question arises: How do you build an eLearning platform? What are the advantages of creating an eLearning platform, and what are the steps to follow to create a virtual learning platform?
Types of eLearning Platforms
With the increasing popularity of remote learning, eLearning platforms provide students with virtual access to learning materials, such as videos, reading resources, and simulated activities.
Depending on the purpose and target audience, several types of eLearning platforms can be used effectively:
- Platform-authoring tools help individuals create their own content;
- Electronic courseware provides self-directed lessons that learners can follow on their own time;
- Simulations allow instructors to introduce realistic scenarios for students to practice problem-solving skills.
Other types of learning systems, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), video streaming platforms and discussion forums, also have value for brand recognition, education, and loyalty promotion. Now let’s look at the steps required to build an e-learning platform.
Building and Implementing an eLearning Platform
Building an e-learning platform is a long, multi-step process. And if you need to learn programming or technology, creating an online learning platform will be complicated. So, to create an educational platform, you need to follow the following steps:
Find your idea
To create a virtual learning platform, you must first develop a concept that addresses a problem and will benefit people. You can use various reports and analyses to find your idea. According to industry reports, the global eLearning market is expected to reach $300 billion by 2025.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 35 percent of highly educated users in Switzerland had accessed online learning content (Statista). Most recently, nearly 45 percent of the Swiss population aged 25 – 74 attended continuing education in 2021. The interest in eLearning didn’t wane post-COVID!
So, to succeed in this virtual learning industry, you need to create a compelling and attractive educational product that will position your brand as a knowledge leader.
You can also discuss with others their virtual learning problems and find a solution to their problems. This way, you will better understand your target audience and how they will react to your concept.
Research your niche
Once you have found a solution to a specific problem, you need to find your niche. Analysing your idea will give you an understanding of your niche. You can focus on popular categories such as:
- Business & Entrepreneurship
- Health & Fitness
- Personal Growth
- Arts & Crafts
- Computers & Technology
You can use your learner demographics (age, gender, and other sales-related details) to support your research.
Getting an idea of your target users based on their age, gender, and educational background will give you an advantage as it helps you understand the age and gender of your target audience so you can develop quality tailored to them to capture their attention and grow your business. You can also consider their main goals and learning preferences, so you can validate your idea and easily find your niche.
How to Choose the Development Approach
Developing a leading virtual learning platform requires planning, framework, technology and maintenance. There are two types of methods for developing these platforms in the market. The first is customising the existing software. The second is creating a custom solution from scratch.
There are many benefits of the second approach. Let’s talk about both approaches in detail:
Customising an existing solution
Moodle, Joomla, and Canvas are examples of open-source or ready-made software with essential student management tools and some free plugins. However, there are many considerable drawbacks to this approach:
- Cookie-cutter platforms can be challenging to implement a specific function or import custom themes into these methods.
- If you want your eLearning solution to stand out from the crowd, you need to choose the best technology, unique design, and exciting features. This will attract users’ attention and make our website look different from others.
- Simplicity is critical in UI (User Interface) and UX (User Experience). Your company’s eLearning website should be easy to navigate and use. This is often a challenge when using ready-made software.
- Mobile functionality can also be a challenge. Mobile devices are now an integral part of our lives. The learning experience should be responsive to work correctly on different devices.
Why Develop a Custom eLearning Platform?
Developing your own custom eLearning platform offers several distinct advantages over using an off-the-shelf solution:
- It gives you complete control over the look and feel of the platform, which can be tailored to match your brand identity.
- Since you already know your coworkers and employees well, you have the right knowledge to make the learning experience more enjoyable and memorable for your students.
- Furthermore, it also allows you to customise features such as course navigation, content delivery methods, assessment criteria, and more.
All these features are essential for ensuring that your students can access the best possible educational experience with minimal effort.
Critical Components of Custom eLearning Platform to Consider
The core of a practical eLearning platform consists of several properties. Students, faculty and the administration interface can be divided into three categories. Building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with only the most essential features is a fantastic way to test the viability of your idea with real users.
The success of any custom eLearning platform ultimately depends on its ability to provide an intuitive user experience while effectively delivering educational content. As such, there are several vital components that you should consider when designing your own platform:
- User Interface: Make sure your user interface (UI) is easy to use and intuitive for users so they don’t have difficulty navigating through different sections or finding content quickly.
- Content delivery mechanisms: Choose appropriate methods for delivering content, such as videos or interactive quizzes, to ensure students retain information better.
- User authentication systems: Implement an authentication system such as single sign-on to ensure secure access while allowing users easy access without having multiple accounts.
- Data analytics tools: Use data analytics tools to track student progress and performance. As a result, you will be able to identify areas where improvements may be necessary.
- Learning Management System (LMS): Integrate an LMS into your platform so educators can easily manage classes, assign assessments/quizzes/homework etc., and monitor student progress from one centralised location.
- Student profile features: Keep track of your student’s progress and offer personalised tuition if needed. Also, each profile should contain basic information about the person, their learning history and profile settings.
- Search and filter functionality: These basic options allow you to search for specific keywords and courses sorted into categories based on subject, price and experience level.
- Suggestions: This feature helps to display suitable courses based on the user’s interest or the history of courses the student is already enrolled in.
- Teacher dashboards: An essential feature for teachers to keep track of the courses they have uploaded, the number of participants, how long students stay and a discussion forum where the teacher can discuss with other students.
- Course creation and updating: Instructors should be able to change and edit their courses anytime.
- Admin profile features: An admin must have basic skills: adding, editing and removing courses, statistical reports and managing notifications.
Tip: Consider sending subscribers push and email notifications about new courses, recommendations, events, and more.
When discussing a development plan for your custom eLearning platform, consider the following features:
- Media content upload
- Video hosting
- Content downloads
- Time-delayed activation and the expiration of content
- Creation of learning paths
- Live events and appointments
- Issuance of certificates
- Reporting and analysis
- GDPR Compliance
By incorporating all these elements into one cohesive learning experience, you will be able to create an effective digital learning environment with minimal effort on behalf of educators and learners alike!
How to Find the Right Developer for Your Custom eLearning Platform
Crafting the perfect eLearning platform can be daunting – especially when finding the right developer. Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to ensure that you choose an experienced and reliable developer. Start by asking the following questions:
- What similar projects has the developer completed in the past?
- What are the hourly rates for developing the must-have features?
- Which nice-to-have features can be incorporated without breaking the bank?
- What is the proposed timeline?
Once you are happy with the answers, schedule an introductory meeting to discuss your project specifications and timelines can help you decide on the most fitting choice for your needs.
These steps will help guarantee a smooth development process and ensure maximum satisfaction from your custom eLearning platform!
Final Thoughts
Developing a custom eLearning platform is essential for creating an engaging educational experience tailored specifically for learners within your company. When it comes to building a custom eLearning platform, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, you will need to tailor your platform’s design based on your company’s unique needs.
To do so effectively requires careful consideration of various components such as user interface (UI) design, content delivery mechanisms (e.g., videos, quizzes), user authentication systems (e.g., single sign-on), data analytics tools (for tracking performance), and more. Once all these elements have been identified and designed appropriately, they can then be integrated into a cohesive backbone of your custom eLearning platform.