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We have briefly compared it with other standards of the industry in one of our earlier publications. The most recent version of SCORM - one of the most used specifications (to this day as well) - was released back in 2004. No wonder, some of the businesses could benefit from new ways of receiving and analyzing data about methods and ways of learning for their employees. In this article, as you have already figured out, we write about the real xAPI use and how it simplifies learning and training across different industries. For this article, we’ve made a couple of interviews with xAPI experts. We were lucky enough to get the response from many companies, including Watershed, H2Labs and Veracity Learning whose consultations were of a great value. The mentioned companies all produce the so-called LRS - Learning Record Stores - the storage where performance data is moved for future analysis. We have received the expertise and a plethora of links to real-life case studies that resulted in us finding 6 case studies that demonstrate how embracing xAPI can bring you lots of good. With lots of good, we mean improving employees training speed and efficiency, which led to saving production hours, generating more revenue and… even saving more people’s lives. Let’s progress by looking at all the cases separately. Case #1: AT&T and 670k production hours saved This is perhaps the most quotable and well-known xAPI adoption case. AT&T doesn't need much introduction. It is a huge telecommunication corporation with a quarter million employees (by the time of xAPI adoption the number was around 243,000 and according to data from 2017, it is over 254,000 people now). Source: flickr.com They were trying to find a solution for the effective training for this “army” of personnel across almost four thousand jobs. The basic reporting system was limited to a certain content type. Pre-xAPI compliance records and training materials were stored separately and even had data structured if different formats. Manual analysis of performance data took ages and xAPI standard adoption came to rescue. With the help of xAPI, the data was transmitted to the Learning Record Store. All these immense streams of data from the simulation, different training paths were stored and available for an immediate analysis. The course was adjusted accordingly. We’ve contacted Tim Dickinson, director of strategy at Watershed (LRS provider for this case) to describe this and some other case studies. He admitted that this one is not the most recent but gladly shed the light on what was happening there: ‘In that particular case study, they used xAPI to get very detailed information about the course that would have otherwise could have been developed in many ways. But they were able to create a dynamic course and used xAPI to report on how people progress through it. At&T only created one adaptive course instead of creating many. That saved them time and therefore, money.’ AT&T released the data on how xAPI adoption and course adjustments optimized the time spend for employees training. Updates to the Employee Code Course saved over 670,000 production hours and 160,380 hours of education/training time length. Source: pixabay.com Besides, follow-up surveys after the course adjustments had fewer mistakes, and engagement on the new content was 25% larger than in the case with the old content. AT&T representatives also highlighted the fact their employees did better in interactive simulations with the new improvements implemented on the dynamic course. Quick summary: This case proves that one is able to get good quantifiable results (that can be assessed and put into the open internet to brag about) with xAPI adoption. It is hard to overvalue saving production/training hours within (total number of over 830,000 working hours saved). This is directly connected to the company getting more revenue as their employees get more free time to work on other tasks AND they are better trained for this work. Now let us head to the case that has huge money figures in the title. Case #2: Villeroy & Boch and extra €2.5 million ($2.92 million) in revenue Villeroy & Boch is a big company as well. It specializes in making designer bathrooms and premium tableware. Being a world’s leading ceramics producer, they employ over 8,000 people around the world. Source: wikipedia.org According to the materials of the case study, the management of the company decided to capitalize on the data of a curious research. Turns out, 85% of the time premium products are purchased thanks to an emotional purchase motivation. The new training program of Villeroy & Boch brand was focused on identification of how good their salespersons are in it as well as on the improvement of sales conversation overall. They needed to get as many brand ambassadors (promoters among the customers) as possible The company used a blended learning approach, utilizing a learning platform and an LRS. Brand Ambassador programme was delivering to face-to-face workshops via the platform. The data about this blended learning experience was gathered, transmitted and tracked with the help of xAPI. However, there were some logistical difficulties, and some of the stores haven’t received the full programme. This gave Villeroy & Boch an opportunity to run an A/B testing campaign to compare the results of training in the future. ‘A’ stores are the ones that got only the online component of the programme, and ‘B’ stores are the ones that had full blended approach access. LRS with the help of xAPI got data about learning activities and stores performance. The measured metrics were obviously, conversions, and Average Transaction Value (ATV). The comparison was made with the previous year’s result. The improvements don’t seem too big in percentage. ‘B’ stores performed better than ‘A’ stores by 5.41% on ATV. And in comparison with the last years ‘B’ stores converted 1.17% more customers, while ‘A’ stores had an increase of 0.62% over their previous year’s results. If you think that such an increase might be random, or insignificant, you are mistaken. With the volume of production this retail has, they had the €2.5m ($2.92 m) return on training investment. While this is not a direct proof that the company benefited solely from using xAPI standard, it’s a real case when the conversion rate of a big retail company improved after starting to use this technology. As Erik Walter, International Retail Director at Villeroy & Boch claimed: ‘The results prove that the Brand Ambassador Programme is leading our stores in the right way to higher customer conversion and sales success.’ Quick summary: The big retail company claims that they managed to get themselves €2.5m in revenue after adopting the xAPI standard. Source: pixabay.com Case #3: Behr - Training Via a Phone App This is the company you might’ve heard of if you’ve done some painting recently. They produce paint and sell their products in hardware stores. Source: homedepot.com BEHR have made an HTML mobile app for training their employees. This is what makes this use case so special - the company didn’t use LMS to keep all their data. According to Brian Floyd from BEHR, all the content within the company “lives” on the app server, web server, or is linking to the Behr.com and a DAM (Digital Asset Manager) that the company has. BEHR used xAPI to track what their employees are doing with the app, but they also did some curious stuff with it as well. For example, the data was transmitted back to the app, for a leaderboard. It kept employees motivated to show the best possible results within their training and incentivized those people to interact with the app more to get recognition. Source: techworld.com BEHR has also managed to create a performance support tool to understand how effective the training is. Analysts are able to see the completion level of the course for every individual/region and see how it corresponds with sales figures for the same regions. However, none of the specific figures were released for the general public to see how exactly it helped the company. BEHR are ready to admit that they benefited from xAPI use, but didn’t share how much. Here are the comments of Tim Dickinson, director of strategy at Watershed: ‘One thing that has been tricky for us as we see the greater adoption of xAPI as we see people improving some of their business metrics, is in that we see some unwillingness to share exactly how it impacted outcomes. They don’t want to share that level of details. We’ve run into some challenges where we had some really great case studies from clients where we’ve been able to demonstrate defined specific improvements, but those companies don’t want that info shared publicly’ Quick summary: BEHR case study shows that it is fairly easy to feed data into other applications that power sales training and performance support with the help of xAPI, debunking the myth that xAPI is bad for reporting outside LRS. Case #4: MedStar Health - xAPI contributes to more lives saved? This is the most inspiring case study there is. Saving production hours, getting more revenue and a better-trained sales personnel is all good. But if some technology is able to help save more human lives - that’s what really could make an impression. This is literally the case with MedStar Health, a health care provider in Washington DC and Maryland region. They specialize in emergency situations - and do a lot of training of them, including “Code Blues” - cardiac arrests. Source: lapostexaminer.com As you can guess, training is extremely important for resuscitation medics. The speed of reaction, the frequency of chest compression and medicating the patient timely and on the right dosage were the metrics to watch. The company decided to work at improving those KPIs for better understanding the major flaws of doctors during the resuscitation to get to near-perfect Code Blue simulation. They also needed to understand, whether the current simulation system - including mobile the defibrillator training app (Zoll) and their LMS courses are effective in the first place. MedStar Health hired an LRS provider to work with the data. The data from all the xAPI apps, Zoll and LMS was sent to the LRS. Perhaps in future, the data from the real accidents will be available for the analysis as well. We produce all kinds of E-Learning software in Belitsoft. Contact us here. Or take a look at our e-learning development portfolio first. However, even now with simulations (not real cases), MedStar got plenty of visualized information for further analysis. Quick summary: With the help of xAPI, MedStar Health managed to get all the data on clinicians training in one place. They couldn’t do it without xAPI as SCORM, for instance, is far too ancient to transmit in-field observation results. Source: medstarhealth.org That allows medical company improvement of their training, which, in turn, leads to more saved lives. That would be an oversimplification to say that xAPI saves lives, but it definitely contributes here. Case #5: R.E.A.P.E.R. - xAPI study case of soldier training improvement Rob Chadwick, who is currently the software engineer and co-founder at Veracity was a part of an ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) Initiative program at the time. We contacted Rob to describe to us the details of this case study. REAPER is actually an abbreviation that stands for Range Experience Acquisition Portal for Evaluation & Reporting. This was a government project. As you might guess from the name of it, xAPI, in this case, was used to get shooting training results to help gauge and improve future training. Source: pixabay.com Instructors used devices to fill in forms that generated xAPI statements. Instead of looking at the bunch of targets on paper marked with pencils, students, coaches, and instructors got detailed heat maps for the analysis. Data analysis gave immediate results. “After they generated a heat map of the target, the instructors saw a white spot where no rounds go. They started to wonder, what was going on there. Instructors came back to the shooting range and figured that a tree branch had grown to the line of sight. From the most left position on the shooting range, one couldn’t see the corner of the target. Nobody could discover it. The students were hesitant to say anything. That was discovered by analysis the data that was in xAPI. That was just one of the many findings from the data. Perhaps the most curious one,” Chadwick said. Source: army.mil Quick summary: With the help of this case study, we can see that learning adjustments thanks to xAPI can be made at almost any industry. Military training is not an exception here. However, Chadwick stated that xAPI is first and foremost an e-Learning specification and is not really a good fit for tracking data that is not directly connected with training, education etc. Case #6: PwC - accounting firm that distributed its course throughout many territories PwC is a leading consulting company in the world. it is actually a network of firms in 158 countries, 743 locations, with more than 236,000 people. Source: wikipedia.org This is a remarkable case study of xAPI use. It is able to illustrate that the xAPI standard is able to help with course distribution across many territories. The company needed a way to host and deliver up-to-date relevant content to their employees wherever they are at any time. In order to do that, they required a keen understanding of where the gaps are in people’s knowledge and how people are consuming the learning information. xAPI and LRS-stored data allowed them to do it perfectly. There is a misconception that the big amount of data can’t be distributed and assessed well enough and quickly enough across many territories. PwC does all that and deals well with all the privacy concerns about data on US and EU citizens. It was a great fit for dealing with GDPR requirements. This is especially important as they don’t have a physical product. Their product is their people and the knowledge they possess. Quick summary: This case study proves that xAPI is able to transmit high volumes of data across the international company without any privacy breaches and violations. Source: pixabay.com Conclusion These are six case studies that should demonstrate how widely xAPI may be used and how many benefits it could bring. Among the improved results of training are saved production hours, better training results for the staff, increased revenue for retailers and so much more. Employees education is a must for modern companies, and xAPI alongside with other technologies significantly simplifies E-Learning knowledge delivery.

Basic MOOC Features We produce all kinds of E-Learning software in Belitsoft. Contact us here. Or take a look at our e-learning software development portfolio first. Let’s list the most common components of the leading MOOCs on the market: Video materials Reading materials Integrated activities Course forums and chats Sectional organization Test sections Final test examination (sometimes in the form of a project) Let us stop at each of this components realization for a better-detailed view. Video materials These are actually the lectures mentioned earlier but adapted for the course. The tutor records series of lectures, they get dissected into smaller parts. Usually, videos are 2-10 minutes long. Source: coursera.org It is fairly easy to integrate the media from other sources, including Youtube into a course. Reading materials As far as we are concerned, old textbooks are there for a reason. Certainly, with MOOCs,  you won’t have to visit some dusty libraries. However, ebooks and certain PDF-transcript of video lectures are usually recommended, or even required for the successful course completion. Integrated activities Sometimes truck drivers turn-on their inner “autopilots” and get asleep while they are driving. The repercussions of these might be horrible, as you could guess. While courses are usually not as monotonous as long-distance driving, there can also be some boring parts in them. In order to not get asleep (or go auto-pilot) trying to absorb knowledge, students should get little challenges along the way. Short breaks in the time of lectures should be filled with quizzes or a very small project. For instance, it’s only fair to ask you some questions that were just covered by the tutor, or make you write a line or two of the code that was previously described in the video. Also, the learner might be redirected to an outside source of information to dig out more on a certain topic on their own. This is a good changeup for interrupting the routine actions and making students get some experience. Sectional organization MOOC completion usually takes several weeks, so it’s only logical to organize the series of study materials into certain sections, completing of which would take a week. Sometimes the course is scheduled, so many students go through it simultaneously, and the current phase (e.g. Week 4) is identical for all the enrolled people. The other courses have “learn-at-own-pace” structure, but they also have to be organized anyway. Sectional organization of the course serves as the additional guideline for the student to complete the course effectively and in time. Test sections There is nothing special in those sections but they are a necessity that deserves to be mentioned separately. In order to reinforce the studied material of the section, the course is completed with tests. Sometimes it comes in a form of a project, in other cases tests consist of multiple choice questions, or come in some other forms. Final test examination Upon the completion of MOOC, final examination comes on stage to give a definite conclusion of whether the young acolyte has completed the course or not. In most cases, there are no grades, just pass/fail system is in action. After completing the course one usually gets a certificate, which is sometimes more valuable than a college diploma, but more on that in the next section. MOOC Graduate Degrees If MOOCs are almost like college, why can’t it be monetized like college? Well, maybe with some sort of a discount or something like that to not scare online students off. Turns out, graduates of MOOC programs can be awarded Masters degree already. Udacity has teamed up with Georgia Tech and AT&T to offer an online Master´s degree in Computer Science. 6,000 students enrolled for the course. As the competition is tough between MOOC platforms, Coursera (and the University of Illinois) have announced their own MBA program that was able to attract over 800 students for enrollment. edX and Georgia Tech also started Online Masters in Analytics program, and if we count the potential revenue to just these three degrees program, it is already over $65 million (based on the number of enrolled students and tuition fees). There are plenty of plans in that direction. For now, we can claim with the certainty that Coursera alone plans to launch at least 15-20 such programs by the end of 2019. Seems like MOOC platform owners found a nice way to boost the revenue, and who could blame them? Comparing TOP MOOC Platforms in Brief Reviews.com have made a complete guide on MOOC platforms comparison. Certainly, they made it for the users to have a comparative analysis and choose the one to pass certain courses. Source: diygenius.com However, the article could be useful for those who are thinking about creating the new MOOC that could have the place in this highly competitive market niche. Have a look at core metrics and sub-metrics. Core metrics include: Credentialing Course Diversity Course Features Social Features Partner Institutions Based on the top performers in each category, we would try to draw the picture of how a perfect new MOOC would look like. Credentialing Credentialing is an important part of passing the course. Ideally, the platform has to offer a verified certificate for all courses free of charge. EdX and Coursera in certain cases charge the students for the certificates. This might be a valid source of revenue, but definitely will be noticed by the students. It also would be nice to offer some courses with the ability to gain college credits (according to Reviews.com, Coursera gains a lot here and some platforms like FutureLearn and iversity get 0 points). Also, the more specializations and accredited degrees can be offered by the platform, the better for them. These are valid sub-metrics. Course Diversity Obviously, the big number of offered courses would never hurt. If you have just a couple of courses in the beginning, it would be very difficult to take a good start. Anyway, even if in the beginning the number of courses is small, you should provide users with decent search filters. Grouping the courses into categories would allow users to select what they need after your platform will scale to a massive course collection. Most of the platforms offer both self-paced and scheduled courses. The exceptions among the top-6 platforms in the industry are FutureLearn (scheduled courses only) and Cognitive Class (self-paced courses only). Course Features Coursera, edX, Udacity, and Iversity all offer both automated and human grading. This is sort of an industry standard for all the top platforms. You should also care about multi-language courses. A good practice is adding subtitles in 5-6 languages to your courses. Go mobile! This should go without saying. If you only have a desktop version, people will gladly choose the course they would enjoy on the tablet or mobile phone elsewhere. Social Features Most of the top MOOC platform have social profiles. Some of them even offer the reputation system for contributors. Also, don’t hesitate to allow all sorts of collaborative activities for students. People enjoy working in groups and socializing while passing the course. Partner Institutions The leader in terms of the biggest number of partner institutions and courses is Coursera. This platform also has all the top colleges in their collections - there are courses from MIT and Harvard professors. It wouldn’t be easy to compete with this platform. However, big names are not what makes the platform successful. If you could land professors from lesser known universities and they still provide your courses with valuable information, why not do it? Current State of MOOC Platforms in Numbers Source: class-central.com The biggest worldwide operating MOOCs are Coursera (with 30 million students), non-profit MOOC edX (14 million) and Udacity (8 million students). There is also a Chinese MOOC XuetangX with 9.3 students. Over 800 universities have launched at least one MOOC. MOOC providers are also partnering with tech companies for courses launch. The total number of MOOCs out there is at 9,400 by the end of 2017. Source: class-central.com The numbers are keep growing exponentially. Should you jump on this bandwagon? Why Wouldn’t Everyone Get Own MOOC Platform? Why wouldn’t everyone get themselves their own MOOC platform? This doesn’t seem like an overly big task for software developers to build and maintain. At least from the technical point of view, it wouldn’t be a more difficult task than building a learning app like Duolingo. A medium-sized software company would gladly accept your order to build such a custom decision. The main obstacle is getting relevant courses from big and famous colleges. Just have a look at the board of directors of EdX - Harvard and MIT professors. It could be hard to persuade them to start a course on the beginner’s MOOC platform. Source: open.edx.org However, if you have sources of creating some quality courses, this could be a very profitable goldmine for you to dig in.

How Belitsoft Can Help We have been on the eLearning market for more than 15 years and have helped launch a dozen successful startups. Here’s what we can do for you: Product development. If you have an idea and a business plan, we can provide the technical skill to make it an actual product and an actual business. You can either hire a dedicated team and manage it yourself, order a full-cycle product development, or anything in-between. Consulting. Our consulting services can help you plan your gamification strategy, software architecture, monetization, and other facets of the new product. Customization. Sometimes the most cost-effective option would be to take an existing open-source product and modify it to suit your needs. We can both recommend a suitable basis for customization and conduct the necessary changes. Content development. Should you need eLearning content for your product, we can help. This includes anything from text-based lessons to interactive videos and learning games. GET A FREE QUOTE What is EdTech This term describes all the software that is used to teach people, whether as a part of a blended learning environment or as a standalone experience. The first examples of it appeared before even the Internet was created. Now it is a thriving industry with the global EdTech market expecting to reach USD 341 billion in 2025. Modern EdTech includes LMS’, learning platforms, educational mobile apps, webinar services, authoring tools and more. Reasons to Launch an EdTech Startup The expanding market still has place for more ambitious companies willing to make the world a better place and make money in the process. Here’s why you should start one. 1. EdTech is Important for Learners. According to recent research, 72% of schools already use cloud collaboration tools, 57% assign their students mobile devices to use in class, and 48% provide online classes. The trend continues in adult education as well, with top companies promoting the culture of life-long learning. Deloitte, Wal-Mart, PwC, and many others use eLearning tools to train their employees from their first day at work and throughout their whole career. As there is a need for edtech solutions for both governmental and private organizations, your company can fill it. 2.The Market is Not Yet Saturated The world is expected to spend a whopping USD 8 trillion on education by 2025. The USA is still among the top dogs in financing learning, but the leading positions are now occupied by Asian countries like China and India.  And yet digital education in the world remains severely underfunded with only 3% of funding going its way. Which means that the market is far from being saturated. If a company is determined enough, it can win its rightful place there. Angel.co, a startup platform, shows over 21,000 educational companies, an increase from 16,000 two years ago. 3. A Modern Startup Can Be Cheap When the computers were large and their screens – small, programmers were rare and expensive. With the advent of open source and an increase in the number of reliable outsourcing companies, you can now have a piece of software built for a fraction of what it used to cost. In addition, open-source solutions further decrease the expenses of building a new edtech product. Using them, the costs can go down by 20-50%. 4. There Are Many Unexplored Opportunities. Gamification, while a hot topic in the eLearning circles, has been relatively underused in recent years. AR/VR is growing in popularity but remains mostly a gaming technology, despite the fact that education needs it more. Interactive videos help bridge the gap between the classic and the new learning formats. Overall, there are many niches your nascent company can fill and many trending technologies that you can use to get ahead. 5. eLearning Is Attractive to the Investors The venture capitalists consider EdTech an attractive place to invest their money. Source While the amount of investment grows, the number of deals is declining, which means the VCs are pickier about the startups they fund. Seeking assistance from an incubator or accelerator might be a good idea in these conditions. How to Fund an EdTech Startup How to start education startup? There are a number of ways to get money for the nascent eLearning company. None of them is easy, but each has something to offer. 1. Bootstrapping Paying for the startup with your own money is risky, but gives you the ultimate control over all the decisions, as no one else has a stake in the business. However, getting the necessary amount can be problematic. 2. Loans Almost every bank can lend you money to start your own business. But there are also state and governmental initiatives that can make getting funds a bit easier. You have to pay the loans back with interest even if the business fails, might have to provide collateral, and carry a personal litigation risk (if you default). But managing loans payment is straightforward (fixed monthly payments), the lender doesn’t have any control over your business, and the interest payments can be deducted as expenses. 3. Investment Investors can give you money in exchange for a stake in your company - if they find your idea viable, that is. If you get investor funding, you might also get mentoring, networking, and other help (especially in case of accelerators), repayment is more flexible, and if the startup has to close, you don’t have to give the investment money back. 4. Grants As education is something that is considered to make the world a better place, there are organizations that support educational initiatives. There are also general-purpose grants that are available to the businesses regardless of the industry. You don’t have to pay the grants back, however, your business needs to fit the specific grant’s requirements. 5. Crowdfunding Since 2016, crowdfunding equity has surpassed the investment one. Under this model a large number of people contribute relatively small sums in exchange for a gift or a non-monetary bonus once the product or service is live. Crowdfunding allows you to remain in control of your business, great for pitching niche ideas, and can bring you money in a matter of a month. However, you need to invest in marketing to attract donors, must have a clear proposition, and if the crowd doesn’t pledge enough funds, you get nothing. EdTech Startup Best Practices Experts suggest following these recommendations to increase your chances of success. Top reasons for startup failure according to CBS Insights 1. Clear Business Model/Monetization Strategy An initiative to make the world a better place is laudable, but a startup is a business first and foremost. So before you even write the first line of code think about what problem will your product actually solve and how will it bring you money. This includes knowing your target audience and its preferences, planning the monetization strategy, measuring the impact your product is expected to make and taking steps to address the risks. These measures will help you present a solid case before the investors (should you need them) and will guide you as your product goes live. Note that in EdTech the “customer” (person/organization who pays for the product) and “consumer” (person who uses the product) are often two different entities. Your marketing strategy should clearly define who is who to properly target them. 2. Start With an MVP This is true for pretty much any startup and doubly so for a new eLearning company. MVP stands for “Minimum Viable Product” and allows you to go to market quicker while risking less money in the process. The goal of an MVP is to choose the most valuable features, the ones that will solve the problem you are addressing and differentiate you from the competitors, and launch them first. On the one hand, this gives you a chance to test your ideas in an actual market. On the other - if they prove to be less stellar than you expected, you won’t lose as much as you would have with all the bells and whistles included.  Value vs Complexity Quadrant - one of the methods for choosing MVP features. Source For a more detailed view of an MVP approach and a guide on how to choose the necessary features, see our article.  3. Pay Attention to Retention In eLearning getting customers is relatively simple, the hard part is keeping them active. So think about how you will keep the retention metrics up. For example, you can gamify your product to increase the users’ motivation to learn. Or make it very effective at teaching a useful skill. Or even both. The key idea is to ensure that people come to you over and over. 4. Watch Out for the Differences in Priorities This risk is rather sneaky, though it becomes obvious when pointed out. Your company and your users might have different and even opposite priorities. For example, you might want a learner to stay on your app for as long as possible, but the learner themselves wants to get the needed information ASAP. Gaps like this should be identified and addressed early, otherwise, you might find yourself in a position where the mistakes can’t be fixed anymore. Why EdTech Startups Fail Education is a niche that has quite a lot of differences from the “mainstream” startup scene. These differences are often the reasons why seemingly good businesses don’t succeed. inBloom This startup was poised to create a breakthrough in education. It had everything: ambitious ideas (a centralized platform for curricula, data sharing, and learning apps), USD 100 million in funding from the Gates foundation, political support in several American states. However, it closed just a year after the launch. So what went wrong? Personal Data Use While this is mostly a case of “wrong time, wrong place”, it is worth mentioning to illustrate the existing risk. inBloom’s launch coincided with a number of scandals related to online privacy: Edward Snowden’s reveal of the NSA spying program, the breach of 40 million customer accounts in Target, and a slew of others. The trust towards the technology initiatives and Bill Gates personally went down, and it became a major obstacle preventing the acceptance of inBloom by the teachers.  SharpScholar When this startup announced its closure, it came as a shock: the company enjoyed positive media coverage, was featured on Dragon’s Den (Canadian equivalent of the Shark Tank show), and had about 5,000 university students as users. Jawwad Siddiqui, one of the founders, listed a few reasons that caused his company’s downfall. Too many layers of approval A teacher can’t just pick and choose their own tools - they have to keep in mind the needs and requirements of students, school administration, district school board - all the way up to the government.  SharpScholar depended on approval from the students and admins, which made life more complicated for the teachers, who were unwilling to use this tool as a result. “Free lunch” mentality The abundance of free services (e.g. Facebook and Snapchat) caused people to expect software to be provided to them at no charge. Giants like Microsoft and Google didn’t make things any easier by offering free or discounted educational tools, even though teaching is not the core business for them. So the target users didn’t want to pay for SharpScholar as well. Tutorspree An “AirBnB for tutors”, as the company positioned itself, graduated from the prestigious Y Combinator, received about USD 1.8 million in funding, and had over 7000 teachers on its platform, but still shut down. The tutoring market itself is complicated: after one starts working with the student, there is nothing stopping them from cutting out the middleman at all. But this wasn’t the reason for the startup’s closure, nor was money - the founders have even returned some of the investment they were given.  Founders gave up The first reason was opportunity cost.Tutorspree was earning some money, but it was way too little to be worth the efforts the owners had to make to keep the business afloat. So they decided to throw in the towel and focus on something else. Too reliant on Google traffic The company was extremely reliant on the visitors that Google search brought them. It proved a major risk, as the changes in the algorithm caused disruption in the Tutorspree’s workflow. Successful EdTech Startup Examples Learn from those who have prevailed. USA Coursera Coursera is one of the top MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) platforms. Coursera It has partnered with over 190 major educational institutions to deliver quality educational content to anywhere in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. Besides getting knowledge and learning useful skills, through this platform a user can receive a certificate or even a valid diploma. Coursera has secured over USD 145 million in funding and is steadily growing in popularity. Skillshare Skillshare is a platform that focuses on educational videos. Skillshare The company now has over 2 million students and has received more than USD 50 million in funding. Europe Ticken Ticken is a gamified touch-typing course that started in the Dutch market but has since added English, German, and French versions. Ticken To date, more than 100.000 people have completed this course and improved their typing speed. It has won a prestigious Thuiswinkel Starters Award and admiration of both users and critics. See the relevant case study to learn more. Amboss A startup that unites healthcare and education, Amboss is a Berlin-based company that targets medical students. It started as an app that helps users study “smarter, not harder”, but is aiming to become a major knowledge platform used by both doctors in training and on the job. Amboss The app reduces the average research time needed for doctors to make a clinical decision from 30 minutes to 30 seconds. And the company has received funding from Target Global, Cherry Ventures, Wellington Partners and Holtzbrinck Digital. UK Kano Kano is a London-based startup that teaches kids computer science. Kano computer. Source This company sells both hardware kits and software classes, making it a one-stop place to learn about computers. They have received USD 44.5 million in funding. Memrise Memrise is a British language platform that uses spaced repetition to improve learning outcomes. Memrise. Source It has won a number of awards and has been profitable since 2016. To date it has over 35 million registered users.

As per Gartner, developing critical skills and competencies is the top priority for HR leaders. Why? Consider the manufacturing industry. By 2028, it stands to lose over $454 billion in GDP due to improperly skilled staff. Having the right talent is crucial for all businesses. Fully realizing this potential is the promise of the leading-edge eLearning trends of 2023. ELearning Trends 2023: What Is in the L&D Focus? Continuous Learning to Prevent Employee Turnover As a response to high employee turnover rates, companies are ramping up their investments in continuous learning to both retain their existing talent and attract new professionals. Encouraging a culture of ongoing education where employees feel recognized, appreciated, and inspired leads to enhanced performance and more cohesive teams. Crafting programs with the employees' future in mind shows commitment to their growth. Personalization in Learning LinkedIn Learning According to the think tank, Towards Maturity, 55% of learners prefer customized content and teaching methods. This indicates that learning systems should adapt to individual needs, rather than the reverse. Personalization hinges on three key factors: pace, approach, and content. Learners should have the freedom to progress at their own speed. If they find the content easy, they can move through it more quickly or even skip it. Using an approach that suits each learner's preference is vital. For example, if one person enjoys game-based learning and another prefers videos, each should be able to learn in the way they like best. Focus should be on what learners need to understand, not how. Even two newcomers might have different interests and areas of challenge, necessitating custom content. Learning Experience Platforms (LXP) exemplify this personalized strategy. Similar to how Netflix recommends shows tailored to a user's preferences, an LXP suggests courses most relevant to a specific individual. For instance, LinkedIn Learning offers classes influenced by a user's profile information, trending industry topics, software usage, desired skills, and even location (with geofencing enabled). LXP is an excellent tool for continuous learning. It allows users the freedom to deviate from a set curriculum. Alongside just-in-time learning aids, users can chart their own development path. Upskilling and Reskilling Pinpointing appropriate training content is key to upskilling and reskilling. This extends beyond just functional, domain, or technical competencies. Micro-skills and specialized knowledge are becoming increasingly important. Given the high demand for multi-talented individuals with specific knowledge, training content must be tailored to ensure learners can apply it to their roles. Skill mapping benefits not only the individual but also the organization by revealing avenues for profit and growth. Using skill mapping as a foundation for education enables a more individualized and continuous curation of training material, as opposed to a rigid and sporadic approach. Automated Targeted Assessment Targeted assessments are gaining traction as a tool to identify effective learning strategies and content. Organizations find this trend beneficial, as it aids in crafting personalized learning solutions for their employees. By collecting data on learners' knowledge, skills, and comprehension, trainers and content creators can better assess outcomes and develop relevant content. This not only eliminates misconceptions but also fosters a positive rapport between learners and Learning & Development teams. Social Learning Humans naturally learn well in groups. However, this doesn't mean online environments can't support social learning. It includes all educational activities that involve observing and imitating others. The first step in this approach is community building. When learners can turn to each other for help, it enhances knowledge and camaraderie. The second step is promoting healthy competition. The right incentives can motivate people to strive for excellence (see our article on gamification for examples). Finally, social elements contribute to a culture of continual self-improvement, benefiting both employees and the company’s bottom line. Only 10% of our learning occurs in formal settings. Recognizing this, many companies now support informal training. Soft Skills Training While job-specific training has always been crucial, there's a growing emphasis on soft skills in today's corporate landscape. With current technology capable of automating up to 50% of work activities, companies are now focusing on enhancing employees' soft skills, which machines can't replicate. Soft skills typically include: Leadership Problem-solving Communication Teamwork Adaptability Organization Time-management And more Leadership training, in particular, is garnering special attention. Effective leaders are vital to retain employees, especially as silent resignations are increasing. This has spurred organizations to invest more in leadership development. In 2023, we anticipate more companies prioritizing leadership training programs. These programs aim to equip leaders with skills to inspire their teams, manage conflicts, delegate tasks effectively, and make informed decisions. By fostering strong leaders, businesses can keep top talent and drive their success. Check out Belitsoft’s portfolio to see how we've designed custom software for leadership skills development. Improving Communication Skills through eLearning While it may seem counterintuitive, companies like Deloitte have shown that eLearning can indeed enhance communication skills. Businesses can measure soft skills to a certain degree, and the benefits are tangible. Indicators might include less time spent in meetings, reduced employee turnover, and increased customer and employee satisfaction, among others. Emphasizing Well-being Training Alongside soft skills, forward-thinking companies are introducing well-being training in 2023. Companies are rolling out courses that focus on mental, physical, and financial well-being to tackle issues like burnout, work-life balance, and financial health. These programs cover personal development topics such as productivity strategies, mindfulness, taking time off, and managing personal finances to reduce stress. This shift underscores the importance of work-life balance and helps mitigate burnout risks. User-Generated Content In the workplace, employees are more receptive to learning when their peers create the content. Referred to as user-generated content (UGC), this process involves employees actively creating learning material for themselves and their colleagues. The popularity of UGC is growing, as employees seek more interactive and personalized learning experiences. The benefit of UGC is that it fosters employee agreement and engagement, resulting in higher participation rates and more effective peer-to-peer training. Learners can contribute in various ways, such as through Q&A forums, short videos, case studies, and reviews. Showing the power of UGC and motivating employees with rewards are key to successfully recruiting people to contribute. With UGC, employees have first-hand information on both the problems they face and their corresponding solutions, so using this information is as close to teaching-by-doing as it gets in an online environment. Just-in-time aids are the main area where UGC thrives. When a person has successfully shown others a way to complete a specific task or an efficient workaround, everyone benefits. Personal stories. Not only are they fun and relatable, they are also engaging and useful. Users or the L&D team can create learning content from these anecdotes. Focus on Employees' Digital Skills As we move into 2023, one of the key eLearning trends is the need to enhance digital literacy among employees, especially as organizations continue to adapt to remote and hybrid work models. In order to keep pace with the relentless evolution of technology, organizations are prioritizing investment in digital literacy training for employees across all levels. It's no longer just a nice-to-have skill; it's a prerequisite for success in today's digital workplace. Priority of Data Security Training In the coming years, companies will have to make data safety instruction a priority. With the rise of cyberattacks like ransomware and malware, it is essential for employees to stay vigilant and be aware of potential threats. This responsibility goes beyond just the IT security team and extends to the entire staff. Companies will focus on cybersecurity training to teach people about the best practices and ensure that all staff members know how to prevent cyber risks. Creating awareness about the importance of data privacy and protecting critical assets such as people's identities will be a top preference for organizations in 2023 and beyond. By implementing these training programs, companies can prevent brand reputation loss, financial losses, and other detrimental outcomes. ELearning Trends 2023: Tech Tools to Achieve L&D Goals The Increased Use of AI There are several possibilities for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the eLearning experience. Think of it as your own virtual teacher that assists in your training. The advantage of AI mentors is that they are available for learners via any device to provide help and the info required round-the-clock. It is easy to integrate a cloud-based LMS with AI-powered robot assistants like Temi for home learning. This robotic tutor can move autonomously, sense its environment, and keep track of your movements. Learners can use voice instead of typing their queries. Right now, we are talking not just about an artificial teacher who would talk to students throughout the training, but also can help to choose the most correct paths of learning. AI can facilitate the creation of highly customized training routes by analyzing the patterns and data it collects from the activities of every learner. The system will provide a more comprehensive course for those with a lack of basic knowledge and skip some modules for more advanced trainees. Availability and affordability, speed, effectiveness, and personalization are a small part of the benefits expected from the deployment of the AI into the studying process. AI's data analysis can make platforms more engaging for effective training. The Adoption of AR/VR Technologies The eLearning industry is witnessing a surge in the adoption of VR and AR technology, which is increasingly affordable and accessible.  With VR, learners can undergo simulations of real-world situations, resulting in a highly engaging and immersive learning experience. Meanwhile, AR enables a more flexible and contextual learning environment by superimposing digital content on the real world. Both VR and AR offer stimulating and captivating learning experiences and allow for personalized and interactive learning. Learners will experience an immersive journey with VR and AR eLearning courses by 2023. Mobile Learning The importance of m-learning has been growing for a while now. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the market is positively exploding: various sources project growth from USD 80 billion to USD 280 billion over the next seven years. It is easy to see why this happens. Initially, it provides versatility and covers nearly every learning approach, such as virtual instructor-led training (VILT), blended learning, online-only training, just-in-time learning help, and more. Second, it is beneficial for the learners, as they are already familiar with smartphones and feel comfortable working with them. The mobile learning domain encompasses all kinds of training done via a smartphone or a tablet. This includes dedicated m-learning apps. We have previously covered some prominent examples in our blog (e.g. Duolingo). Performance support tools (PST - learning aids designed to help employees whenever they need help) are currently the most popular niche for such applications. They help solve problems that the learners can encounter in their daily work and teach them at the same time. This kind of teaching is much more effective than simple repetition. That is why PSTs are a must-have for any company which cares about L&D. A mobile app that we have made for our customer’s LMS is an example of this trend. The original system was desktop-based, but the usage of smartphones has increased, so the customer has adapted. As a result, he got a flexible and reliable app that kept pretty much all the functions of his LMS but allowed them to be accessed on the go. See the relevant showcase for details. In order to enhance the mobile learning experience, it has become essential for learning apps to provide users with the option to download content and access it offline. This trend is gaining popularity as it allows learners to access course materials anytime, anywhere, with no internet connection. Microlearning Modern learners are short on free time and even shorter on attention spans. That’s why microlearning (delivering educational material in bite-sized chunks) is growing in popularity. Microlearning content can come in any format (text, video, pictures, etc.) and is relatively cheap to make. A quick answer that solves a pressing problem is exactly what microlearning is all about. Sometimes people are just looking for an answer to a specific question, like “How to install a WordPress plugin?” Or they might be too busy to sit through the whole hour-long lecture. Making bite-sized learning materials available to be accessed quickly when required is a fundamental component of the LXP strategy. We have delivered a microlearning app for one of our American customers. It had both mobile and web versions, with phones being a priority platform. The idea was to make a tool that would help qualified professionals get continuing education on the go. It started with courses in law and dentistry and is expected to expand further. See our showcase to learn more. A recent approach that emphasizes even shorter learning sessions is nano learning. Some nano learning sessions are as brief as 3-5 minutes. Despite their brevity, these sessions are easier to remember than longer lessons, particularly when learners lack the time to sit through hours of content and must repeatedly pause the course. Gamification Gamification involves the use of game elements outside of a game. For example, giving an app user a badge as a reward for studying 10 days in a row is gamification. Schools, Fortune 500 businesses, and even the military use gamification and game-based learning. Integrating it into an organization's employee training strategy can improve engagement and retention rates. Research shows that game-based learning is more enjoyable and engaging for 80% of US workers. Studies suggest gamification combined with reading can boost outcomes by 45.5-60.67%. This process can include fostering competitive spirit (“The average score for your job position is 67%. Can you beat that?”) or suggesting the most useful content (“PHP developers find chapter 9 the most interesting”). We have been making gamified software for quite a while now. Take, for example, Ticken - an online touch-typing course. Besides having an innovative teaching method, it uses points and leaderboards to further motivate learners to excel. And when they need to relax after a lesson, there are learning games that are both amusing and effective for knowledge retention. See the Ticken case study in our portfolio to learn more. Game-based Learning What do you need more as a training manager? Creating functional content and delivering it on a basic learning platform? Or engaging your learners with their training and increasing their educational performance? Based on sound instructional design, the learning game approach increases engagement (stimulates interest) and boosts motivation to learn the topic. Students are more involved in game-based learning significantly longer than in non-game-based training. Effective serious games form a positive mood to encourage players to continue the play. Visual learners prefer to see rather than read. Augmented (AR), Virtual (VR) and Mixed Realities (MR) have offered immersive learning experiences for a long time. Let’s consider the usefulness of all of them from a corporate point of view. AGCO was one of the first large manufacturers to use AR Glass, a hands-free device, as part of their workers' training to get step-by-step instructions. The company has reduced the time needed for inspection, production, and initial education. Yes, VR has been associated with gaming, but according to a survey by Greenlight VR, the desire for study exceeds the desire for gaming content (63.9% to 61%). Several Fortune 500 companies, such as Boeing, UPS and Walmart, have introduced VR into worker education programs on a wide scale. And some have been happily impressed with the results. With the help of MR, trainees can interact with surroundings created by a mix of real and virtual worlds. They also can approach and manipulate things, leading to a more proper understanding of how things work. High price and substantial lead time to develop these technologies have been two factors that prevent the evaluation of immersive learning strategies. But with main authoring tool providers like Adobe and Trivantis getting into VR solutions, the price points will eventually drop. Our latest game-based learning project was Extraas - a powerful platform that teaches Math and Dutch to high school students. Serious games are at its core, so to use the customer’s budget more efficiently, we even developed a custom game engine. As a result, the platform has already gained thousands of users and raving reviews. Game-based eLearning Platform For Selling Math Training for Kids See the Extraas showcase in our portfolio to learn more. Converting Instructor-led Training to eLearning There is a reason the most effective companies include eLearning methods in their learning and development (L&D) programs. Several of them, actually. The fact of the matter is, eLearning is much cheaper than live training due to the lack of many expenses: teacher salaries and related costs (benefits, taxes, etc.), classrooms, and other factors. eLearning is much easier to scale than ILT - just have the extra people access the same materials. eLearning is superior to traditional training for using advanced instructional strategies. This is what we did for our customer when building TET - a custom driving theory course. The whole point of the project was to get away from the outdated and inflexible live and DVD-based classes. As a result, the students learned whenever and wherever they wanted, achieving better results. And our client got a successful and profitable business. Elearning Platform For Selling Driving Theory Online Course For more information on TET, check our case study. Interactive Video Learning According to a survey by Wyzowl, 69% of consumers prefer video over any other form of content to learn about new products and services. This trend has made video-based learning a tough competitor for static e-learning content. Today, learners prefer to watch demos, explainers, interviews, and how-to in video format as opposed to reading plain text instructions. Making a video interactive boosts its efficiency and reduces the issues it may have from a user being unable to interact with the information. Popular editing software and authoring tools can create interactivity: Branching. A “choose your own adventure”-style materials that allow users to set up their own learning path as they watch a video. For example, giving them a job-related problem and asking for a solution. The user will see the results of their decision. This is a great way to drive engagement, as well as providing the learner with the knowledge. Quizzes. It is possible to pause the video automatically at a predetermined point, pose queries, redirect the user based on their response to the question, and display their score in real time. You can also set pass/fail criteria, time limits, and more. Direct downloads. Allow users to access additional educational materials without leaving the video page. Embedded elements. Incorporating a variety of elements, such as links, maps, widgets, calendar invitations and images, can enhance the learning experience. Video conferencing tools are also increasingly being used by companies, with 78% of them using such tools in 2022 and growing in 2023. Data Analytics in eLearning Learner analytics are used to review student behavior and improve training. There are countless tools available for that, from Learning Management Systems with xAPI to intelligent tutoring systems with the eye-tracking feature. Remarkably, most information for learner analysis is so simple that top-end technologies are not even required. At such a basic level, even a modern LMS can solve most of your L&D woes, as long as it can track and recover the data you need. In most cases, the information you need is as simple as: Completion rates of courses. Who are the most proactive learners? What do your learners choose to learn and why? Where are students struggling? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Who is the best fit for a certain task? For example, JoomlaLMS allows tracking learners’ performance to identify ways to improve your eLearning course. With its reporting functionality, you can define gaps in students' knowledge and skills, determine the organization’s compliance level and overall learners' performance. From the eLearning point of view, “Big Data” is data collected from students’ activities and their performance, but the volume of this data is beyond the ability of traditional databases to capture, manage and process with low latency. So Big Data Analysis helps to structure and present the data in suitable formats. With Big Data analysis tools, you can track the performance of each student to make learning more personalized. Also, big data analysis can provide information on how the training affects your ROI. You will know when a student makes mistakes or simply doesn't receive knowledge properly. Then you can make the adjustments to correct common problems. Besides, it can help to choose the most suitable study route for each student. Research on the adaptive eLearning model, which relies on Big Data by using competency-based knowledge and social learner activities, shows that the analysis transforms the training paradigm and provides an effective learning rhythm. Chatbots in Learning Chatbots For Bringing New Staff Into an Organization The chatbot can guide an employee from job acceptance; getting them excited about joining and validating their decision, through the initial on-boarding process where they can learn about processes, team structures and brand values. Nothing beats the feeling a new employee gets when they receive a personal message from the company founder or their manager! Millennials (Generation Z) will make up 50pc of the global workforce by 2020.They like messaging platforms, so companies probably should use chatbots to engage these employees. Example of a Conversational interface (chatbot) - Chatterbite - for a Corporate eLearning. Source: http://www.chatterbite.com/internal-comms/r Chatbots For Skills Gap Analysis Employees should have the skills to do their job. Skills gap analysis is evaluating their skills to find out where they currently are and where they should be. The paperwork in doing a skills gap analysis in the traditional way is overwhelming. So they don’t happen as often as they should. As Sam Hennessy from Filtered (a UK eLearning publisher) noted, “Using a chatbot you could roll out the questions little by little. Then deliver feedback as insight based on the previous batch of questions. This will actually create a positive feedback loop. People will want to give excellent answers because they are now interested in the results”. Chatbots For Microlearning Bite-sized learning (microlearning) is text or video that teaches something in under 5 minutes, like “how to protect a spreadsheet”. Corporations have adopted microlearning and are delivering it through chat interfaces. Harvard Business Review has created something close to this using a Slack chatbot. Every weekday it picks a random article from a curated pool and sends a summary to you via chat. This is a great example of being proactive. Chatbots For Getting Feedback Once someone has taken a course, have the chatbot ask them some quiz questions. Do this over a few weeks. Doing the same thing over and over can help you learn. Then look to see if anyone keeps getting the question wrong. If they are, then the corporate learning department can step in and give those people a little extra help. You can also get feedback on how well the course was. Chatbots for Search Needs Imagine a machine that could access your company wikis or knowledge bases and serve up information in real time, in a context that’s helpful to the employee who needs it—much like the computer on Star Trek’s “Enterprise.” Chatbots can learn to personalize data for employees and filter irrelevant data. Rather than sifting through work data to complete daily tasks, workers can simply ask individual chatbots for the information they require. Chatbots will do the acts of Googling and searching. Chatbots are the ideal way to achieve any task using the internet, as they help to avoid unnecessary data. ‘Enterprises are increasingly turning to web applications to streamline their processes and make collaboration easier. Still, applications are siloed and unable to communicate with one another. A chatbot could one day render apps obsolete. Chatbots can conduct the same tasks as most applications in one integrated system and tailor the results to the user.’ Daniel Newman, CEO of USA-based Broadsuite Media Group

The go-to option for both getting a top-quality eLearning platform and saving money on hiring the required specialists is outsourcing custom eLearning development to a professional eLearning company. We create/customize and implement eLearning systems for businesses from the USA, Canada, Israel, the UK, and other European countries and provide full-cycle e-learning development. Have an idea or a current project? Talk to our eLearning expert to see how we can help. An eLearning platform is a piece of web or mobile software designed to deliver and manage the learning process in a manner that boosts its effectiveness to the maximum extent. For learners -> it helps develop skills and accomplish learning tasks at their own pace and from any place. For training staff -> it’s a gateway for creating and delivering content (video, text, podcasts, etc.), keeping track of the results and assessments, and pulling reports to measure the business impact of learning - all in a more convenient, adaptable, and accessible way. The competitive advantage of eLearning platforms is delivering a comprehensive learning experience online, through any device (mobile phone, PC, or tablet). It should feel like a classroom experience where traditional instructor-student interactions like Q&As, discussion, games, collaborative projects, quizzes, etc. are achieved thanks to innovative features and tools that engage students (chatbots, game-based programs, awards, interactive content, etc). The most popular types of eLearning platforms are  Talent Management Systems for corporate training; Learning Experience Platforms/LXPs (Degreed, Cornerstone);  Learning Management Systems/LMSs (JoomLMS, Docebo);  Education marketplaces/MOOC platforms (Coursera, Udemy); Language learning platforms (Duolingo, Mondly); And some others. Example of what a learning platform for corporate training may look like. Designed by Belitsoft. Customizing vs Building an Online Learning Platform from Scratch If you are considering how to develop an online learning platform, you have two options here: creating a new platform or customizing an existing one. Choose to develop a new online learning platform if you prioritize: Scalability. If you expect millions of users on your product, you can design the architecture and structure the code to ensure it is ready for the high load; Unique process. An eLearning project which differs from the competitors by unique instructional design should likely be developed from scratch to meet your learning goals; Budget and time flexibility. A completely new eLearning system usually has a higher upfront cost and may take a few months to build, and you take it into account when planning the development process. Customizing an existing learning platform is right for you if you have: Lower scalability requirements. The learning platform would have features that are excessive for your product. This tends to make customized solutions more “heavy” and harder to scale than their turnkey counterparts; Unique features. It would be easier to implement the majority of lacking features by customizing an existing solution. For example, you can add a live chat, the leaderboard and awards, in-app payment, and many more; Limited budget. Typically, existing learning platforms already have the basic and most demanded functionality a learner and instructor might need. This helps cash-strapped startups save money on development and customize Moodle or JoomLMS instead to get the necessary functionality at a lower cost. Either way, you need to follow an elearning software development strategy that includes: STEP 1. Make Proof of Concept.Requirements analysis, detailed specification, learners’ needs and goals analysis, and success criteria are necessary so that the software development team has got the full and clear project vision and business stakeholders know what to expect in terms of budget, time, and outcomes. STEP 2. Choose Core Features. Add to your eLearning platform the features that favor learner engagement and boost learning efficiency, for example, gamification, social learning, and personalized content recommendations. STEP 3. Develop Learning Content. Either content creation from scratch or digitization of existing materials is a go-to option. At this step, you should make sure that the used content format is widely used and compatible with other platforms. STEP 4. Create Instructional Design. You should decide which learning methodology to follow when organizing and delivering the learning content in a way that favors its faster acquisition and overall learner engagement. STEP 5. Work on UX/UI Design. To create a great first impression and user experience, think over the page hierarchy and structure, font and color palette, the strategic use of white space, and CTAs. STEP 6. Develop and test an eLearning platform. Choose a tech stack based on your project specifics and your current IT infrastructure, develop the software, ensure its security, and test the result. STEP 1. Make Proof of Concept POC is the process meant to determine the feasibility of the idea or to verify that the idea will function as envisioned. To ensure that you timely detect and remove all the possible limitations and flaws from your idea, at this stage, we recommend: 1. Decide What Learners’ Problems and Needs You Are Targeting Learners are your paying customers, so understanding what they expect to achieve at the end of a training program should be your primary goal. To understand what problem they are trying to solve or what goals they have, start by segmenting and choosing the right target use case for you. Most Popular and Demanded Corporate Use Cases Onboarding An eLearning platform is meant to speed up pre-hire skills assessment, new hire orientation through policies, working processes, and culture, as well as safety training and more, depending on the industry. If a platform for onboarding is your case, you might be interested in an LMS that provides immersive content. So apart from the ability to deliver and track the completion of required training modules, it might include a virtual office tour or a welcome video. Retaining top talent An eLearning platform is meant to help recruit and retain top talent by providing opportunities for self-directed learning in pursuit of professional development and individual growth. If a platform for talent retaining is your case, you should look for an LXP that includes an off-the-shelf course library for soft skills development, upskilling, reskilling, or cross-training. Such platforms should also have social learning features (communities and knowledge sharing between learners) as a source of motivation and engagement. Certification and Compliance training An eLearning platform is meant to automate certification or licensing, initial and ongoing compliance and regulatory training, continuing education credit, re-certification, and skills training. If a platform for compliance training is your case, your go-to option may be an LMS with well-structured training modules that include various types of content and assessment modules. 2. Define Success Criteria Software development becomes much easier when you have a definite vision of your goals and corresponding success criteria. So don’t skip business analysis and market research before starting the development. It will significantly optimize your time, expenses, and developer team efforts. When defining success criteria, you may rely on the proven S.M.A.R.T. approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely goals). Based on this approach, an example of your success criteria might be: “XX% of enrolled learners complete the course.” “The product gets XXX users in the first year.” “New employees successfully pass onboarding online in X weeks.” 3. Layout Your Timeline and Milestones The last step in your Proof of Concept is to define milestones, specifying start dates and end dates. Also, schedule your objectives for each milestone. Typically, there are no more than 4 milestones, each no longer than 1-2 weeks. STEP 2. Choose features for your eLearning platform The must-have feature set for any eLearning product comprises such functionality as: Single Sign-On, Course builder, Assessment tool, Learning analytics, In-app payments, etc. Together with core functionality, consider including some advanced technologies that favor user engagement and retention. Let´s mention the essential ones: Personalized learning path Personalizing learning experience helps learn faster and more efficiently, which results in faster knowledge acquisition, better knowledge retention, shorter training time, and reduced training costs.  For example, learner A has more years of experience and a higher skill level than learner B. Based on the previous learning activities, data about job experience, position, goals and interests, learners get personalized curriculum within the same course. A dashboard with a personal learning path for employees’ professional growth Tasks Automation The purpose of task automation is to refocus educators’ time from manual, repetitive admin tasks to teaching. An online learning platform should automate such activities as group enrollment, task assignments, assessments, notifications, and more. A dashboard with several options of automated assessments Content recommendations Content recommendations in an eLearning platform are based on learning goals. For example, an employee indicates the position of a senior accountant as a goal. Based on this goal, the platform automatically recommends relevant training content.  The eLearning platforms can also personalize recommended content types. For example, some learners get information better when watching videos, while others prefer learning through reading. So the suggested content will be majorly adjusted to these preferences. A dashboard of a learning platform with recommendations based on individual interests and goals Gamification Gamification includes elements that motivate users by making the learning process fun and competitive. The approach has proven to be effective and is widely accepted among the top e-learning companies. Some of the popular features are: Progress bar showing how much the learner has already studied; Badges as a reward for achievements, like 10 successful answers in a row or 5 tests passed. Leaderboard which lets learners compete with friends Experience points and levels showing the user’s expertise in a given class; The in-app currency which could be spent on bonus lessons or cosmetic elements. A personal profile where the number of earned badges is highlighted Mobile-friendly design Regardless of your industry, make sure that your learners can access training content on the go. It will give them absolute flexibility and freedom in the self-learning cycle. It’d also be smart to add the ability to save courses on learners’ devices to take them when offline. A mobile design of a learning platform Social learning A learning platform that allows discussions and collaboration is a good way to motivate learners to share their knowledge. Add communication tools, such as groups, private messages, chats, and forums.  Another great idea is to implement mentorship when more experienced employees help their peers to advance. The learners who have accomplished their learning goals can perform as mentors. Thus, the eLearning platform suggests struggling learners contact those who have completed the course and ask for help. As a result, admins or L&D specialists don’t have to do it manually or force learners to collaborate. A dashboard with mentors that less skilled learners can address to Third-party learning content Access to 3rd-party content, like LinkedIn Learning or Udemy, is a must for creating a rich content library. Such an approach allows admins or instructors to skip creating all courses from scratch. Besides, it allows diversifying training materials to cover various employees' needs. A dashboard with courses from various content providers STEP 3. Develop Elearning Content The most appealing design and attractive platform are useless if the content is bad. Content includes the learning materials and tests/quizzes/exercises. There are two ways to get content for your eLearning platform: digitize existing content; create content from scratch. To create content yourself, you need authoring tools. Their purpose is to help prepare all kinds of learning materials, games, animations, and tests. Many learning platforms include authoring tools to help training staff create learning materials fast. Alternatively, there are companies specializing in eLearning content development. But you should clearly state your preferences and goals and participate in regular meetings with the team to make sure everything goes as planned. The easiest way to create learning content is by digitizing existing content. Note that in this case, you should be especially attentive to content formats. Among the typical eLearning formats are audio, video, PDF, XML, MP3, MP4, SCORM, AICC, Tin Can, and more. To avoid dependence on specific formats and software and corresponding risks and expenses, check that your online eLearning platform supports the major ones. If you have learning content in some other format, apply industry standards that are aimed at unifying learning materials. Among the most popular eLearning standards, there are: SCORM. A SCORM standard makes your learning content compatible with almost every learning platform on the market. So even if you decide to use it on another platform, your content will stay compatible with a new platform. xAPI. An xAPI standard is aimed to gather structured data and track the learning statistics from your eLearning platform. LTI. An LTI standard suits for connecting a third-party cloud-based course or tool (“tool provider”) with your LMS, LXP, or an eLearning app. STEP 4. Create Instructional Design Simply put, instructional design is a framework for building content. It goes beyond simply creating learning content, it considers how users learn and what materials and methods will most effectively help them achieve learning goals. So the instructional design boils down to the way how educational tools should be designed, created, and delivered to learners for the most effective knowledge acquisition. Having a subject matter expert would be of great help at this stage to understand: What do we want our users to do? How should they do it? What should happen after they do it? After replying to these questions, you’ll be able to see the whole picture of how your platform would work. Here is how a standard instructional design in corporate training looks like 1. Reveal skill gaps by defining current knowledge and setting a target level A skill gap is the disparity between the current knowledge level of an employee and the target level. The current level can be measured by a certified examination, an AI-powered assessment tool, or self-assessment. The goal of corporate training through a learning platform is to close skills gap by upskilling employees.  A dashboard with skills that an employee has to master to achieve their learning and career goals 2. Deliver the training through a personalized learning path according to the revealed skill gaps To effectively address the revealed skills gaps and educate employees faster, a learning path should be based on the current knowledge level, employee’s interests, preferences, and the learning goal. A personalized learning path that a learning platform offers to an employee with the aim to achieve a target skill level 3. Promote internal mobility based on the training results Once the target skill is mastered, the information gets into the HR software, where an employer and the HR team gets information about top performers to promote them or offer available positions. A dashboard with learning results that demonstrate to the employer and the HR team which employees can fit the open position STEP 5. Working on UX/UI Design The research by Google discovers that people form a stable first impression about your website within 50 ms. That’s why your eLearning platform's homepage should make it immediately obvious that the users have come to the place where they can get the knowledge they are looking for. Besides, we should take into consideration short attention spans and busy working schedules that leave little time for learning, people won’t spend more than a few moments searching for the necessary content. So no matter how good the content of your eLearning platform is, if learners can’t quickly find what they need, they won’t be able to consume it. That´s why great User Experience (UX) takes the lead. An easy-to-navigate and engaging platform is what makes learners come back. To provide employees with easily searchable and engaging learning content, consider applying 5 key UX/UI design tips of eLearning platforms that convert visitors. 1. Create a well-balanced hierarchy To create a design that converts successfully, it’s critical to think over the hierarchy of the layout elements, starting from the position of the login form and CTAs to the video player size. By creating a balanced elements hierarchy, you favor an intuitive user journey and seamless UX. As a result, visitors coming to your platform will easily find what they need and be more likely to convert. Option 1: Symmetrical design. The experts with years of hands-on experience in the eLearning industry suggest aligning layout elements with each other to create a symmetrical design. Important content, like the course or lesson collection, should be presented consistently in symmetrical blocks, which makes them easier to identify. Option 2: Grid Design. This type of design separates the platform wireframe into straight rows and columns, generating modules of equal or similar size. Grid alignment creates a sense of order and guides visitors’ gaze to move naturally across the screen. The modular grid layout inclines users to stay longer on your platform. For example, the course pages work best with a hierarchical grid layout, when the content is hierarchically structured based on visitors’ views, completion rates, or other criteria. 2. Follow the “F” heatmap pattern An eye-tracking study has revealed that people typically follow an “F” pattern while looking for information on any website. So when organizing the layout of your eLearning platform, place the most essential and helpful information where visitors look the most - at the page top and going all the way from left to right, then down with a focus on the left-hand side of the screen. For example, organize your homepage following this pattern. Consider using “hot” spots for placing a brief tutorial video, social proof, and enticing statistics (how many students your platform has, what renowned brands use your platform, etc).  3. Leverage white space for better UX The challenge any eLearning platform development team should overcome is to create a UX that minimizes the mental and physical effort that massive amounts of content may cause.  On eLearning platforms, the purpose of white space is to help learners gain new knowledge without mental and visual stress. Thoughtfully used white space also reduces distraction and focuses the learners’ attention on important pieces of content. 4. Use fonts and colors that attract and improve readability A visitor’s decision to stay and use your eLearning platform, which literally means paying you money, also depends on the fonts and colors. They impact on the perception of information and website’s legibility, subsequently improving your conversion rate. Font. The best practice is using typical fonts that are already familiar to visitors, for example, Sans Serif fonts like Roboto and Futura. Excessive experimenting may alienate visitors.  Size. You should also pay attention to the size of the font, which should not go below 12px or exceed 18px for the main copy, although this really depends on the font. Headlines, of course, can and should be much larger in size. Color. Using the right color palette favors creating an appealing and engaging experience. The most widely used colors in eLearning are blue, orange, purple, and yellow. According to color psychology, these colors are subconsciously associated with feelings of trust (blue), mental stimulation (orange), wisdom (purple), and optimism (yellow). 5. Use CTAs to create an efficient user journey  Call-To-Actions are meant to trigger conversions, whether it is a subscription, course enrollment, or any other action.  Tips for creating effective СTAs: Use a bold button design with vivid, contrasting colors to display these triggers clearly and make them stand out against the background; Match the CTA buttons' color and style with your logo to highlight your brand consistency;  Create a short, to-the-point message that motivates users to make the conversion decision;  Use words that inspire and entice.  Leverage a smart trick by preceding your СTA with a course preview or the learning curve to boost interest.  Add a social proof (like an authentic learner review) before a Call-To-Action button for improving conversion. Check out the examples of what an e-learning development company can do. STEP 6. Develop and Test an eLearning Platform 1. Choose the tech stack. To decide which technologies will meet your goals best of all, it’s necessary to evaluate: the size and complexity of your project; the platform functionality; system load requirements; timeline of the project;  the existing IT infrastructure; availability of specialists with the necessary tech skills. 2. Ensure reliability and security. A security breach may cost the company's reputation and brand image. So handling sensitive information is one of the more important tasks when building an eLearning platform. Ensuring that the eLearning platform has the proper security level includes: setting up security protocols,  using firewalls and SSL; data encryption;  two-step verification;  biometric authentication, etc. 3. Develop your platform or its MVP. After defining all the details, you can start the development process. It can be performed either by your in-house developers or by a dedicated team. Consider starting by developing a minimum viable product (MVP) as the first step to save money, minimize time to market and get feedback from the first users that will give you valuable insights for building a full-fledged platform. Developing an MVP basically means building the core features (including the ones that differentiate your product from the competitors’) and launching them in the shortest possible term. Then, with a functionaning product that gains money and valuable feedback, you continue the development of a full-scale version. 4. Test the eLearning platform quality. After the development stage, QA specialists test the product and remove bugs and technical glitches еo ensure the quality and integrity of the platform. Following a QA checklist, they test every function, element, compatibility, etc. Such a procedure guarantees that all other functionalities are in place and work properly. As shown in our guide on how to build an online learning platform, the process requires a mix of skills in instructional design, programming, content creation, UX/UI design, media production, and more. This is why outsourcing this job to a team with real-life domain expertise can be a decision that will save your business time and money. ORDER FROM US Cost of Building an eLearning Platform Before you start the development, estimate the cost of your project, leveraging the following 4 factors that influence the cost of building an eLearning platform: 1. Complexity Depending on the use case defined in a POC, the learning goals and the needs of your learners will differ. It directly impacts the complexity of an online learning platform. The more personalized, interactive, and automated platform you build, the more specialists you’ll need and the more hours you’ll have to pay, which translates into higher development costs. 2. Developers' Rates Depending on whether you have an in-house development team or search for a vendor, your expenses will significantly vary. The rates of dedicated developers from Eastern Europe can be 3 times lower than the US developers, for example. 3. Development Team Size and Skillset Based on your project requirements, choose the necessary developer roles. The more specific and complex your technology stack is, the more you spend on corresponding specialists. The more complex the software is, the more working hours the development team will require to deliver the expected result. Outsourcing developers would be a good option, as you can get all the necessary technical expertise in one place and at a significantly lower cost. 4. Content Creation Efforts If you digitize your hard-copy content, it’ll be a more affordable option. If you need customized content, the expenses will increase. The cost grows even higher when you contract a subject expert to create the content. Whichever your option is, consider including images, videos, animations, and other interactive content to get high engagement rates. 5. Must-have Features You can significantly reduce the cost of building an online learning platform and time to market by creating an MVP with core functionality first. As described in our step-by-step guide, these decisions should be taken before the development starts. As you can see, the development cost depends on various factors and differs a lot for each project. Let’s evaluate your project to define its development cost. DISCOVER THE PRICE

Example of a Custom Corporate Elearning Platform's Architecture Looking for the best elearning companies to meet all of your corporate training needs? Send us your request for information, contact us to know how our elearning consultants could help you with custom corporate elearning development, e-learning application development or choosing pre-built corporate eLearning software, corporate e learning implementation project plan, training or support! Custom Corporate Employee Onboarding Training The major challenge for enterprises today as ever before is an effective onboarding and new employee orientation. Employee onboarding training automation is the current top-1 hot trend to solve this challenge. Need a Custom Employee Onboarding Training Automation? We have a solution for you. Contact us to get a Proposal New employees who went through a structured on-boarding program were 58% more likely to be with the organization after three years. (The Wynhurst Group). Stakeholders of the top-performing companies believe that successful onboarding of new employees is not just a function of product education but also a practice that ensures that they will be well trained on the company’s brand, mission, messaging, policies and procedures. Online learning experience portal with a guided centralized access and blended delivery model (custom e-learning courses, live virtual instructor-led training sessions and on-demand reference resources) is the “build once, use many times” solution for onboarding and new employee orientation needs. Online learning experience portal is the solution for: companies that pay for unused training content because their current onboarding system can not assign courses, so employees are not held accountable for their required online training and they just are not taking the training. modern companies with a high percentage of the workforce that works from remote or virtual office locations. startups or early-stage companies that need effective systems to support expanded resources once funding is secured or cash flow is achieved. Key features of the Onboarding Module of the Corporate Talent Management system: Integration with an existing HR system. When a new hire is added to your HR system, their account is automatically created in the LXP. Course enrollment automation. When your new hires are added to your HR system, they are automatically added, for example, to a “Welcome to the Company” onboarding course in the LXP. Controlled timeframes. Select a time period for the selected course by which it needed to be completed. For example, you can set up a course to be completed during the first week of the employee joining. With this option, you will know that new hires are meeting their onboarding goals and keeping up with their training schedule. With the ability to set deadlines you can track who has completed their training and who needs a reminder. New employee onboarding roadmap or learning path. The learner path is the logical order of courses that must be completed one by one. For example: Orientation -> Policies and Procedures -> Health and Safety, and so on. It isn't possible to start a new course until the previous is not completed. Onboarding course completion assessment. A learning assessment is the best practice to be sure that an employee has really studied required materials, for example, onboarding compliance training. So-called summative assessment method is generally acknowledged in the corporate community. It focuses on measuring learning outcomes at the end of the learning process. Group-based automation. This feature enables training managers to easily assign the onboarding curriculum for each department to ensure they have easy access to specialized training. You can create “customer support group”, “sales group”, etc. and once a new hire logs into your LXP they have access to all the same courses as their fellow team members. Customized reports with analytics. You can access details of new hires’ performance and ensure they’re keeping up to speed, gaining the knowledge they need. Additionally, you can measure their overall performance to see where to make corrections to a course content to improve the learner experience. LinkedIn-like enterprise internal network. Use the internal social network feature to help new starters explore profiles of existing employees, establish connections and chat with more experienced colleagues to ask for advice. Advice It can be counterproductive to force workers into long lesson plans when they are already busy with their regular tasks. Instead, consider repurposing your training and onboarding materials into shorter, bite-sized pieces. Belitsoft is committed to helping HR professionals and training leaders to make a difference in their organizations. Advantages of Corporate eLearning Cost-efficiency Cost reduction and cost-efficiency are the most significant benefits of online corporate training. No need to hire instructors, purchase textbooks, or print learning materials. There is also no need to create or equip special classrooms - employees can take online training directly at workplaces. Investment will be required to create and maintain an online learning platform. But it is minimal in comparison with the traditional individual development of employees. Choosing the right training system allows the company to optimize the financial costs of staff education. Real examples and numbers. Dow Chemical saved $34 million dollars and decreased learning expenses from $95 per learner/per course to $11 per learner/per course due to converting from classrooms to online education. IBM also managed to save big bucks in transition to online corporate training. The amount saved is reportedly $200 million, and that is roughly 30% of the previous training budget of the company.  Access to education anywhere 24/7 Now you do not need to wait for the materials to be prepared or for the trainer to have the opportunity to conduct training. No need to attend special classes for continuing education. You can get all the necessary information almost immediately and from anywhere. Employees have the opportunity to learn on the job, as well as at home, in a cafe or any other place using a telephone or laptop and the Internet. Today's employees demand workplace solutions that match their lifestyle. Someone perceives information better early in the morning or at the beginning of the working day, for others it is easier to get training in the evening. An employee can plan his time himself. With a growing global workforce, one of the benefits of e-learning is that it can be created and broadcast around the world. Modern solutions for e-learning allow employees from different departments and countries to participate in discussions directly in the training module. Reduces training time Switching to e-learning can also result in tremendous time savings for you and your employees. Tests have shown that e-learning reduces your employee’s training time by 60% compared to traditional training. Instant feedback and results tracking As LMS tracks user activities, it is way easier for the business owner to get information about the courses completed. After getting full information about skills that were in for improvement, employers get a better understanding of how to apply talents of people they are in command of. Employees can also receive real-time feedback. No manual ratings. After completing the course, the employee passes the test and the system automatically tells you what needs to be improved and where to find the necessary information. In e-learning, it is possible to set clear criteria by which the knowledge acquired by an employee in the learning process is evaluated. Increases Learning Involvement Thanks to gamification, the use of video, and other interactive content, e-learning can significantly increase your employee’s engagement and increase the retention of information received. This is especially true for specific, concise topics, such as training in new software, compliance procedures, or reference guides that they can access on the go. Learning is no longer a chore. When an employee can learn in an interactive and engaging environment, this leads to improved retention of knowledge and skills. As a rule, such information is perceived much easier and simpler. Permanent access to important information Your LMS can become a bank of useful information for your organization. The company’s knowledge base, documentation or any other useful information can be stored here. Thanks to the access settings, you can choose to whom and what information to make available. If your training covers a lot of materials that will need to be referenced later, for example product specifications, eLearning gives your employees the ability to access these resources exactly when they need them. No more searching for information on a computer or in mail. All the necessary materials will be available to you anywhere, even from a mobile device. For example, if an employee needs to freshen up the memory of how to properly draw up a contract, he can simply log into the LMS system and click on the module and find the required document template. Online learning platforms also allow employees to review key information exactly when they need it. Scalability The flexibility of e-learning allows you to adapt training for any number of employees and in any number of languages. Instead of trying to find instructors and training facilities for training, all your employees need is access to a computer or mobile phone. Corporate LMS can be quickly rebuilt and updated with new modules, which makes it a universal training tool. Productivity increase People are always looking for growth opportunities. Online training allows employees to quickly gain new knowledge and master new processes. One of the main complaints about traditional teaching methods is that the time-consuming nature of programs takes away their valuable time that could be spent on other work. With the help of training management systems, employees can participate in their online courses at any time, including at home or during downtime, so training should not conflict with other important or time-sensitive work tasks. Employees who are better trained and knowledgeable about the company's products and services will be more effective and will help improve the image of your business. Reduced employee turnover rates Happy and well-informed employees are employees who are more likely to remain loyal to your organization. By giving them access to 24-hour online learning and self-study modules, they can advance their professional goals and feel motivated to increase productivity in the workplace. They can also identify areas in which they may need a job and find out their main strengths so that they can become better employees and more informed advocates for your brand. How to understand that your company needs an effective corporate elearning system? Basically, modern companies at some stage of their activities face the following problems: Development of non-standard production processes requiring timely and compulsory study by staff Territorial randomness of company branches Limited time to learn new material The overwhelming majority of employees trained in the traditional form of training Minimum budget allocated to a staff training program A large number of employees in need of training were recorded. The presence of one or more factors indicates the need for e-learning in the company. Successful Companies Using Corporate Elearning As of today, nearly half of the most profitable world-known companies use eLearning tools for online training. Are you still teaching your employees the old-fashioned way? Here's how successful businesses use eLearning to keep their workflow more effective. Shell is a global multi-billion dollar corporation working in oil and gas industry. It is one of the six Big Oil supermajors with an annual revenue of $305.18 billion. Shell operates in over 70 countries, managing 92.000 employees. In 2006 Shell decided to ensure quality of their services and modify training for its contracting and procurement staff. They wanted to increase the company’s profit by improving staff performance. Besides, they have to support employees speaking in multiple languages and adapt learning to the standards of the Shell management system. The training program involves an online portal, known as Shell Open University. It offers a wide range of practical, commercial and technical learning tools. Employees have unlimited access to online courses, webcasts, e-books, and guides. They evaluate their own knowledge, capabilities, and competency both before and after completing the program. Moreover, Shell will reimburse the money and time spent on further employee learning if the corporate curriculum is insufficient. Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational car producer founded in 1937. Their corporate structure consists of over 340.000 employees working in 51 manufacturing branches in 28 countries. Toyota is the world’s third-largest seller delivering its vehicles in more than 170 states. As of 2017, the company has raised $249.9 billion in revenue. Toyota Motor Europe has been using eLearning to train over 18.000 motor technicians and engineers since 2005. The company upgraded to the latest version of its LMS in 2013 to provide continuous training without having to be re-certified. The platform offers learning materials for dozens of distributors and hundreds of retail outlets in over 50 countries. ‘I’ve found [...] that getting people to embrace e-learning is much more about change management. It’s bigger than making people to use the system; it’s about changing the way they think about getting information.’ Sann René Glaza, Toyota Motor Europe’s senior manager for the Learning Technologies Group Toyota learning program includes 150 classes for its certified technical staff, as well as training courses for non-technical employees working for distributors in Europe and Asia. PayPal is an American company managing a global online payments system. The platform supports more than 100 currencies for daily banking operations. As of 2016, it has replaced traditional paper procedures with electronic money transfers for over 188 million people. The statistics show that PayPal’s annual revenue amounted to $13.0B, up from $10.84B the year before. The company has made a huge contribution to reorganize its employee-training programs. They adopted more nontraditional but at the same time more effective learning techniques. For example, PayPal uses social media like Facebook or Twitter’s Periscope. They created private group and invited experts to help employees or teach short classes. ‘It’s worth making the investment if you want top people to stay longer and do their job better.’ Derek Hann, Chief learning officer at PayPal For more in-depth learning, PayPal uses Udemy for Business. The employees browse its extensive library of over 2.500 courses and study the content at their own pace. Since accepting eLearning at PayPal, the number of active learners has doubled. That is to say, there are employees who complete at least two training courses every six months. The company was able to cut corporate training expenses by 25 percent through implementing eLearning technology. Need developers for your product? Hire our dedicated team! Pitney Bowes is a global company best known as a mailing services and equipment supplier. It has more than 1.5 million clients in over 100 countries, including 90% of the 500 largest US corporations. The company was number 634 on the Fortune 500 in 2017, having received $3.4B in annual revenue. Since its foundation in 1920, Pitney Bowes has spread to 33 cities around the USA. Besides, there are offices located in Hatfield (UK), New Delhi (India) and Tokyo (Japan). As of December 2016, they employed approximately 14.000 people worldwide. Their Presort Services team has over 4.000 employees who speak 17 languages. ‘Through team building, leadership exercises and professional development programs, we’re learning that our common values are so much greater than our differences, and it has greatly benefited our work environment and value we deliver for clients.’ Erika Hohlweck, Executive Customer Service Manager at Pitney Bowes The company chose Udemy for Business to train their distributed engineering team. Each employee has a lifetime curriculum access and can test their knowledge by taking quizzes. They are able to choose the program most relevant to their specific technical role and training requirements. Besides, the platform provides extra courses about personal development or data analytics. As a result, 84 percent of Pitney Bowes team used eLearning. The top learners notice a positive effect after working with the content for 16 hours. Founded in 1996, Booking.com is an online accommodations reservation platform based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In 2005 the company was acquired by US-based Booking Holdings for $133M. As the global online travel market continues to grow, Booking.com decided to implement eLearning solutions to help rookies develop their technical skills. Using online tutoring, the company immediately saw an increase in engagement of workers who on average spend 5+ hours learning on the platform. ‘We were looking to create a culture of learning in general, but wanted to specifically encourage internal Booking.com employees to develop new skills and find new opportunities within our company, rather than leave us after a few years.’ Kirk Davies, Digital Learning Manager at Booking.com Verint develops software and hardware tools for customer engagement management and information security. Their products enable over 10.000 multinational organizations and government agencies to monitor and analyze voice, video and data on computer networks. The company was founded in 1994 with a headquarter in Melville, NY. Today, they have multiple offices around the globe with 2500 dedicated specialists. ‘The main issue was that our sales team wasn’t consistently making the best use of our CRM system. This sometimes made pipeline forecasting more difficult than it should have been. [...] Gamification presented an innovative—and engaging—approach to help us achieve the results we wanted.’ Graeme Gabriel, Strategic WFO Consultant at Verint Verint chose eLearning solution to encourage EMEA-based sellers to better understand company’s products and boost their KPIs. One way to drive engagement was to create different content items like quizzes and blended learning sessions. They prepared 2-3 tasks a week making them educational and fascinating at the same time. As a result, their KPIs grew by 300 percent on average within a few months. Headquartered in San Francisco, Lyft is a fast-growing transportations company doing business through a ride-hailing app. Launched in 2012, Lyft has raised $4.3B in total funding. The issue with getting budget was one of the problems associated with corporate training and education. New staff came in with different skill sets and it was hard to know how much to spend and what skills to train. Originally, Lyft introduced a half-day in-person training that did not meet the expectations. The company walked a different path by choosing online self-selected curricula. Managers use eLearning to train their teams. They assign subordinates certain classes to help employees learn new skills. New hires initially access an onboarding platform, so managers can monitor what everyone is learning and help them get caught up as quickly as possible. In the nearest future Lyft plans to record all-hands meetings and corporate events to make them available for 24/7 access. Since 1893, Crouse Hospital has taken care for generations of Central New Yorkers. It is a private non-profit health institution that serves more than 250,000 patients each year. With over 2.700 workers, the hospital is one of Central New York's largest employers. Crouse Hospital modified its training program in 2015 by implementing eLearning technology. Before switching to online education, administrators had a lot of paperwork related to employee professional development. The process was time-intensive when it came to filing handwritten class rosters and paper transcripts. Using the edtech method, students can access all needed information tailored to the healthcare industry. The software allows the hospital’s educators to create or access existing classes, track students’ results, and generate reports. Besides, managers can easily add or remove employees from the program avoiding red tape. All this resulted in significant time savings, allowing employees to focus on other responsibilities. Founded in 2007, Global Campus serves as an online campus of the Colorado State University. In 2016 they launched one of the first gamified strategies for higher education employees. Derrick Pope, Director of Enrollment at CSU-Global Campus, directly led the development process and shared the details on his blog. ‘For several years I’ve explored the possibility of using gamification in higher education administration. While most businesses implement gamification with the goal of motivating customers or users to complete a series of tasks, I wanted to apply this concept to further develop employee skills internally.’ Derrick Pope Gamification is the process of adding game elements to existing systems to motivate users’ engagement. Derrick saw this as an opportunity to create something unique for the organization and employees. His primary goal was to create an engaging system that encouraged and rewarded participation while employees improve their job effectiveness. ‘If your gamification environment doesn’t evolve with your team and business needs, the experience will get stale and users will become less engaged. If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse.’ Derrick Pope

Want to get one of the AI-powered tools in your eLearning product or create a personalized learning platform using AI from scratch? Our LMS development company will implement the features that will bring you the maximum benefit. Let's talk! Example of AI-based Personalization in Corporate Learning The importance of effective workforce training is becoming critical. To cope with this issue, the forward-looking leaders already started to adopt progressive tools, including AI in talent management and continuous education. The management of the US-based air medical transport company (Air Methods, a 2,800-person helicopter company in Englewood, Colorado), understood the importance of well-organized continuous education to train pilots. When using traditional webinar-based training, every employee used to receive the same course, regardless of their learning speed and current skills. Such a method required a lot of time, drew little engagement, and didn’t motivate pilots to grow. So the company adopted an aviation training system built on Artificial Intelligence. Process of Implementing Personalized Learning Using AI The system tested every learner using short quizzes and games. Then AI adapted the learning path to each learner’s knowledge of a topic based on the test results.  If a pilot struggled with a certain topic, the AI LMS repeated it by presenting the information in a new way. After completing a section, every pilot was retested and progressed to the next module. Results after Implementing Personalized Learning Using AI According to the company leaders, the implementation of AI personalized learning in corporate training not only boosted the effectiveness of the training course but also helped to attract talent. The company could also significantly reduce their training and onboarding costs by cutting half the number of personal instructor-led training classes together with the duration of their onboarding program from 10 to 5 days.  Belitsoft has experience in developing personalized eLearning solutions for Healthcare, Aviation, Finance, and other important industries. And we know what tools and features can become your competitive advantage. Let's discuss your case! What is Personalized eLearning? Personalized learning is an educational approach to address the individual learning needs and interests of each learner. The goal of personalized online learning is faster knowledge acquisition and better knowledge retention. According to the L&D Global Sentiment Survey, the two hottest topics in online education now are personalization and Artificial Intelligence. But why? By personalizing your learning content with the help of AI, you make the learning process faster and more effective.  In its turn, this leads to shorter training time, reduced training costs, and higher productivity of the trained workforce.  Features of Personalized Learning Software using AI The major components of the personalized learning platforms that can be customized for each learner are: Relevant information. Using only relevant content that is based on learner’s interests leads to faster and better results. Preferred eLearning content types. By detecting the preferences of each learner, the system builds a personalized path majorly using preferred content types (video, audio, text, etc.) to increase engagement. Individual pace of learning. Thanks to adjusting the learning pace, every learner gets the necessary amount of time needed to master every topic or skill. Corresponding difficulty level. Using the right tools, especially an AI-powered skill map, the system more quickly identifies the competency level and learning gaps that impede progress, allowing learners to achieve the desired results faster. Immediate feedback. Thanks to more frequent and immediate feedback, learners can understand their performance and progress in real-time. It happens through formative assessments, quizzes, and knowledge checks. Get all benefits of customized e-learning. Our experts will consult you about selecting the best way to personalize your training course. Benefits of AI in Personalized Learning for Any Business With more companies facing the challenge of upskilling and reskilling or arranging an effective professional education and licensing for their workforce, personalized learning has become a proven method that can bring success to businesses in a scalable manner. And the most obvious benefits that using personalized learning software brings to business are: Speed up the professional education process and increase its quality. Licensing and professional education require a lot of time, which negatively affects the working process.  But personalized learning makes learning targeted. Learners receive tailor-made information they require to fill gaps and achieve learning goals quickly. Also, the information is usually bite-sized, which makes classes short and increases knowledge retention. Such an approach encourages employees to self-direct their training and favors creating a culture of continuous learning within a company. Boost engagement and motivation that leads to higher productivity. When adult learners can control and self-direct the learning process, they are likely to feel more motivated.  Learners pick up lessons skipping unwanted information that doesn’t correspond to their role, need, experience, or skill level. Besides, they take a proactive role in their education and study at a comfortable pace.  That’s why personalized learning is a good choice to introduce professional learning on a regular basis. Reduce training hours and boost ROI. Profit margin growth is the result of higher productivity and shorter training time.  Personalization usually implies a bite-sized learning (microlearning) method. So learning at the working place becomes shorter and quicker. It equates to less learning time and fewer training payroll hours. Besides, personalized learning information is consumed faster and with better results. So employees spend less time on training and demonstrate equal or even better outcomes. Want to increase revenue, boost productivity, and streamline internal mobility within a company? Personalize your LMS or LXP with the help of AI tools. Or create an AI-powered platform from scratch. We'll recommend the tools and features that will bring you the maximum benefit. Let's talk! How to Get Started with AI Personalized Learning in a Company? Deep personalization that includes key aspects of training is performed with the help of algorithms. And even though traditional algorithms can perform this task, their possibilities are limited.  Only AI-powered systems can provide a high level of personalization that improves over time. The reason is the AI engine constantly refines recommendations without the intervention of developers or admins by updating themselves based on previous outcomes. Personalized learning with AI encompasses all the core aspects of online training: personalized learning path; relevant content based on knowledge level, skills, interests, and goals; automated knowledge checks; prediction of knowledge gaps; proactive learners’ support; tutoring, etc. Here is an example of AI-powered training software with individual learning paths and personally recommended content. linkedin.com Setting up personalized learning with an AI engine requires the following steps: Step 1. Create a skill matrix. To determine the learner's knowledge and then build a learning profile, start with creating a skill matrix. For this, skills should be described by humans once. It can be done by analyzing employees’ CVs with the help of text analytics. Or employees can fill in a simple form with skills in rows and knowledge levels in columns. And then these data will be parsed by a machine. As a result, every learner will have an individual profile that reveals their current knowledge level and skills. Step 2. Aggregate data about the learning background. However, knowing only skills will not give a complete picture. Artificial Intelligence captures, gathers, and analyzes employees’ learning backgrounds from different sources within the company. This can be easily performed with the help of xAPI. With xAPI you will collect information about employees' previous and current learning experience from LMS, LXP, TMS, HRIS, etc with a great degree of detail. Step 3. Use the AI engine to find patterns. Having aggregated all the data, the AI spots trends and builds patterns for each learner.  These data give admins or an L&D team valuable insights about learners’ performance and educational preferences. In the next step, this information will be used to suggest the most relevant content. Step 4. Build a training course based on AI-driven recommendations. By identifying learning trends, the system can provide learners with study materials in the formats and of the difficulty level that best suit their learning preferences and skills.  For example, AI informs an admin that a certain employee uses short videos as the major content resource and tends to watch about “Technical SEO”. Based on this data, the recommendation engine starts suggesting this learner more videos instead of a textual format, all around the preferred topic. Thanks to getting highly relevant content in a preferred format, more learners succeed in the training course. Step 5. Measure and assess regularly to adjust the course. Learners start training using an LMS or LXP. The performance of each learner is measured and assessed regularly.  The AI engine takes the latest results of a learner and adjusts the course. And this cycle constantly repeats. Any business that implements AI in training courses gets a strategic advantage thanks to the possibility to detect missing skills in the workforce and arrange effective upskilling and reskilling to address this problem in time. 5 Pillars of Personalized Learning using AI-powered LMS/LXP AI-based knowledge checks to detect the current knowledge level and gaps. To discover a learner’s educational background and knowledge gaps, an AI-based system starts with a knowledge check. This is a test that has no predefined consequence of questions. Every next question depends on a previous learner’s answer. In the case of correct answers, the difficulty level of questions constantly grows. In the case of an incorrect answer, the difficulty level lowers.  The AI-powered LMS or LXP tests learners’ knowledge regularly to guide and adjust learning activities in time.  After understanding the baseline proficiency, the learner is given a personalized learning path corresponding to the current knowledge level. pluralsight.com AI-selected training content to address individual learning goals Artificial Intelligence tracks how a learner is performing and progressing in the course. The previous performance is also taken into consideration.  Then AI uses the gathered data to detect the level of learners’ proficiency and their interests. The next step that AI makes is finding and recommending corresponding learning materials. So the course starts from the tasks revealing the learners' knowledge level. The proper selection of the content translates into faster knowledge acquisition and higher productivity of the workforce after completing such training.  When it comes to the personalization of content types, modern LXPs and LMSs can also suggest multiple content types.  For example, some learners get information better when watching short videos. Others learn quickly through reading. So the course will be majorly built on these preferences.  linkedin.com AI-created learning path to target detected knowledge gaps After detecting your knowledge, interests, and goals as well as selecting relevant content, AI builds a non-linear learning path. Non-linear means not predefined, chosen by learners by their needs and allowing them to complete the course at their own pace.  Learners are not forced to learn what they already know. They skip certain segments of a course and start learning what they actually need.  This is a key to higher motivation and engagement. Besides, it saves a lot of valuable time that will be spent on work thanks to efficient to-the-point learning.  valamis.com AI-powered tutoring to provide proactive assistance in learning AI virtual assistants and chatbots for education now act like tutors giving proactive recommendations about learning materials and assisting during the process. They teach by simulating a human tutor like in the learning app Duolingo and can also remind learners about assignments and due dates. Another aim of AI assistants is the selection and recommendation of the right courses for learners based on the topic, skills, duration, goals, and other factors.  Besides suggesting optimal courses based on the user’s profile, it can also recommend educational information in the public domain (TED, HBR, BBC, etc) or help find a human tutor when needed. juji.io AI-enabled feedback to give a responsive assessment immediately AI algorithms guide a learner through the learning path giving an immediate responsive assessment.  For example, a learner struggles with a certain topic, there can be additional tools like pop-up hints, dictionaries, calculators, etc. Meaningful and immediate feedback helps learners understand how they are progressing, detect weak and strong points, and get information that addresses their weaknesses. An immediate machine-driven assessment also excludes a direct interaction with an admin or instructor, which represents an effective trial-and-error method of problem-solving ( eliminating the fear and hesitation of direct interaction with an instructor).

The primary idea and goal of eLearning applications is to make education available on personal users' phones and PCs, which favors studying at any time and place learners want. There are several types of eLearning apps that differ by educational goals. If your intention is to make a language learning app, keep on reading to find the detailed guide. However, if you consider creating an eLearning app with wider possibilities and purposes, use this guide on How to Develop a Learning App. Example of a real-life eLearning app by Belitsoft 9-Step Guide on How to Make a Language Learning App The app development process can be described in 9 steps, some of which can run in parallel to speed up the launch time. And, of course, you don’t need to be a developer, designer, business analyst, and QA engineer rolled into one. A skilled team of a software development company can take your ideas and help materialize them. 1. Decide on the desired app's concept Before writing the code or working on the design details, make sure you have a clear definition and description of the app.  The concept defines and describes what the app does at the functional and appearance level. For example, the concept defines what the app will do and how it will respond to user interactions, and what elements and features it’s going to have. Start describing your concept with a brief statement that summarizes the app. For that, answer the basic questions like who, what, when, why, and how. 2. Make a Business Analysis Business analysis not only helps your own team or software vendor understand your vision and preferences. It also allows your vendor to assess your requirements and evaluate the possibility of their implementation. It can also include a discovery phase. In case you have no clear vision of the project scope or the overall concept, your outsourcing team will help you figure out the best solution. During this stage, your business analyst will do the following for you: check the relevance of your concept;  verify the feasibility of functional details; thoroughly analyze the market,  obtain data regarding possible competitors,  define business goals. 3. Define the feature set and make the requirement list Together with your development team make up a list of application features. Note that when deciding on the feature set for your app, you should be careful not to overwhelm users with a large number of features. It makes the app usage puzzling and may lead to user churn as a result.  Consider starting your project with an MVP, which is wise on many occasions.  It saves time and money and gives valuable feedback from the first users that give you a clear vision of whether you go in the right or wrong direction. If your team opts for an MVP, it’s essential to choose the core features to apply. How to do this? We have a detailed guide on MVP software development with best practices from successful entrepreneurs. Also, think about integrating the latest technologies. To attract more users, apps today are integrating conversational assistants (eLearning chatbots), AI-powered features (e.g., AI-based personalized learning path), speech recognition, and AR/VR.  Duolingo can be a benchmark here. Sticking to the idea of simplicity, Duolingo has quite a simple interface, not overloaded with features. It makes the use of the app easy for language learners.  Besides, the app uses innovative AI-powered features that make the app stand out on the market. And they all are described in detail in AI in language learning. After defining the feature set, create a requirement list for your development team.  Based on it, the technical team will evaluate which tools to choose to implement your idea, and how many resources will be needed. 4. Choose the technology stack corresponding to the platform (web, iOS, Android) Having in mind that 80% of online learners use smartphones to learn, and 57% use multiple devices, it’s vital for custom eLearning software to be cross-platform. Actually, that’s what the key market players do. To attract a larger audience, Duolingo and other popular platforms are available in Google Play, Apple Store, and on the web. How to code a language learning app? Let your developers choose the right technology stack, which will depend on the chosen platform.  iOS native development Category Technologies and Tools Programming languages Objective-C, Swift Tools Xcode SDK iOS SDK Architecture MVC, MVP, MVVM and VIPER Users get used to the interaction patterns of each OS (iOS and Android), and anything that contradicts general guidelines could push them away. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines could serve to give a general direction. Android native development Category Technologies and Tools Programming languages Java, Kotlin Tools Android Studio SDK Android SDK Architecture MVVM with Android Architecture Components The guide from Android can help understand the basic principles and requirements for building an Android-based app. Hybrid app development Category Examples Frameworks and technologies React Native, Xamarin, Flutter, Cordova Architecture Redux architecture It’s advisable to opt for hybrid development in the case of tight deadlines and a limited budget. Or if your priority is to build your app for both Android and iOS simultaneously. Web app development Category Technologies Front-end React.js, Vue.js, AngularJS Back-end Java, Python, Ruby, C#, Node.js Database (SQL) MySQL, PostgreSQL Database (NoSQL) MongoDB, Amazon DynamoDB, Apache Cassandra To develop a well-thought web application, think in advance about its architecture that must be scalable and modular. This is necessary to expand and change the functionality and allow the whole system to function under the high load efficiently. The third-party API integration should be made carefully because this choice impacts your app performance. Also, it’s recommended to store the content in cloud storage for scalable performance and almost unlimited storage capacity. Duolingo Tech Stack AI and Machine Learning As a learning experience platform, Duolingo uses AI to personalize the language learning experience. This personalization is achieved through the use of custom machine learning models. Training these models requires a high volume of data points, ranging from 100,000 to 30 million, depending on the problem. Duolingo makes more than 300 million predictions daily, which requires significant computational speed and scalability. PyTorch, a deep learning framework, is utilized for developing these models. AWS (Amazon Web Services) provides the computing platform for training and deploying these models. AWS's EC2 P3 high-performance GPU instances facilitate the deployment of the models. Duolingo's database development and data management strategies involve using Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon EMR with Amazon EBS as temporary storage, Amazon S3 for permanent storage, and Spark for computation of periodic batch predictions. Microservices and Infrastructure Duolingo initially built a monolithic application architecture using Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS. As they scaled and their needs evolved, they started using AWS Elastic Beanstalk. Facing scaling issues and new feature releases, Duolingo transitioned from a monolithic architecture to a Docker-based microservices architecture using various cloud migration solutions. They migrated to Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), which provided the ability to run and manage Docker containers. Duolingo found costs rising with this new approach, as different workloads required different types of compute resources within the same ECS cluster. To optimize costs and resource utilization, Duolingo employed Spotinst's Elastigroup service, a cluster orchestration and scaling service. This service helped them reduce compute costs by 60% and total AWS costs by 25%. Today, Duolingo manages over 100 microservices on AWS. And to ensure the high quality of their services, Duolingo also implements automation testing for all of its features. The application of gamification in eLearning is evident in Duolingo's approach to making language learning more engaging and effective. Duolingo source code is unavailable to the disappointment of many people, so creating your own is an obligatory step.  5. Develop the design of the application Having all elements of an eLearning app work in a similar way makes the use of an app convenient for users.  For that, your in-house designers or specialists of the chosen software development company must consider functional and external consistency. Functional consistency means that every interactive element should work in a similar way within the e-learning app. One should be able to have access to the learning materials on mobile, laptop, or tablet without getting used to each platform’s design individually. This is ensured with the help of external consistency of design and functionality across multiple platforms. If you are uncertain about which of the two options would make a better impact on the learning abilities of users - A/B testing comes handy for defining small elements. Common UX/UI Design Mistakes for E-Learning Mobile Apps We at Belitsoft have worked on multiple eLearning projects and gained vast expertise.  We’ve interviewed one of our UX designers who specializes in eLearning apps and courses to list the most common design mistakes that can ruin any app. Badly executed information architecture Prioritizing features by popularity is something all designers should pay attention to. Content and features that are most commonly used should be placed on the top. How do you define which functions would be used more commonly?  Well, it starts with using your intuition and researching the best practices of other apps. Then make adjustments according to feedback. As our designer Kate claimed, at the beginning of her career she got acquainted with “The Non-Designer’s Design Book”. A must-have for designers. It contained the idea of CRAP - contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity principles. Should they all be intact, the user will follow the way the designer had prepared for them. All the things displayed on-screen should be there for a reason: it is called an intentional design. Consistency issues The core of the problem is using too many font types, different styles, or selecting “wrong” color combinations on the same page of an app. Overall consistency eliminates users’ confusion and helps them save some time on navigation learning. Focus on a nice contrast between the text and background colors. Using some software to select the needed colors might help UX designers get close to the perfect color combination. Other elements of inconsistency to avoid are: Overcrowding the free space on the page without leaving any white spaces Using decorative images instead of practical ones (just for sake of filling the gaps) Not applying any design mapping Cluttering elements and inconsistent alignment The core of the problem is not making the right alignments and overcrowding the information. The navigation in the eLearning app should remain as simple as it gets. Keep all the important information in the user's sight - that is the general guideline here. Don’t discard the well-thought and consistent alignment throughout the whole course and all the platforms. Otherwise, you’ll make an understanding of the course content more complex. To fix this issue, designers should have consistent margins and align objects in the same manner throughout the whole course. Any switch in justification (from left-justified to center) should be reasonable or avoided if it is not really needed. Grid systems are helpful to keep the objects aligned. The designers in Belitsoft usually use Bootstrap for these purposes. Poor images execution Sometimes inserted images get “managed” to make them fit, or are moved to another page or side. If it is done carelessly the images get scrunched, but not scaled. Course designers should keep a close look at the ratio of the images and keep it intact. 6. Create Content Having a clear vision of all technical details and structural blocks of your language app, you can fill it with actual content. This is usually performed in parallel with working on the design. Content is the most valuable part of the app. It should be 100% correct, up-to-date, relevant, and engaging. The number one advice is to invite professional teachers. It’ll allow creating an effective curriculum and avoiding mistakes in study materials. That’s what Duolingo did. The company created its content in collaboration with language teaching experts from the linguistic communities. Another useful tip concerns the one-stop-shop approach. It means covering all 4 language skills (listening, speaking, writing, and reading). If not, your potential users will have to download another app to meet certain needs.  Let’s take Babbel as a sample. Their curriculum is divided into 10-15 minute lessons with a variety of tasks to practice all 4 language skills. 7. Develop the app (full version or MVP by your choice) After agreeing on the abovementioned design details, it’s time to pass the design layout created by the graphic and web designer to your in-house developers or a dedicated team. Develop the Front-End where the user inputs are sent for processing and giving back the answers. The common tech stack of front-end developers is HTML+CSS and JavaScript. Develop the Back-End where all the processes go. For example, a user types the request in a browser. The request is sent to the back-end where the algorithms (traditional or based on Artificial Intelligence) process the data and figure out what to do next.  To create a backend, a variety of technologies are used. Their choice depends on the complexity of the project and the platform. One more important tip, based on our experience and analysis of Duolingo and similar language learning apps. Consider building the modular architecture of your application.  In case you need to expand and advance the existing set of courses, you should be able to do this without spending an exhaustive budget every time. That’s what a modular application is needed for. 8. QA and Testing Consider applying Quality Assurance from the very beginning of the product creation to identify weaknesses and eliminate bugs ensuring the improved quality of the product.  You can create a bug-free stable-working app by using the right software testing approach, which usually implies a combination of both functional (smoke, sanity, regression, etc.) and non-functional testing (performance, security, UAT).  After creating the MVP or a beta-version of the product, conduct focus group testing so that you could see the weak points of the app before the release of the full-fledged version. To use available QA resources in the most efficient way to reduce costs and the delivery time of software without compromising on quality, follow the software testing best practices. 9. Start Marketing and Advertising Campaigns Definitely, it's not enough to make a language learning application. One of the tasks of your in-house or outsourcing team is to promote it. So be sure to take care of timely marketing support and advertising campaigns. Your team can start performing it when the development process is still in progress so as not to lose time. Here are some best practices for promoting a new application: create a landing page; start a blog or use guest posting; use social media; create a video intro and teasers; establish users’ community; work on app store optimization; consider promos, coupons, discounts, etc; ask for app reviews; apply for app awards. Having your idea backed by a professional team guarantees a fast start, predictable cost, high-level quality of the product, and support at every stage. Let’s Make Your Idea Work Together! Must-Have Features to Make a Language App that Will Succeed The creators of the top language learning applications have already invented the perfect feature set. Let’s overview how to make a language app successful with thу right features. Gamification Zan Gilani, associate product manager at Duolingo admits that well-built gamification definitely contributed big time to the international success of the company. In-app currency, pretty achievement badges, strakes and levels, leaderboard, gems and crowns, or exploring new planets are all gamification traits already used by market winners Duolingo and Memrise. Two major reasons for applying gamification are to increase encouragement and to bring on the competition. For example, you can create a league board, where users are ranked according to the amount of XP they gather by finishing lessons. Or hold a contest where users compete for a chance to win something of value like a week of the free Premium version. Microlearning Microlearning implies breaking down the learning course into small chunks.  Such a learning approach makes it easier to study because bite-sized lessons are short and more focused. Learners don’t clutter their memories with irrelevant information. RPS research states that microlearning improves focus and supports long-term retention by up to 80%. Scaffolded Support The idea of the scaffolded support is to provide users with timely relevant tips in the course of learning directly throughout the interface.  The scaffolded support is usually presented by integrated tips and word translations or dictionary articles that appear by tapping on a word or in case of a mistake.  As an app creator, make sure that the app tutorials aren’t intrusive in the learning experience. Variety of Content and Activities When Duolingo started their way, most of their users dropped out after less than 2 hours of study! According to the early research made by the company, the primary reason was the monotony of doing the same exercises. After that Duolingo diversified and enriched the content, and won. So you now have a chance to learn from their mistakes and meet all users’ needs with highly diversified content formats, including video, audio, text, pictures, etc. Here is the list of exercises used in Duolingo to stimulate the users’ interest: Arrange all the words into a grammatically correct sentence. Complete the translation of a sentence with a missing word. Select the correct translation of a sentence. Match a picture to a word. Read and choose a response. Insert missing words into blank spaces. Rearrange the words in the shuffled sentence. Speak the word or sentence into the microphone Match the word to its translation. Type the translation of a sentence. Type what you hear in the audio Answer a chatbot to continue the dialog. User-friendly design and interface The user’s interaction with your product must be simple and seamless. It means that the interface design should be user-friendly, intuitively understandable, and not overloaded with details. It’s important to use a consistent design language so that all menus, structural blocks, and buttons are created in a unified manner.  Let’s take Duolingo as an example. You can notice a vivid, appealing, and minimalistic design that attracts millions of users. The interface and navigation of the app are extremely user-friendly and don't require much time to figure out their functionality. Community and social networks After creating the app, Duolingo has also made a platform for the communication of users. It’d be wise to follow the example. Give your users a platform where they can communicate with one another. It can be a forum with customized features like choosing the emblem. You can go further than Duolingo does and link the app with social networks so that your users could brag about their success in studying languages. Simple sign-in There are many ways of authorization into an application: through an email-based login, social networks, and Google authenticator are the most popular ones. When a user launches the app for the first time, normally they answer questions about age, sex, email, name, and enter the password. But the process can be significantly simplified. For that, Duolingo integrated the app with social networks.  The feature simplifies the registration process and enables you to integrate user data from a social network. Regular assessments At the end of every section or topic within the course, offer your learners a checkpoint quiz as Duolingo does.  Such a freeform writing test asks to answer questions, challenging users and enabling the team to check the progress. Progress tracking dashboard Integrate a progress tracking dashboard to provide users with all the necessary analytical tools, such as statistics, diagrams, percentage of completed lessons, etc. If learners can constantly monitor their performance, they get a motivation to keep on.  For example, Duolingo tracks users’ progress and keeps them updated and motivated by reminding them how many skills and words they have mastered and how many lessons they have passed. In-app shop Again, let’s take Duolingo as a benchmark. A language learning app can use many ways to make money. And the in-app Shop is a perfect way to monetize the app.  The integrated Shop feature offers turning gems that a learner collects while training into real purchases. Or the gems can be bought. Push notifications Many learners give up before achieving their goals. To retain users, try push notifications. If a learner abandons the app for a day or two, push notifications are here to remind them that there is a course to complete. Chatbot tutor As helpful as a training course can be, it’ll only benefit from adding a personal tutor.  You may consider to inbuild a tool enabling users to speak and consult with their language instructor when they are in confusion.  Or use a chatbot. It will imitate a person and will serve as a tutor being online 24/7.  Chatbots are mostly used to practice speaking and pronunciation. But can also perform as tutors providing help in case a learner struggles with any exercise. Offline mode If an app doesn’t require a stable Internet connection all the time, users can complete their courses even in zero signal zones if the set of exercises is pre-downloaded.  The function is very handy for those who spend many hours in the Wi-Fi-less subway or elsewhere without an Internet connection and with a smartphone in their hands. Online payments The in-built online payment module gives you the possibility to monetize your product directly through the app. When the payment is completed, a learner enrolls automatically. Consider adding the support of credit cards by Visa and MasterCard and the most popular sales platforms like PayPal, Magento, Drupal, and others. In-built feedback form This is a useful feature for those who are planning to gather feedback and reports. Duolingo developers react to the feedback from their more than 200 million user audience rapidly.  They have a form within the app for people to leave their reports and comments. However, mind that learning tendencies are changing and the needs of online language learners are constantly increasing. It means that your product shouldn’t be limited only to the traditional functionality used by the majority. Moreover, the unique approach is highly appreciated by language learners. To win this battle, consider AI in Language Learning: 6 Key Tools Already Applied by Key Market Players. How Belitsoft Can Help You To make your language learning application user-friendly and smoothly working, to launch it in short terms and at an affordable cost, our team will take care of your app development on all the stages. You will get a detailed personalized consultation on the monetization model, an assessment of the idea, etc. You will get a clear vision of your perspectives based on business analysis and marketing research performed by us. You will understand what technologies and tools are needed to frame your idea. You will realize which cooperation model to choose best to save your time and money.  You will get your MVP or full-fledged app in the agreed time and will get a guarantee of its bug-free design. Let's Discuss Your Idea! How Do Language Learning Apps Make Money? Few apps are paid, nevertheless, they successfully make money.  For example, Duolingo generated $161 million in revenue in 2020 (106% increase YoY) being a free app. How? Language learning apps use several ways to monetize. Duolingo uses a subscription model. But less than 2% of paid subscription users make only a part of the revenue. Other parts come from ads, investors, and paid English Tests (analog of TOEFL). Check out all the available monetization ways, the pros, and cons of each of them. Then you’ll be able to select the one that agrees with your vision. 1. Freemium model The freemium model is perfect for all eLearning products (LMS, LXP, TMS, and learning apps) since in order to unlock the next lessons and learn new material, users need to pay for them. How does it work? Basically, learners access the app and the course without charge. They can explore its functionality, enjoy the content and core features.  However, some features or content are available within a paid subscription. For example, access to instructional videos, books, chatbots, further lessons, etc. Disadvantages: If the learning process isn’t engaging enough, navigation or interface is confusing, a user will likely abandon the app without paying anything. 2. In-app advertising  The idea is to allow users to access the app free of charge and obtain revenue by showing them third-party ads.  The in-app ads are usually displayed as rewarded video ads, pop-up windows, full-screen interstitials.  Rewarded video ads are especially interesting. By watching them, learners gain points, in-app coins or health, achievements, and feel far less irritated by the appearing ads. In case a learner wants to remove the ads, they have to pay a fee. Disadvantages:Users often feel distracted and annoyed by in-app ads that they are made to watch. It may lead to user churn. Thus, it’s recommended to reward your users for watching ads to keep them motivated. 3. Subscription This monetization strategy implies offering a free trial period to allow users to test the app first. It helps see all the benefits of your offer and assess its functionality. Then you suggest several subscription options.  There are three main subscription models that differ by validity period: monthly, annual, and lifetime.  The subscription model also has non-renewing and auto-renewing subscription approaches. Auto-renewing may seem beneficial in terms of simplified revenue predictions. But if a user forgets to cancel the subscription and gets charged, your product and brand will lose loyalty, get one-star reviews, and possibly the increased churn.Disadvantages: You’ll always need to keep subscribers engaged and motivate them to prolong the subscription, carefully listen to their feedback and react in short terms with effective solutions. 4. In-app shop You can use an in-app shop to sell virtual or physical goods.  Virtual products refer to coins, gems, extra lives or health, special items or equipment, characters or avatars, additional levels or playtime. Physical goods include retail merchandise with the game logo, tickets to thematic events, and so on. Best practices for setting your initial monetization strategy Research your competitors.  See how other apps in your target category charge for their content. Think it over if there are benefits of offering users other ways to pay. Study your audience.  Different segments of the audience are loyal to different payment methods. For example, if your users are more likely to pay for an ad-free, kid-friendly app, choose premium (paid) apps. Consider the target market.  When setting prices and choosing the monetization strategy in specific markets, consider local pricing patterns, pricing of competitive apps, and other market factors. Also, it’s ok to experiment. Duolingo, for example, changed its monetization strategy gradually shifting from crowdsourcing to freemium model and in-app ads. In the end, the platform found the business model that is perfect for them and their users. How Long Does It Take to Make an App Like Duolingo? We have asked our developers with rich eLearning app development expertise to assess how much of their time it would take to build a custom solution like Duolingo.  The numbers that will come up below are very rough, but they should give you an idea.  For the sake of simplification, the estimations are made for an iOS platform. Android app development takes about the same time, give or take. We can conditionally divide the app development into three stages: The kick-off of the project: architecture creation, SDK, and libraries integration Major functions development QA testing and debugging of an app Stage 1: The kick-off of the project Approximate time: 72 to 108 hours This stage includes the following: Project creation. Splash screen, app icon, architecture (8-12 hours) Integration of network interaction (16-24 hours) API research and integration (40-56 hours) Main menu. App navigation realization (8-16 hours) UI implementation (40-56 hours) At the completion of this stage, the app will be structured, designed, and ready for implementing the main functions (more on that in Stage 2 sections). As you can see, it only takes a couple of work weeks to get the app to this stage of development. Main functions implementation takes significantly more time. Stage 2: Major functions development Approximate time: 374 to 504 hours There are plenty of aspects. That is why the minimal and the maximal estimations have a 130-hours-differential. Lessons/Exercises (Including multiple-choice exercises, speaking (voice recognition), listening exercises, learning paths, other types of training) - takes 102 to 144 production hours Gamification (internal currency, experience levels, series for consecutive days, motivation with the help of cheering from the mascot or different sounds etc., leaderboards, progress bars, shop for buying extra lessons) - takes 104 to 136 hours Duolingo-like clubs creation (40-50 hours) Push notifications (24-30 hours) Offline mode (8-10 hours) Feedback form (8-10 hours) Monetization (adSense integration, ads integration) (16-22 hours) Personal cabinet setup (40-52 hours) Once again, those numbers are approximate. However, you can see the proportions of time-consuming operations. Stage 3: testing and debugging Approximate time: 125 to 165 hours Software testing usually takes 25-30% from all development stages for each of the mobile platforms. An MVP will take approximately 100 hours.  In case you decide to develop a learning app for both mobile platforms (Android and iOS), it may result in at least 770 hours for an MVP and about 1 540 — 1 750 hours for the full version. How Much Does It Cost to Build a Language App Like Duolingo? What Affects the Cost of Elearning Development? The feature set and complexity. A simple eLearning course using the standard “video - quiz” format would be much cheaper than a game-based eLearning platform integrated with social networks. Supported platforms. An iOS-only app would be cheaper than the one which would run on both iOS and Android. However, there is a caveat: using hybrid development technologies (e.g. React Native or Xamarin) would dramatically lower costs for cross-platform apps. Cooperation model. Among the options, there are fixed-priced, time and material, or dedicated team models. The choice of the most suitable model depends on your understanding of the project, budget, and time limits. If the scope of your project is likely to change or you still consider which features to add, the best option is to hire dedicated developers. Developer expertise. Companies specializing in eLearning have organizational experience allowing them to be more cost-effective. Moreover, they might have pre-made code snippets for specific features, which helps their customers get more bang for their buck. Developer location. Dedicated developers based in Eastern Europe, for example, can afford to charge less for the same level of quality, as the average cost of living is lower in these countries. Moreover, some governments offer IT businesses preferential tax regimes, allowing them to decrease costs even further. See how our Israeli client managed to reduce testing and development costs by 40% thanks to cooperating with an offshore QA team and developers. How to develop an educational app and save? If we take into consideration the price-quality ratio, one of the most affordable rates is offered by IT specialists in Eastern Europe.  Of course, you can choose companies from the USA or West Europe, but be ready to pay 2-3 times more. Here is the rough estimation of the cost to develop a language learning app like Duolingo for iOS and a website: Country Rough Estimation for MVP ~1045—1375 Rough Estimation for full feature set ~1980—2450 Eastern Europe (Poland) $36 575—48 125 $69 300—88 200 Western Europe (Germany) $67 925—89 375 $128 700—159 250 USA $83 600—110 000 $158 400—196 000 A lower or higher hourly rate doesn’t necessarily influence the quality of the development. People with a hard-working mentality and a great education. This region is famous for its World of Tanks, MSQRD, Maps.me, Viber, Apalon, PandaDoc. Developers from Eastern Europe are among the best in software development (1st in Google Hash Code 2018). Let’s turn your idea into an engaging and user-friendly language learning app at an affordable cost! Our eLearning experts are here to help!

Use cases of AI chatbots for Learning and Development in corporates 1. Employee coach Corporate learning is not something people love. But it doesn’t have to be this way. And when the companies compete for better employees, good learning opportunities can be an edge. The learning process can be performed through a Facebook messenger bot which trains and quizzes employees. It is designed with microlearning approach in mind – small chunks of information for brief attention spans. The bot can adapt messages to individual employees and boasts a 98% engagement rate. The developers of such chatbots claim that corporate learning bots can save employees about 2-5 days per year which would be spent on actual work, rather than study. 2. Curriculum Customizer Personalized learning is one of the top trends right now. Just as chatbots are. No wonder people look for ways to combine them. Released a month after Facebook messenger, MOOCBuddy was a bot for finding the right Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). Services like Coursera or edX made online learning widely available but choosing the right class was still a problem. MOOCBuddy talked to people and suggested courses based on the topic, language, duration, accreditation and several other factors. It also sent reminders and updates, unless the users opted out. MOOCBuddy was likely the first chatbot of its kind, but at the moment it is no longer available. The concept is still alive, however. Magpie continues the idea. Besides suggesting optimal courses based on user’s profile, it can also recommend educational information in public domain: TED, HBR, BBC and more. The bot begins by asking user several questions to determine their job, position, and industry. That is enough to get a quick recommendation. But if the user provides details like workday structure or skills self-assessment, Magpie can create a detailed list. The bot doesn’t eliminate human involvement. The content that it suggests is taken from a database approved by living, breathing editors. Use cases of AI chatbots for improving student’s learning experience Across the world, classes have migrated online, and often educators cannot personally reach students for teaching, giving feedback, or encouraging them to enroll. It is elevating the use of chatbots in the education sector that serve now as a medium of student-teacher communication. The AI chatbot comes especially handy as: Virtual tutoring tool to personalize every lesson and engage students. Tool for students’ support 24/7 to get instant answers to common questions and to manage students’ life effectively. 1. Virtual tutoring with AI chatbots The most useful application of AI in education is automated, intelligent tutoring. The AI chatbots can help teach students using a series of messages, just like a common chat conversation, but made out of a lecture. A chatbot can test students, give questions, and assess them. Students do not need to contact their teachers and wait a few hours for the information. They can send a message directly to an educational AI chatbot and get real-time scaffolded support with instruction and continuous assessment.  Such on-demand support helps students become independent learners by reducing student frustration and by providing appropriate guidance at the moment of struggle. Also, such a tutor chatbot opens up the teacher’s time to engage with students one-on-one. The chatbot assesses every student’s level of understanding and then provides them with the following parts of a lecture according to their progress. And because data is constantly collected along the way, the chatbot can identify the skills students need to work on to increase their score and will suggest practicing the skill again. Knowre Another popular AI chatbot application is language learning. A good example is Duolingo that has been investing in AI and machine learning to make language learning more engaging by automatically tailoring lessons to each individual — kind of the way a human tutor might. The great thing about using an AI bot is that it will get smarter the more it is used. The purpose of an AI-powered chatbot is to simulate a human for practicing scenarios that users are likely to encounter. They focus principally on functional skills and prepare students to use their language skills in the real world. The language learning chatbots use AI algorithms to understand the user context and be able to answer contextually and uniquely. It means that every user gets a different response for a similar inquiry. Duolingo 2. Virtual students’ support 24/7 with AI chatbots 64 percent of internet users consider 24-hour availability to be the best feature of chatbots. For schools, colleges, and universities, which don’t operate 24/7, chatbots are a way for students to get answers instantly whatever the time. When a teacher has a bunch of students to teach, answering repetitive questions about lesson plans, classes, and schedules is tiring and time-consuming. That’s when AI chatbots and virtual assistants come especially handy. Artificial Intelligence chatbots and virtual assistants don’t just answer simple questions or tell students what the temperature will be tomorrow, but they can organize student’s life on a personal level by proactively taking actions and managing tasks on their behalf. The most famous AI-powered virtual assistant chatbot is Genie, developed and implemented at Deakin University, Australia. Presented through a mobile application, it leverages chatbots, artificial intelligence, voice recognition, and a predictive analytics engine to deliver personalized advice and services, guided assistance, and curated content. It gives students easy access to their unit information, results, timetable, or answers to common student questions. Genie Genie is a proactive agent. So if you have an exam in two days and you haven’t been reading the material, Genie is going to remind you that the exam is coming up and you haven’t touched your material,” Deakin's chief digital officer William Confalonieri said. “To know that, we need to know that you haven’t been reading material (because the learning management system hasn’t been accessed) - we collect all that information in a predictive analytics engine that gathers data and allows Genie to react.” However, software developers realize the limits of AI and use AI chatbots to facilitate conversations with the right support staff when needed. Need your own chatbot? Contact us for a free quote! Use cases of AI chatbots for improving educators’ productivity To educational leaders who struggle to reach a generation that shuns official websites and mass emails, the use of a chatbot in education solves the issue. The reason is students feel communicating in chats more personal. Besides, chatbots are available 24/7 and respond instantly. The response time for 99 percent of queries ranges from 6 to 10 seconds. The increasing number of administrations and teachers recognize this cost-effective and valuable way to keep their students hooked and streamline educational and administrative processes more efficiently. For education stakeholders, AI-powered chatbots come especially handy as: Tool for automation of administrative tasks to save educators’ time and switch their focus on more critical tasks. Tool for gathering feedback about learning material to understand the efficiency of teaching methods and improve the curriculum. 1. Automation of administrative tasks with AI chatbots Admission & Enrollment Forward-thinking educational leaders use AI-powered chatbots both to relieve admissions staff work by answering repetitive questions and to reach students for matters like encouraging them to enroll.  Using a chatbot reduces the summer melt, the phenomenon when students who apply and are accepted to a college fail to enroll. Summer melt affects 22,8% of college-intending high school graduates each year.  By using the AI chatbot to send personalized reminders and walk students through admission processes, Georgia State University reduced summer melt by 19 percent in the first year of implementation and increased the percentage of students completing pre-enrollment processes. An AI virtual chat assistant can answer questions about documents or deadlines and give instructions. Answer common inquiries about types of financial aid (e.g. grants, scholarships, loans) and provide standard fees info.  The chatbot isn’t just the recipient of inquiries and questions – schools, colleges, and universities can use it to proactively send reminders, messages, or news. AdmitHub Retention Poor support is one of the reasons students drop out of college. This means it is necessary for every institution to always guide their students by giving them timely and accurate information. But with no optimization, it is almost impossible to ensure each student is getting proper support. That’s when AI-chatbots come to help. They are programmed to answer common questions instantly and help students with administrative topics 24/7. An AI chatbot has a knowledge database based on real students’ conversations. Once it gets a question, a bot responds in seconds. However, when a bot doesn’t know an answer, the question is sent to a human team. As a human answers new questions, the AI learns by adding new data to its database. It leads to the chatbot’s capability of handling an increasing array of circumstances and questions without human input. 2. Gathering feedback about learning materials with AI chatbot Seeing students’ performance is easy for a teacher. Understanding which of your methods contributed to achieving such performance is another thing entirely. AI chatbots are ideal for teachers and institutes to collect students’ feedbacks. Its usage upgrades the learning processes thanks to increasing the participation of students. Replacing the traditional surveys, a chatbot talks to students via a special messenger and processes their feedbacks, letting the teacher know what works well, what is ineffective, and what else they can implement. HelloTars As the answers are coming in, the AI software analyzes the semantics of what the students have said and prepares a report that a teacher or administrator can review.  NLP and ML are those technologies that can analyze the feedback and understand the sentiment, looking for specific nouns or verbs as well as positive or negative words, the frequency of certain words to derive the overall tone. Then feedbacks are divided into positive (green), neutral (grey), and negative (red) based on the words and associated emotions. As a result, educators can understand the pain points faced by dissatisfied students and find out effective ways to identify and remove those bottlenecks. Belitsoft specializes in both chatbots and e-learning. If you have a project in mind, contact us for a free quote. No strings attached. How to implement AI chatbot in education Building AI chatbots in eLearning differs a lot from basic Q&A bots and needs a thorough analysis.  Implementing an AI chatbot for educational institutions may include the following stages:  Start with the analysis of your objectives. Based on the primary needs of your administration, teachers, and students, it’s necessary to decide what features your chatbot must have and what tasks it must solve. The use cases described in this article can help you analyze. Find an expert development and consulting team. Building an AI bot capable of a human-like conversation requires highly professional programming skills, thorough analysis, and strategy. That's why many educational stakeholders decide to hire outsourcing companies to implement their ideas professionally, cost-effectively, and fast. Such services usually cover all the stages of the bot implementation and include consulting, development, and post-launch support, saving educators’ time and headache. Test your chatbot. At this stage, an AI-powered chatbot is tested to communicate with a restricted group of real students to see if it can be helpful and resolve the assigned task. Deploy and assess. Deploying a chatbot is not time-consuming. Your development team will just need to ensure that all endpoints are connected, and the bot is integrated with your entire infrastructure.  AI chatbots in the education industry can be used both to optimize the teaching process and to make the learning process more engaging and personalized for students. They can also significantly reduce the workload of the administrative staff of the educational institutions. As a result, we can expect an immense growth of the education sector, beneficiary interactions between students and educators, and a superior classroom environment. 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Based on 15+ years of expertise in eLearning software development, we will analyze your business needs in-depth and recommend the system that will resolve all the challenges your company faces, whether it is LMS development, LXP development or even skills management software implementation. Get a free quote! What is LXP? LXP stands for Learning Experience Platform. As software for professional learning, LXP is a solution to the problem of the up-to-date content shortage typical for an LMS. There are a lot of high-quality learning libraries with content that is automatically updating. It's more cost-efficient just to integrate your e-learning platform with this ready-to-use content than to deal with old content that you need to import manually into your LMS. With LXP functionality both options are possible: you can import some courses manually, as well as integrate with courses providers via API. LXP provides high engagement. Compared with a strict predefined learning path in LMS, LXP's learners build their own path that gives them more control and more productivity, both in acquiring new skills and in upgrading their qualifications. Artificial Intelligence behind LXP accelerates the adoption of new knowledge. AI-driven algorithms recommend to the learner personally structured content that is exactly what the learner needs exactly at this time. Neither more nor less. Some experts compare LXP with Netflix in eLearning due to its consumer-oriented methodology and intelligent content recommendation. Here is how its interface usually looks like (example of Linkedin LXP). linkedin.com LMS vs LXP: Key Differences LMS development LXP development Learner’s course is predefined and scheduled. Learners choose content based on recommendations and their own interests. Learners follow predefined curricula. The learning path is laid out before them and they just need to complete each milestone to get to the finish. Learning paths are self-directed and built when learners pick what they want to learn about. Focus on corporate learning for onboarding, compliance training, and licensing. Perfect fit for mandatory training when learners must complete specific, predetermined steps. Focus on user experience and continuous professional development with company purpose to grow highly performing professionals. Administrator-centric system when an admin (HR, leadership member, trainer) creates and delivers formal training to workforces. Learner-centric system when learners choose content based on their interests. Based on an internal company course catalog. Based on materials from internal knowledge base, external resources, and user-generated content. The line between those two classes of software is blurry and will depend on the functionality of a given system. For example, many LMS’, including Docebo and D2L, have addons that let the system perform as an LXP. Any educational software that supports the LTI standard can stream third-party learning content. On the other hand, features like learning paths and social integration are pretty much industry standard for an LMS. So companies may have an LXP, an LMS, or both depending on their goals and employees’ training approach. Use the LXP and LMS in tandem to: launch and track LMS-created course in LXP; augment your LMS-based training with a vast content library that LXP provides; allow admins to easily manage all corporate learning processes; get all analytical data from different platforms in one place. Have an LMS and cannot decide if you need to switch to LXP or just add more functionality to upgrade your LMS to get all innovative features? Contact our eLearning expert to get professional advice based on your situation. How LXP resolves business challenges Learning Experience Platforms appeared as a response to new business challenges that stakeholders faced and couldn’t resolve without an innovative approach. Among the major business challenges that companies face now there are: the need for continuous upskilling and reskilling of the workforce; preventing talent shortage; organizing internal mobility; timely building of employees’ in-demand and future-proof skills; leadership retiring and preparation of the next generation; avoiding employees’ burnout and increasing engagement. To address the mentioned business challenges, the learning content within the LXP must be highly relevant and just-in-time, which is achieved through highly personalized recommendations.  Personalized recommendations allow learners to choose the learning path that will mostly favor their skill-building and keep up their engagement rates. Let’s turn to Josh Bersin, the expert researcher in the topics of corporate HR, talent management, and technology. He suggests that LXPs recommend content based on the following approaches: 1. Skills-based recommendations. An LXP associates a job position with a certain skill set. So creating a profile in an LXP requires mentioning your actual skills.  When employees decide to upskill or reskill they choose the desired position. The LXP detects the skills they are supposed to possess.  Then the system matches these skills with the available content. The content for learning will be recommended based on the gap between the actual skills and the skills required for the desired job position. degreed.com 2. AI-based recommendations. An AI engine collects data about learners, their performance, behavior, and learning paths. Imagine you give an AI engine 1000 learners’ profiles. AI labels all the data from the profiles (skills, expertise) and the requested content (course categories, difficulty level).  Then the engine finds patterns that allow making automatic predictions about the interest of learners and the content relevance. Essentially, the underlying task of Artificial Intelligence is to predict the engagement of learners, given contextual information about the learners and courses. valamis.com 3. Usage data-based recommendations. The LXP aggregates massive amounts of the data of other learners with similar profile information to use as a basis for your content recommendations.  Such an approach has its bottleneck. If some course is widely recommended, it outcompetes other content that could be more relevant and valuable. And the LXP developers are working to resolve the issue. Some LXPs also let learners segment into communities. Thanks to this, the platform can recommend the most relevant and popular content within the community.  linkedin.com 4. Recommendations based on learner’s personal choice. To find out what content to recommend you can directly ask the learner. This experience is similar to the first launch of Spotify when you need to choose your preferences.  In the case of LXPs, thanks to defining your interests and goals, the system gets relevant information about your learning preferences.  Except for the content recommendation directly, this approach can be used for the best learning process adjustment. So the system may ask you about your level of expertise and your preferable way of learning (e.g., through articles, podcasts, or videos). learn.filtered.com Have you thought about deploying one of these innovative content recommendation approaches into your corporate training? Discuss all the options with our eLearning expert. Key LXP features The first step to deploying an LXP in your company is to understand what your employees expect from the program. Based on this information, you can decide what LXP functionality would be the best fit.  However, there are the key LXP features every solid platform must have. Highly intuitive individualized interface The interfaces of LXPs are much like Netflix and Google have. They reveal past interactions, learning paths, preferences, and recommendations. The user interface is responsive, individualized, and ubiquitous in delivery. It provides highly immersive learning experiences to users of the platform. edcast.com Social learning This includes inbuilt functionality for communication and knowledge exchange (e.g. community-recommended or user-generated content); Many learning experience platforms have rating systems, public comments, and sharing options like in social media networks. Moreover, learners can showcase their expertise in the topic to their peers. thrivelearning.com Microlearning LXPs include brief learning pieces that answer topic questions precisely (e.g. “How to create a diagram in Google Doc”).  Such bite-sized learning allows employees to learn within the working environment, easily switching to the LXP on the desktop or a mobile device.  The microlearning method supports different types of learning, including blended learning, group-based learning, problem-based learning, ILT.  linkedin.com Gamification in LXP Gamification is using game-design elements in a non-game environment. For example, a system of points, levels, and badges awarded for diligent study and high test grades is gamification. Gamification is used much more often, as it requires less investment to implement. Yet it has proven its effectiveness. Here’s what it brings: Better learning outcomes. Studies show that gamified software is more effective at teaching than its non-gamified counterparts. Improved motivation. Game elements make people willingly spend more time studying, thus increasing the overall effectiveness of learning. Fun. People who participate in gamified learning as part of their work report increased enjoyment and loyalty towards their company. For more information on gamification, its benefits, and risks see our article. And for examples of this approach in corporate training, read another one. Don’t confuse gamification with game-based learning. Game-based learning, on the other hand, is using play to teach skills or transfer knowledge. Solving equations quickly to make your racecar run faster than the opponents is an example of game-based learning. servicetick.com Extensive integration capabilities Being a learning gateway, an LXP is usually just a part of a corporate L&D and HR system. It integrates with many other types of business software, including CRM, HRM, ERP, LRS, etc. It permits the platform to collect the data it needs to curate content more effectively and to get valuable data for improving employee management. For example, an LXP integrates with an LRS to deliver trends and patterns through data analytics. The purpose is to help in personalizing learning even further. In-Built Artificial Intelligence A key feature of the LXP is the Artificial Intelligence engine for content recommendation and personalization of a learning path. The platform automatically recommends relevant learning materials based on a learner’s job position, experience level, previously completed courses, and other relevant information.  The use of AI includes the recommendation of lessons from third parties and “non-learning” systems such as YouTube. Artificial Intelligence also performs a prediction function.  Thanks to the integration with HR, LRS, CRM platforms, AI collects data and identifies trends and patterns in the on-demand skills and jobs So based on these data, business stakeholders can make informed training and learning decisions. Advanced analytics with xAPI (SCORM, cmi5, LTI) One of the primary goals of an LXP as a basis of a corporate learning culture is to connect learning with on-the-job performance. To perform it successfully, LXPs have adopted advanced standards, such as experience API (xAPI), cmi5, LTI, or SCORM (as the one of the previous generation but still highly in use). For example, it allows tracking how learners succeed in the course, what certificates they get, what skills they master, which courses are the most relevant and effective, etc. All this information helps business stakeholders understand how the learning process influences the work that people perform and whether your training is truly effective. Seamless access to multiple devices  It’s critical to give learners the ability to access content anytime and anywhere so that they could start a desktop course and be able to complete it later on a mobile device.  For that, your content must be available on any device, including desktop, native mobile, and progressive web apps.  edcast.com How Belitsoft Can Help Being in the eLearning market for more than 15 years and having delivered several LXPs, we know what we are talking about. Here’s how we can help you: Custom LXP development. If none of the boxed solutions fit your needs we can make you a new one from scratch. LXP customization. If you need to make a few tweaks to an existing open-source system (whether it is changing a logo and a color scheme or adding new features and modules) we can do that. LXP consulting. We can discuss your needs in depth and recommend the system that would be the most beneficial for your company. Content development. Should also need to create lessons and quizzes or repackage the existing ones in a different format, we can do it for you. GET A FREE QUOTE Frequently Asked Questions