Enterprise Learning Platform for Global Creative L&D of Technicolor Production Services

Why have you decided to build your own LMS system? There are a lot of ready-to-use solutions!  Using a ready-made LMS may significantly cut your costs. It’s quicker to start working with and cheaper in the short term. In the end, if some of these LMSs don't fit your needs up to 100%, you can always find a customizable LMS that can be easily adapted to your needs. Check, for example, how we customized it for our great client Technicolor (17000+ employees) to create for them an enterprise learning platform. This is a customized LMS we built for Technicolor Corporation If you're going to make your own LMS, you’ve probably already discovered the reasons that stop you from using a one-size-fits-all LMS. Especially, if you’re currently using one of them and planning to switch to something else.  Disadvantages of non-customizable ready-made LMSs available interfaces in terms of design and navigation may not be intuitive and easy-to-use for your clients or employees and you can do nothing with that; you may have little opportunity to control the security aspect of the things; often you can't order adding a custom LMS feature exclusively for your organization even for an extra payment; requires a regular fees/license payment that increases with new users, additional storage, and every new feature;  the global changes to this eLearning product may depend on the wishes of their product managers, not yours, and it may require you to adapt the entire learning process to these changes; third-party integrations that are not initially provided by a vendor but crucial for you may slow down the system adoption a lot. Why Hire Belitsoft? 15+ years of experience in making eLearning applications - LMS’, custom courses, and more. Successfully delivered projects for startups and established enterprises from the USA, Western Europe, Israel, and other locations.  Fixed Price, Time and Material, Dedicated Software Development Team, and hybrid pricing models available. Lower rates thanks to lower taxes GET A FREE QUOTE 8 Key Benefits of a Сustom LMS 1. Usability Your LMS will be responsive with an intuitive user interface. Easy to use even for non-tech savvy users. We guarantee smooth onboarding, intuitive navigation, advanced search. 2. Long-term saving In the long run, a custom LMS is cheaper than the total cost of ownership of its ready-made counterparts. You don't have to pay the monthly or annual license fees that increase with every new user, feature, and storage space you use. 3. Full control As an owner, before development, you can choose everything, from the feature set to the deployment model and content. Support and updates of your own LMS will be fast. 4. Security Your LMS will be built with security in mind, including but not limited to data encryption, two-step verification, biometric authentication, recovery capabilities, and reliable access management. Additionally, you can host your LMS on a server with your full control to mitigate any possible security risks. 5. Reliability Your own Learning Management System will be thoroughly tested to be reliable and flawless, work fast, support as many simultaneous users as you need, and be easily scalable 6. Your own LMS as a product A custom LMS is a unique piece of your intellectual property. If your business is to sell eLearning courses, a custom LMS creates additional value that lets you increase the price of your eLearning product for end-users. 7. Unique instructional design A custom LMS is your perfect fit if you are going to automate an innovative learning/teaching methodology. Such a system requires a specific instructional design that influences features and integrations. 8. Compatibility Your LMS will be easily integrated with third-party systems, like CRM, ERP, payment systems, social media, etc. 3 Cases When You Need to Build a Custom LMS 1. If you want to build an AI-based LMS (or LXP) To accelerate consumption and understanding of the information, consider building an AI-powered LMS. The AI-powered LMS is a Learning Management Platform with tools driven by Artificial Intelligence. Among the key tools that mostly favor business there is: skills assessment,  creating a personalized learning path,  relevant content recommendation,  providing bite-sized lessons, workforce forecasting,  performance progress tracking, automated knowledge checks, advanced reporting and analytics,  etc.  Forward-thinking businesses successfully use AI in Talent Management for fast employees’ onboarding, effective reskilling and upskilling, smart resource management, improving workforce productivity, and increasing ROI. You can also consider building a custom learning experience platform (LXP) as a learning hub with several learning resources for your own or your client’s business. Having an LXP, it’s possible both to import courses manually and to integrate with content providers via API. So an LXP is able to resolve the typical problem of LMSs - the shortage of up-to-date content. Want to understand what to choose for your business - LMS or LXP? Or how to build an AI-powered LMS? We will help you make an informed decision and develop exactly what you need. Talk with our eLearning expert for insight. 2. If your idea requires a unique instructional design You have an idea for a course that would approach teaching and learning in a unique way.  After researching the off-the-shelf solutions, you realize that none of them can support your instructional design decisions.  By choosing such a scenario, you benefit from: creating a platform that will be perfect for your goals, brand, and innovative approach, unlike boxed solutions created in a “one-size-fits-all” way;  being the owner of the system without paying someone else every month to keep your course online.  being independent of any decisions that third parties might make like changes in functionality and limited user capacity.  Contact us to build your own LMS. We have a lot of experience in such cases. In addition, we have a framework that contains many prebuilt features (e.g. reporting and eCommerce) which makes working with us more cost-efficient. See the real examples of LMSs with the unique instructional designs we’ve built for our clients. These projects have already brought awards and profit to their owners. Extraas Extraas is a game-based learning platform that teaches children math and Dutch. More specifically, it was designed as a replacement for expensive private tutors that help school students prepare for important exams.   Pretty much all the learning in Extraas is done through various games. There is a great variety of those, from racing to a shark attack. There were two main reasons for custom development in this case:  Unique instructional design. No existing LMS supported 100% game-based learning programs at the moment of the development; Business plan. The customer envisioned this system as a standalone SaaS project. As such, having to pay regular license fees to a third party was unreasonable; To optimize expenses, we used our LMS framework with certain features already implemented: Video playback; Basic gamification; eCommerce; Reporting and analytics; In addition, to make developing many learning games more cost-effective, we have created an in-house game engine.  The resulting system turned out to be a hit with its audience, gathering thousands of users, and getting rated 9,7/10. TET The “Theorie Examen Trainer” is an online course that helps users prepare for the theoretical part of a driver’s exam.  The training program was centered around mock tests that resembled real ones. If a user made a mistake, the system pointed out the right answer and explained why it is the correct one.  As with Extraas, there were two reasons for this system to be custom-built: Unique features. None of the existing LMSes could support the course that is entirely quiz-based. In addition, none of them had the gamification and statistics that the client required for this project. Business vision. The project needed to be self-sufficient, so using a boxed system was out of the question.  To make our customer’s budget more efficient, we used our LMS framework to avoid making certain features from scratch: Video playback; Basic gamification; eCommerce; Reporting and analytics. TET is one of the most popular courses of its kind on the market. It has over 22.000 satisfied customers and an 8,3/10 rating.  3. If you want full security and control over data One of the top concerns for companies who are looking for the best LMS is the safety of corporate and personal data.  Creating an LMS from scratch helps avoid the risk of undesired access to your valuable online training resources and employees’ data. The main features to consider in your LMS: IP blocker to prevent hostile or unwanted IP addresses from accessing your data; Domain-based registrations to provide access to the LMS only through domains specified by the admin; Mobile security to protect your data while learning on the phone, usually includes anti-virus and anti-spam protection, data encryption, and mobile user authentication; Data encryption to ensure thу safety of your data when it is transmitted between apps; Multi-factor authentication to ensure that only authorized users are able to access the data; Single Sign-On to centralize authentication management across your online properties; Anti-spam prevents spam (phishing, malware, ransomware) that can capture user data and compromise sensitive information; Anti-virus to protect your user data and learning materials from common virtual threats; Back-up data storage to safeguard your data if the system is corrupted by malware or some data are accidentally erased; The Minimum Set of Features for an LMS If you are spending a good amount of money to create your own LMS, you’ll want it to include the features that will level up the learning experience and increase your ROI. Easy-to-manage course builder A well-organized course builder provides an intuitive and easy-to-manage way to create and edit the courses. The LMS should allow users to add new topics, lessons, sections. To upload files and share them and to plan learning paths. Intuitive navigation No matter who uses an LMS, easy navigation throughout the course, modules, assignments, due dates, and content pages is a must-have. Users should be able to easily navigate through the course, discover pages and topics, and learn without wasting time browsing around. If the navigation is unclear, the reputation of your brand and product will suffer directly.  Skill tracking and assessment (certification) A built-in assessment engine helps you monitor employee performance and avoid compliance violations. If necessary, you can develop a certification course based on the assessment of the core professional skills for your trainees. After completing such a course, a trainee gets a certification. Self-paced learning path An essential feature for corporate LMSs because it’s believed that training an employee is harder than teaching a student. The reason is you can not fix the learning hours. So it’s important to encourage the employee to learn at their own pace anytime and anywhere. Advanced quiz manager. This feature allows creating quizzes with up to 14 different types of questions. It also gathers extensive statistics to help admins improve the learning process. Analytics This feature is necessary both for monitoring the learners’ success and the course efficiency. A properly tuned analytics can track the time spent on studying, the bottlenecks within the course, trainee’s achievements report, and overall statistics of the entire class or at an individual level. Besides, it can see what motivates them and even what they study outside of the LMS (thanks to the technologies like xAPI).  Gamification Gamification is using game-design elements in a non-game environment. These elements can include points, badges, levels, leaderboards, and more. Gamification in eLearning is used to improve learner motivation and engagement and has proven to be effective. Mobile Learning Your system must be mobile-friendly and intuitive. This includes more than just responsive design. It should be considered in the LMS architecture from the beginning. This feature is especially helpful taking into account the increasing BYOD policy of companies. Communication tools (chats, forums, emails) This feature helps students connect with teachers and other students over any topic or confusion. It allows overcoming issues fast and without stress for learners. The communication goes with the help of chats, forums, announcements, and more.  Video conferencing or video streaming Video content, as well as one-on-one virtual interaction with the instructor, are very productive means of learning. Integrating video (YouTube, Vimeo, Zoom, Google Hangouts) into an LMS is one of the ways to boost course sales. Notifications and due dates Once the instructor adds a new lesson or assignment, a trainee receives a notification not to miss a task. The system can send notifications in the form of plain text, an action button, or an image. An LMS can also have a calendar with due dates for streamlined time management. Security Creating an LMS with security in mind mitigates the risks of losing business data and exposing the private information of employees. A custom LMS will guarantee your total control over the system thanks to the GDPR compliance, and support of secure communication channels. The company information will be protected by strong passwords, watermarks on videos, etc. Payment Processor You’ll need to integrate a payment processor. This will allow you to accept different kinds of payments and transfer them to your bank account. Making this process simple for users is essential as well.  Being one of the major features in LMS for business, it’s worth a detailed description. Online Payment Feature in Details The major parameters to take into account when you integrate online payment into your LMS: Geographical Coverage. A certain gateway may or may not work in any given country or territory. If you operate in the United States or European Union and want to accept payments from these regions, there are more options available. Fewer, if you are in smaller countries. This also includes support for transfers in different currencies: almost any processor works with US dollars and Euros, while support for less popular money (e.g. Egyptian pound) is harder to find. Commission. The industry standard seems to be 2.9% + 0.30 USD per transaction. However, some payment processors can have extra fees or a different commission that can include features like fraud protection. Chargeback fee. If a customer doesn’t like the product they bought online, they might contact their bank and ask to revert the fee that they paid. If the request is ruled valid, the bank takes the money from the seller’s account and gives it back to the buyer. In addition, it charges the merchant a certain processing fee, known as the “chargeback fee”. This is a measure necessary to protect customers from fraud. However, it also makes the merchants vulnerable to false return claims. Merchant account. This is a bank account that allows you to accept credit and debit card payments. Some payment processors can set you up with one. Others require you to obtain it yourself. Hosted/integrated checkout. A hosted checkout means that to complete the payment the customer will be redirected from your website to a separate page that the gateway provides. This means that the processor handles all the information security matters and is typically better for beginners. However, certain customers would not complete their payments through these pages, and your bottom line will take a hit. An integrated checkout page is built into your own website. It allows a more seamless transition to payment and shows better conversion rates than hosted ones. But it also means that you must ensure that the transfer is sufficiently secure (e.g. by using SSL/TLS certificate). Integration. Some payment gateways are easier to connect to your website than the others. Finding out the details would require consultations with your eLearning software developer unless you have the required technical knowledge and skills. Extra features. A processor can provide additional useful features besides just transferring money from one account into another. These features can include fraud protection, detailed reporting, invoicing, and others. Some of them are included by default, others are paid additions. Usability. This goes for both you, as a merchant, and your customers. Different gateways can process payments at different speeds, have different visuals and user flows, etc.  Pre-Integrated payment gateways Many learning management systems (LMSes) used as a foundation for custom LMS already have an inbuilt payment processor (or several). They tend to be easy to access and configure. For example, JoomLMS that we base some of our turnkey projects on can work with Authorize.net, PayPal Standard, Offline Bank transfer, WorldPay Select Junior, PayMeNow, Dankort/PBS via ePay, eCheck.net, eWay, iKobo, iTransact, NoChex, PayMate, PaySbuy, Verisign PayFlow Pro, WorldPay, MerchantWarrior, Purchase Order, Cash On Delivery, and 2Checkout.  In most cases, these would be enough for your needs, unless you have specific requirements.  Open Banking APIs Many banks allow third-party companies to access their API. This has many advantages for the banks themselves but for you, as a merchant, the most important thing is lower commission than with other processors.  From our experience, working with such an API could be as simple as making a plugin for your LMS (e.g. JoomLMS supports this) or as hard as writing an extra module that requires an in-depth rework of the entire system. It all depends on your elearning software.  All-in-all, this is beneficial if the bank that you work with has an open API, your system is flexible enough to accept new additions like that, and you have enough of a cash flow to warrant paying for extra development work to get long-term benefits. External Payment Gateways Sometimes, there are cases that warrant the use of a specific payment processor.  For example, you might want to use affiliate marketing as your main user acquisition tool. In this case, you would need to either manually send the affiliates their cut, or automate the process to reduce the hassle. Unfortunately, only a few processors (e.g. PayPal Pro) support chained payments like that.  Another thing you should be aware of is the difference between a gateway and a platform. The former is just a system that allows accepting payments. The latter, however, can have many more benefits: One system for all kinds of payments (credit/debit card, PayPal, etc.); Fraud protection. Blocking suspicious transactions to prevent scammers from getting free goods and services from you. Conversion rate optimization tools. Recurring billing. Tax management. etc. Below see the list of the most popular gateways with the conditions they offer. However, including every feature they provide would take an unreasonable amount of time and space. So in addition to the listed parameters, take a look at the website of each gateway/platform to get the full story. Some of the popular payment gateways are: PayPal PayPal has both the hosted (Standard) and integrated (Pro) versions. Both charge 2.9% + USD 0.30 per transaction, are available pretty much everywhere, and have a USD 20 chargeback fee. However, the Pro version offers extra features (e.g. an option to design a custom checkout page) and costs USD 30/month. PayPal supports 25 currencies. Authorize.net Authorize.net is available in both hosted and integrated versions. The processing fee is 2.9% + USD 0.30 per transaction on the “All-in-one” plan and USD 0.10 per transaction plus USD 0.10 for all the transactions made every 24 hours (a “batch fee”) under “Payment gateway only”. The chargeback fee is USD 25. Authorize.net operates in the USA, Canada, Europe, the UK, and Australia, supporting 11 currencies. 2Checkout 2Checkout can be both hosted and integrated. It charges from 3.5% + USD 0.35 per transaction to 6% + USD 0.60 per transaction (depending on the plan) and the chargeback fee is USD 20. It is available in over 200 countries and 87 currencies. Stripe Stripe is available in both hosted and integrated versions. Every transaction costs 2.9% + USD 0.30 without any additional fees. Each chargeback will cost you USD 15. Stripe supports over 100 currencies and is available in 39 countries. Braintree Braintree has both hosted and integrated versions. It charges 2.9% + USD 0.30 per transaction and has a USD 15 chargeback fee. This processor supports over 130 currencies and is available in the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and New Zealand. WePay WePay is a hosted payment processor that charges 2.9% + USD 0.30 for a credit card transaction and 1% + USD 0.30 for a bank transfer. The chargeback fee is USD 15. WePay only works in the USA and supports payments in US dollars. Dwolla Dwolla only has a hosted version. It charges 0.5% (from USD 0.01 up to USD 5) for sending money and the same amount for receiving it. The chargeback fee is USD 15. Dwolla only processes payments in US dollars and is available in 162 countries. Square Square is only available in a hosted version. Online card payments through this gateway carry a charge of 2.9%+USD 0.30 and there are no chargeback fees. Square works with US dollars only and is available in the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia, and the UK. The most straightforward way to earn with a custom platform would be to sell the unique courses you’ve created. After all, support for unusual instructional design decisions is the main reason why people invest in creating a turnkey system. Ads or affiliate promotions risk annoying the visitors. In-house vs Outsourcing LMS Development LMS development is a complex process that usually requires a team involving such specialists as project managers, eLearning specialists (developers, designers, QA experts), your in-house LMS administrators, and others.  The team can be composed not only of in-house experts but also of third-party specialists.  Either option has its own pros and cons. Budget In-house. Finding and hiring a professional team has a high initial cost. It also includes rental costs and overhead fees. Outsourcing. Outsourcing a professional team saves money. You skip hiring, training, and housing the team of developers. Control In-house. Your managers have full control over the development process. Outsourcing. You don’t spend a lot of time controlling the process. The dedicated project manager will report to you regularly. Risks In-house. All the data stay inside the company. And the risk of confidentiality breaches is low. Outsourcing. You must evaluate if the company you are working with is reliable in terms of data safety. Signing an NDA is also a must. Time-efficiency In-house. Organizing a new team is always difficult. Keeping up with new trends in LMS systems development is even more complex. That’s why gathering an in-house team is often not very time-efficient.  Outsourcing. The outsourcing team consists of experts in eLearning who have already been working together. It enhances organizational efficiency. And as a result, it helps achieve results faster and saves time. As you see, although working with an outsourcing vendor has some cons, it still remains a more profitable and logical solution. Choosing the Vendor to Build a Custom LMS If you’ve decided to cooperate with an outsourcing software development vendor, the choice of the right partner is critically important. To get a great product in time and get an overall good experience, here’s what you should pay attention to. Experience The company that has already delivered LMSs is already aware of the potential pitfalls they can face. And they know how to develop LMS avoiding or mitigating associated risks. They have already built features similar to the ones you need, which will shorten the development time and thus save you money. Pricing This refers to both the cost and the pricing model. The right company would give you a good amount of “bang for your buck” and be flexible enough to agree on the most fitting way the payment is arranged.  The three most common pricing models are Fixed Price (a specific scope of work for a specific sum), Time and Material (you pay for the time actually spent building your product), and Dedicated Team (you rent a team, pay them monthly, and manage them as you prefer). There are also hybrid pricing models that combine two of the above when it is the most cost-efficient. Communication The company that you hire needs to demonstrate that communicating with them would be easy. This covers the ability to understand your needs and requirements, provide you with details on the working process, report on a regular basis, and be available at the agreed hours. Post-launch Support Unless you have a strong internal IT department, you’ll need to keep working with your vendor that can maintain the LMS after it has gone live. This can be 24/7 dedicated support or just fixing the problems as per written request, depending on your needs. If needed, they can train your staff to manage day-to-day backups and maintenance. 10 steps to Build an LMS from Scratch Once you know what features you need and have found a solid LMS development company to bring your idea to life, what should you do? 1. Validate your idea The primary question is if investing in LMS development is worth the money.  So the first step before developing your idea is investigating its value on the market and understanding your target audience’s needs. Otherwise, such a project will fail. To start, ask yourself the right questions: What problems of your organization or training course can an LMS solve? How much are you ready to invest in LMS development? The answers to these questions will let you start a project plan that will be rather a forecast of future outcomes. For example, the improved skill set of your employees and higher productivity after training. Or higher profit and decrease in collateral costs.  2. Plan the Implementation Building an LMS is one thing, using it in practice is another. So it is vital that all the parties know what is going on, how to work with the system, and what benefits it will bring. You should also keep in mind the need for training, data transfer, trial run, etc.  For that, create an implementation plan. It should include:  the overall LMS implementation goal; the implementation deadline; a timeline of milestones leading toward the final goal;  the responsibilities of each member per milestone. Remember that your goals should follow the SMART approach (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). See our detailed article on LMS implementation for more details. 3. Create content for the course At this stage, start gathering content for your LMS. Those who have hard-copy materials need to digitize them with the help of their software services vendor. In case you have used another LMS - ready-made or legacy - your vendor will transfer all the content to the new LMS.  However, it’s not only a matter of content transfer. You should create additional value and optimize the curriculum to make it more engaging, relevant, and high-performing. Each course should include such learning activities as self-paced modules, schedule and due dates, assignments, and a testing module. Interactive features such as video streaming will be an advantage. 4. Choose the core features of your LMS Start from research to learn what features your target audience values and wants to get. Competitor research can also be helpful. Based on these data, make a list of must-have features for your LMS. Then agree on them with your vendor. 5. Make The Right Tech Stack Choices The tech stack is one of the determining factors in budgeting the LMS development cost. The experience of your development partner means a lot here because it influences the range of options you get. At Belitsoft, for example, we will examine your requirements and pick the right tech stack for creating your LMS in the most effective manner.  6. Start With an MVP A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the basic version of your LMS. This technique helps risk less money and start getting results faster. It comes down to building the core features (including the ones that differentiate your product from the competitors’) first and launching them in the shortest possible term.  Though an MVP involves only core features, it can solve users’ problems as well. Also, it permits you to get early reviews from users to understand what they like and what they don’t. Based on these data, you’ll be able to act more consciously creating a complete product. Yes, it carries the risk of technical debt and the need for refactoring later, but the benefits far outweigh them. Choosing the necessary features, though, can be harder than it seems. See our article on MVP for advice on how to launch a learning management system wisely. 7. Test the product quality To ensure the quality and integrity of the platform, QA professionals must test it and remove all the possible bugs and technical glitches.  Following a comprehensive QA checklist, QA specialists check every function, visuals, concurrent user testing, compatibility with different browsers and devices, etc. It guarantees that the design, content, assessment functions, eCommerce integration, compliances, and all other functionalities are in place and work properly. 8. Prepare For a Trial Run and Launch Before the system goes live, it is advisable to conduct user acceptance testing - try it out on a group of people who would use it in the future. The test group should consist of people from every position that would utilize it.  Thу trial run will be as close to the “real-life” conditions as possible and will help assess the readiness of both the systems and the staff for an organization-wide roll-out.  This way you’ll be able to learn whether it fits the needs of everyone involved and what else you need to work on. See this article for more information on user acceptance testing. Now your platform is ready for an organization-wide launch or for selling to your client!  However, LMS implementation doesn’t finish with the launch. You and your team members must be ready to handle any possible issues. 9. Promote and monetize your LMS You know how they say: build it, and they will come… to your competitors, who have invested in promotion. To achieve success, make sure people will hear about you. There are several major options for marketing your e-learning product: Ads. It includes contextual advertising on search engines, banners and promotion blocks on social media. There are tons of available tools and the costs are reasonable. For example, advertising on Google for the keyword “learn German online” costs $3-5 per click. Compare that to the “offshore software development” at $104 per click. Social media marketing. Choose the social network(s) where your prospective clients gather and build a community around the product. Besides attracting new customers, social media can help track what people want and gather feedback. Content marketing. Making useful content and promoting it demonstrates your expertise and helps you rank higher on search engines. A blog of an e-learning company, for example, might have advice about teaching/learning methods, research, stats and more. Don’t limit yourself to text - videos and infographics are also quite popular. Online Learning Monetization Strategy As for monetization, there are many ways of earning money with the help of ready products in e-Learning, including: Paid lessons. The whole course could be a product that the users can buy and access at will. Having a free trial version showing off your advantages will be useful to bringing learners. Freemium. The product is free but has one or more paid versions offering extra benefits: no ads, personalization, priority service and more. Subscription. This model is similar to the first one but offers users temporary access to the product for certain payment. Ads. If your e-learning app has a free version, it can bring revenue through ads. The tricky part is finding the balance between earnings and user satisfaction. Nothing irritates a user more than nagging ads everywhere. Commission. This model suits marketplace. If a learner pays a tutor or a course vendor through your system, you can take a cut of the transaction. 10. Continuous LMS improvement One more recommendation is to adopt a continuous improvement mindset. Based on feedback and data analysis, there will always be something to improve in terms of new integrations, features, and content.  That’s when having a software development partner helps a lot. You always have professionals who will quickly resolve any issue and add extra features to your LMS. Examples of Custom LMSs JoomLMS As the name suggests, this LMS was created based on the popular Joomla! content management system. It has been on the market for over 14 years, and has gained more than 1000 customers in 30+ countries. JoomLMS Features: Course builder. The system allows creation of media-rich learning content, including lessons with audio, video, PDF and other materials. This LMS is also compatible with SCORM, AICC, and LTI learning standards.  Advanced quiz manager. JoomLMS can create quizzes with 14 different types of questions and gathers extensive statistics to help admins improve the learning process. Communication tools. This includes a lot of functions that help learners communicate with the teachers and each other - chats, forums, announcements, and more.  Mobile app. The JoomLMS mobile app makes it convenient to use on every platform.  Analytics. The system is able to track many aspects of learning and the reports can be adjusted and exported in many different ways. LMS 365 This system used to be known as SharePoint LMS, as it is based on the popular Microsoft corporate software suite. Now it is compatible with Office 365 and can be deployed in the cloud, as well as on premises. LMS 365 Features: Course management. LMS 365 can play premade SCORM-compliant courses, or let the users create their own using a robust in-built tool.  Blended learning/Webinar support. The LMS can be used both for digital-only teaching and mixed formats. Certification. LMS 365 allows standard operating procedures to be published automatically, tracks continuing education units, and can issue certificates to the learners. Mobile learning. The LMS has mobile apps for both iOS and Android that include offline mode, allowing learners to study even when they have no internet connection. Starbucks The world-famous coffee shop chain has chosen to develop a custom LMS to train its baristas. The system contains information on the drink recipes and the equipment used to make them. Features: Courses. The training system is pretty straightforward, with video lessons followed by a quiz. The learner needs to answer at least 80% of questions correctly to pass and be allowed to move on to the next lesson. Mobile learning. The design of the LMS makes it convenient to use on any device, from a tabletop PC to a smartphone. Gamification. To increase the learner motivation, the LMS has a robust gamification system with badges and leaderboards. The results can also be shared on social networks. Social learning. A learner can create a personal profile, connect to others, and see their coworkers’ achievements and results through the activity feed and a number of leaderboards. Local groups. The baristas and their managers can find coworkers in their neighborhood. And the administrators can segment the data from the LMS by location. Analytics. The LMS gathers the data on employee training efficiency and visualizes it with Google Charts. Want to develop an LMS from scratch for your business? Or maybe build an AI LMS or even LXP? A talk with our eLearning expert will give you the necessary insight to make an informed decision.

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

How Belitsoft Can Help Our elearning software development company is ready to extend your VILT with an LMS development services. We offer:  Integration LMS with Video Conferencing Tools; LMS with Zoom integration; LMS video platform development. Integration with an LXP platform. GET A FREE QUOTE Difference between Video Conferencing Platform and LMS Virtual instructor-led training includes any educational activities done live through video conferencing tools like Skype, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc.  Various sources differ on whether to include webinars in this definition. On the one hand, they are also delivered live and online. On the other, full-fledged VILT makes full use of two-way communication between presenter and learners, while webinars tend to be more one-sided.  A learning management system (LMS) is a piece of specialized software for storing, administration, and tracking various training programs. Examples include JoomlaLMS, Canvas, Blackboard, etc. We have written many articles on LMSes, from choosing the right one to preparing a specification for a custom one, to building a turnkey system from scratch. Feel free to explore our blog for more insights on the topic. How LMSes extend the power of VILT Learning management systems can really power up VILT in many ways. Here are some of them. 1. Archiving Traditionally, recordings of live sessions remain available just for some time after the entire course is over. This means that you need to store these recordings somewhere, take time to upload them. Commonly this is done via a third-party video hosting service (e.g. YouTube) manually.  LMSes, on the other hand, have the capability to store the recordings in-system (without the need to manually upload the files). They also can automatically limit access, might include video-editing tools and other quality-of-life features.  All-in-all, this saves a lot of time that can be better spent elsewhere - for example, on preparation for new courses.  2. Scheduling Usually, the timetable for learning sessions via traditional VILT tools is posted on a separate website or social media group. The reminders are sent through a third-party mailing service.  LMS unites this all in a single system. An inbuilt calendar is a convenient way to plan and possibly reschedule classes. And a notification system allows for automatically sending people updates and reminders.  3. Communication The typical webinar/VILT software allows one or two ways of communication: voice chat and text chat.  LMSes have a lot to add to it: Internal email; SMS; Social media; Forums; Etc. This makes teaching much more flexible, allows for extra activities (e.g. group work on the forum), and supports innovative training methods.  4. Integration If there is a particular VILT tool that you like, it is likely that there are LMSes that can connect to it. This will grant you both the benefits of the tool and all the good stuff that the learning management system has to offer.  Moreover, the functionality of an LMS includes features from many separate kinds of software, which means you will need only one tool for all your eLearning needs.  5. Examination Every LMS has an inbuilt quiz feature. They can differ in details (e.g. the types of questions available) but there is always a way to test the users’ knowledge.  This is a huge step forward from simple VILT tools that have nothing of this sort. The learners can get all kinds of tests without leaving the system which makes the process much more intuitive. Moreover, it saves the time of the instructors who will be able to quickly and easily create quizzes and modify them.  6. Analytics Using an LMS will add an entirely new dimension to your VILT. Instead of manually calculating metrics like attendance and completion rates, you will have a suite of automated reports for everything that matters both academically and commercially.  In addition, LMSes compliant with modern standards like xAPI allow for even more detailed analytics and in more areas: Completion tracking; Offline learning tracking; Game-based learning tracking; Mobile learning tracking; Etc. Now you’ll be able to beef up your presentation with extra activities that will take learning to a new level.  7. Elearning Features In addition to improving the more traditional aspects of instructor-led training, an LMS can open new paths for making your courses more efficient and engaging. Gamification, self-guided learning, automatic certification… There are tons of features that common VILT tools don’t provide. How one successful eLearning marketplace reduced their costs by 10x with a custom video-conferencing tool Skyeng is an online English language school, also called as the “leading edtech startup”. Forbes estimated Skyeng’s valuation at $130 million, with no fewer than 15,000 teachers and 120,000 learners active on the platform.  Video conferencing is the major communication tool between a teacher and a student at Skyeng. At peak hours the eLearning marketplace supports up to 4,000 video lessons at the same time.  The project started working with Skype. But Skype could not be integrated into the training platform. That’s why they decided to try SaaS solutions. But they were very expensive. As a result, the company stopped working with ready-made solutions and opted for WebRTC and Janus.  Now Skyeng team created a video conferencing feature for the educational platform. They faced quite a lot of troubles on the way. The right protocol is essential Ready-made tools seem to be the fastest solution, especially if you don't want to invest in developing the infrastructure.  When the eLearning marketplace Skyeng first integrated video calls into the training platform, they opted for one of the ready-to-use tools… based on TCP and UDP protocols.  The sound and picture were fine. But there was a critical drawback. It was expensive.  The team started to search for another solution. And found an alternative almost 5 times cheaper!  They tried to use it though it worked only using... UDP and didn't support TCP.  And here comes a new large corporate client, whose security system blocks UDP.  Not to lose clients, Skyeng returned to ready-to-use tools and was forced to pay for them devastating bills for a couple of years. The situation could not last long. And the Skyeng founders figured it would be cheaper to assemble their own team and invest in the infrastructure. They considered using WebRTC together with the open-source Janus.  Janus was supposed to work as a signaling server, an essential element for establishing communication via WebRTC. It has a front-end library janus.js that allows embedding video conferencing into the training platform. It gives a possibility to record audio and video streams.  WebRTC itself doesn’t support any changes. But the Skyeng team was going to add their own features. And although they managed to launch and configure it using Janus without any problems, there were certain bottlenecks. WebRTC and traffic issues WebRTC can adjust traffic depending on the Internet connection. Look at the graphs made during a call. You see that the bitrate temporarily lowers when the client's connection gets worse.  The problem for Skyeng was crucial. Their conversions dropped by 10% when WebRTC reduced traffic in a trial lesson. On the other hand, when the client has a good connection, WebRTC uses the channel to the maximum, increasing the bitrate. It creates the danger of server overload. It may happen if you send it more traffic than Janus can support. As a result, many clients can be disconnected.  Also, Skyeng faced one more issue. If the bitrate is very high, the original records take up more disk storage and may overflow it. To calculate the server load more accurately and to make the video quality acceptable, they set a bitrate limit of 256 kbps. However, there are situations you cannot influence.  Here is a curious example from Skyeng. A client takes online classes next to a working microwave, which blocks the radio signal between the router and the computer. Until the microwave turns off, even a smart bitrate control won’t help.  To warn and calm down a user, Skyeng now displays tips and warnings that something is wrong with their Internet connection. The more powerful server, the better It was assumed that having powerful hardware, WebRTC would work smoothly and swiftly. The Skyeng specialists calculated the expected workload and decided upon the proper server configurations. But something went wrong. They started to receive complaints from teachers long before achieving the limit values.  They didn’t explore the subject fully, but apparently, there were some restrictions inside Janus gateway itself. They reduced the capacity limit from 300 to 200 Mbit/s. And the problems disappeared. After that, they bought simpler servers with fewer restrictions. Another problem was found in the algorithm that created a route between clients. By default, the algorithm chose a more powerful server with better capacity, regardless of its physical location.  As a result, a teacher and a student from one city could communicate through a server from another. The path was too complicated, and the chances to lose packets were higher. They rewrote the algorithm. Now based on pings from a pair of clients to servers, the closest server is selected. Can WebRTC work equally well in different browsers? The Skyeng technical specialists assumed that WebRTC would work equally well in different browsers. If not, then the problem could be solved using the webrtc-adapter library. That’s right, but not so simple. Let’s take China as an example. They have such mobile browsers as QQ and UC. When the eLearning marketplace Skyeng tried to enter the Chinese market, they found that the Chinese browsers support WebRTC only in one direction. They deny access to the microphone and camera while playing video from the second client.  The same problem occurred in Europe with the DuckDuckGo browser. And once they even got a complaint that the client couldn’t study through the Tesla browser! And since they cannot influence all of this, they ask customers to use the latest version of Google Chrome. The conclusion is - if anything doesn’t work, switch to Google Chrome. Although, until recently, Chrome didn’t work smoothly on iOS devices as well.  When users used to start a video call in Chrome from a mobile device, iOS failed to work and suggested opening Safari. Just to mention, Safari received WebRTC support only recently, and it still doesn’t work as well as it should.  For example, a low camera resolution is a problem. It requires a better video connection, while we transmit a 640 by 480 picture to save traffic. And one more surprise. On iOS devices, students cannot simultaneously be in a video stream and play a video file with an assignment. Therefore, now they have to choose one thing and turn off another. And Skyeng had to accept this fact. The peculiarities of accessing a camera and a microphone To start a video lesson, you need to turn on the camera and microphone. It seems obvious. But the Skyeng team noticed that often the connection is not established because the user blocks both the camera and microphone. And he does it automatically, because the request window looks like standard annoying requests from other sites, and appears in the same place.  So they began to show this notification directly at the moment of entering the first lesson. And for extra reliability, they showed an additional pop-up in another place on the screen. It made notifications much more noticeable, and the problem was solved. The bottom line Skyeng reports that their own hardware and team let them reduce the cost of video communication by 10+ times. They’ve reduced the risk of packet loss by choosing the optimal server between two clients. Got the ability to react faster to user behavior and improve user experience.  Are you interested in implementing a video-conferencing feature into your elearning platform? Or looking for cheaper options than the ones you currently use? Our eLearning developers are here to help you with integrating your elearning platform with a video-conferencing tool.  Let’s talk!