Belitsoft > Moodle Customization Services | Moodle Developers

Moodle Customization Services | Moodle Developers

Our company specializes in delivering top-tier Moodle development services to elevate your e-learning platform. Trust Belitsoft company to provide comprehensive, high-quality services that cater to all aspects of your e-learning needs. We can help you create an impressive online learning platform that stands out in a competitive market.

We've created learning platforms for them that have gained a vast amount of users from all over the world

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Moodle development

We specialize in developing content-driven sites using Moodle Technology. Our designers generate remarkable products and can help to shape your ideas into reality. Our websites are completely responsive and pixel perfect, with no coding errors.

Design and Theme developmentMoodle Web Design & Theme development

A great design is not only about appearance but also about function. We provide cleanly designed websites that focus on usability. A thorough set of UI/UX design principles is integral to the development procedure. We take pride in designing and creating custom themes that enhance the appearance and user experience of your Moodle sites. Our skilled developers utilize web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP to deliver responsive and visually appealing designs that align with your brand identity.

Custom moodle developmentCustom Moodle development

With our custom LMS development, we address the specific needs of your clients and users by customizing the core system with tailored features, modules, and plugins. If you require further capabilities for your Moodle website, we create custom modules for your unique project and enhance your Moodle functionality with new features. We are dedicated to crafting websites that your customers admire. By adhering to the highest coding standards, we provide tailored module development that ensures the code is not only effective but also easy to extend, maintain, and debug. Our goal is sustainable coding coupled with a personalized approach.

Moodle App Development & CustomizationMoodle App Development & Customization

The Moodle Mobile App, an extension of your Moodle LMS, allows learners to access training on the go. This custom app for iOS and Android supports learning deliverables, enables offline access, and syncs data with your Moodle platform. It comes with comprehensive analytics, provides push notifications, and features your branding. We assist in setting up developer accounts for app store publication. With hosting on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure, your app and data remain GDPR compliant, ensuring a seamless, secure learning experience.

Custom moodle development Moodle Performance Optimization

Focusing on performance optimization and efficiency, our Moodle development services improve the overall user experience on your platform. By implementing techniques such as database query optimization, caching strategies, and industry best practices, we ensure a seamless and satisfying learning experience for your users.

Moodle plugin development

Our experienced dedicated development team excels in crafting and maintaining plugins that expand Moodle's core functionality, providing additional features like quizzes, assignments, video lectures, interactive content, and other educational tools.

Improved sorting of Courses

Rearrange the order of the courses quickly and easily, simply by dragging and dropping

Custom Reports with Graphs

Draft customized reports for yourself and follow the dynamics of the graphs

Category View by Role

Set unique restrictions on browsing categories by role

Moodle migration

We can rapidly upgrade your current website to the most recent version of Moodle with minimal interference to the site users or migrate it to a cloud.
moodle migration

Moodle to Azure Migration Services

We facilitate the deployment and management of a highly available and scalable Moodle cluster on Azure for enterprises, educational institutions, and public sector organizations.

We provide expert guidance for large-scale deployments, tackling issues with high concurrent user levels, regional load balancing, and other deployment-specific attributes. We deploy essential infrastructure for your Moodle instance, including an autoscaling web frontend layer, a private virtual network for frontend instances, Azure Load balancer, and Azure Database for MySQL.

We offer optional configurations for additional infrastructure, including Azure Backup for Moodle site backups, and Azure DDoS Protection plan.

moodle migration

Moodle To AWS Migration Services

We can migrate your Moodle LMS to Amazon EC2 instances from physical hardware or virtual machines. Alternatively, we can use Amazon Elastic Container Services. The cloud database recommended for MySQL and PostgreSQL is Amazon Aurora.

To ensure cost efficiency, we'll utilize a layered architecture approach. Once your usage pattern is predictable, we can further reduce your costs by helping you take advantage of AWS savings plans and reserved instances.

Moodle API integration - connect your applications with Moodle

We provide specialized Moodle API integration services for edtech companies looking to enhance their compatibility with the widely-used learning management system. Our skilled developers will tailor a custom PHP plugin for your product's seamless integration with any Moodle environment. With our expertise in Moodle API integration, your edtech solution will deliver an improved and streamlined learning experience for schools and their users. Our team's proficiency in integrating Moodle with third-party software and services, such as Accredible, Eloqua, Hubspot, PayPal,and Tableau, MailChimp, Crowdin and more, ensures a cohesive and efficient learning environment.

Moodle app

Our Moodle localization process

We can design your website to be multilingual, making maintenance more manageable and efficient.
Translate your academy into any language

localization progress

Moodle support

We are committed to promptly identifying, diagnosing, and resolving any issues within the Moodle system. Our development team works collaboratively, debugging code, reviewing logs, and partnering with other developers to tackle complex problems successfully.

Dedicated project manager

Weekly status updates
Monthly timesheet reports
Priority & status management

Priority queuing

24-hours response time
Online support and consultation

Security & Performance

Upgrades
Security enhancement
Moodle core and plugins updates
Full-time or part-time security team

Theme design

UI/UX design
Responsive mobile design
Creating mock-ups & building an individual theme

Moodle Maintenance

We keep your Moodle installations up to date with the latest releases, security patches, and bug fixes through routine maintenance tasks, such as version upgrades, compatibility testing, and issue troubleshooting.

Moodle maintenance services
Adding content & functionality
Technical support, revision and development
Site audit. Overview of the code, modules, updates, APIs, patches, pages, links, etc
Site monitoring
Rapid and efficient elimination of any bugs
Information support
Urgent Moodle help
implement 33+

Completed projects

Long-term clients 87%

Long-term clients

New Moodle plugins 63+

New Moodle plugins

Successful migration 17+

Successful migration

Our Approach

Our development process is based on agile software development principles

our approach

Quick Start

1

Contact us

Submit your RFP. Provide us with further details concerning your project, along with your expectations and ideas.

quick start
2

Analysis

Connecting with you and discussing your project. Investigate competitors and target audiences. Clarifying requirements.

quick start
3

Get offer

Providing an individual maintenance plan according to your needs.

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Belitsoft Blog for Entrepreneurs
How to Build  your Own LMS from Scratch
How to Build your Own LMS from Scratch
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.
Dmitry Baraishuk • 22 min read
LMS Implementation Services
LMS Implementation Services
How Belitsoft Can Enhance Your LMS Implementation With 17 years in the eLearning market and over 110 projects delivered, we've accumulated a wealth of experience that can boost your system's efficiency. Here's how we can support you: Custom LMS development. If your company has unique needs not met by an existing system, we can develop a bespoke solution tailored to your requirements. LMS customization. We can adapt an open-source LMS to align with your workflow and vision. LMS implementation services. Our experts will guide you through the entire implementation process to guarantee success. Content development. We create a wide range of learning content, including videos, interactive tests, and games. Data migration. We facilitate the secure transfer of information from your old LMS to a new one. GET A FREE QUOTE 1. Set Clear Goals and KPIs, and Choose Your Strategy You can't measure success without a clear definition. That's why you need well-defined objectives to see if your efforts are yielding the desired results. Set Goals You can gain invaluable insights from internal stakeholders, such as department heads, about the issues the LMS should address and the business outcomes it should achieve. Keeping them informed throughout the entire implementation process ensures optimal effectiveness. You can start with a simple goal like "educate new employees on using tool X" - that's your aim. You can refine this by including details like time, completion, graduation rate, etc. So, it could look like this: "In two weeks, 100% of new employees will complete the course on using tool X and pass the ultimate test." Use the SMART approach to define goals effectively: Specific Measurable Achievable/Attainable Realistic/Relevant Time-bound Once you've defined your goals, monitor the system's effectiveness when it's operational. Your objectives will help you select the best LMS for your organization. Choosing an Implementation Strategy Next, decide how much you will involve the vendor in your implementation strategy. If you've chosen a popular cloud-based LMS, you can configure it yourself. This approach simply involves you uploading the courses and preparing your company to use them. Small companies with straightforward learning needs and objectives often find this option suitable. Your LMS vendor can assist with implementing services. This can help your company launch faster, but it carries a cost. Typically, the vendor assigns a dedicated person to each customer to explain the system's nuances and resolve technical issues. This strategy often offers the best value for money for medium-sized organizations. LMS vendors can also provide a full-service implementation option. This service includes everything from planning and integrating the software, to administering and supporting the launched system. While this is the most expensive approach, it often suits medium to large companies best, and is typical for custom LMS development. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) The MVP approach is simple: prioritize key features first and save the "nice-to-have" ones for later. This strategy not only makes your LMS implementation budget more efficient but also delivers meaningful results sooner, while still allowing room for growth. You can apply the MVP approach to both custom LMS development and when choosing a tiered pricing model for an existing system. Consider the two common methods for deciding what to include in an MVP. The Value vs. Complexity quadrant allows you to plot each feature on a graph based on its value and the effort required to implement it. Essential features fall in square 1 and are a must, while the features in square 2 can be included if your budget permits. Source: productplan.com Weighted scoring is another method for selecting MVP features. List all the desired features and assign each one several points, with higher importance equating to more points. As a result, you select the functions that offer the most value for your budget. This allows you to plan your budget more strategically. For more insights on selecting MVP features and real-life examples of these two approaches, refer to our dedicated article. 2. Build Your Implementation Team This team leads the launch of your new LMS. While smaller organizations may manage with fewer team members, medium and large companies often need a more robust team for optimal results. The implementation team should typically include: Project Manager They coordinate daily team activities, liaise with the LMS vendor, track implementation milestones, and oversee the project's overall success. eLearning Specialist They supervise the migration of your old data into the new system and the creation or transfer of learning content. They also train other users to use the system once it's operational. IT-Expert They ensure the seamless integration of the LMS with other systems, such as HRM and ERP. Depending on your company's needs, your team may include additional roles such as a Lead Super User (an employee who masters the new system first and then imparts their knowledge to others), and an L&D Administrator (who ensures regulatory compliance and oversees new course creation). Remember, a leaner team often results in more focused work. So, it's advisable to keep the team as compact as possible, provided the workload remains manageable. 3. Develop a Plan and Timeline An LMS implementation plan should account for all major tasks on both your end and the vendor's end, if applicable. This assists in estimating and preparing resources, as well as tracking work efficiency once it begins. Communication Plan LMS implementation is like any other project and requires a comprehensive communication plan. Here's what you should include: Roles. Define each person's role clearly to avoid confusion about who handles what tasks. Tools. Identify all communication methods (email, messengers, wiki pages, etc.) you plan to use and their purpose. Ensure stakeholders can use these tools to provide feedback and ask questions, boosting the system's efficiency. Meeting Schedule. Inform everyone about the meetings to keep the project moving forward. Participants need to know if their presence is required, when meetings will be held, and their format. Escalation plan. Establish a system for higher-level resolution. If you're working with a vendor, request regular progress reports and updates. This will ensure you miss nothing important. Consider Customization Depending on your needs, the LMS you select may require alterations from its original version. Customizations can include changing the color scheme, adding your company logos, and developing new features not initially present. If you envision a specific learning workflow, ensure the new LMS supports it and that any customization comes at a reasonable cost. Striking a balance is crucial: an inflexible system won't accommodate your learning process, while a heavily modified one could be expensive and bug-prone. If substantial changes are necessary, it might be better to consider a different LMS. Remember, even minor changes take time. Discuss this with the vendor and ensure your plan includes any necessary customization. Consider Integrations Establishing connections between your software systems can save significant time in the long run. For instance, when a new employee is added to the HRM, the learning management system can automatically enroll them in the relevant course, eliminating the need for extra manual input. However, this requires an initial investment. The duration required to integrate your LMS with another software hinges on factors such as data format, API availability, and the developers' experience. It's in your best interest to supply the vendor with as much information about your planned integrations as possible. This will allow them to provide a realistic estimate and prepare for the work ahead. Consider Training It's not uncommon to overlook training people on the new LMS during the planning phase, but this oversight can delay the benefits of the implementation. There are several approaches to this training: Super-users. Train a select group of individuals who will, in turn, instruct others. Formal training. A member of your team or a representative from the vendor can conduct this. Different vendors may offer various training packages. E-learning. Creating a comprehensive electronic manual detailing the features of the LMS can save time in the long run, though it requires initial effort. The time required for training will vary based on the number of people needing training and the method you choose. Consult with your vendor and adjust your plan accordingly. Consider Data Migration and Course Development Transferring data from your old LMS to a new one can present challenges. For instance, your courses might be in a format that the new system does not support, or the learner data might not be compatible with transfer. Similarly, if you're implementing an LMS for the first time, digitizing information and developing custom courses can be time-consuming. Plan for a Trial Run To ensure system readiness, it's crucial to test the system in a real-world environment. Allocate some time for a group of users to test the system, provide feedback, and allow for necessary adjustments. 4. Migrate Data or Develop Courses Whether you're switching systems or implementing an LMS for the first time, focus on preparing learning materials and managing the learner information. In the first case, you'll need to transfer existing data to the new system; in the second, either adapt your content to the LMS or create a course from scratch. Data Migration Different LMS platforms can have varying databases and workflows, so it's important to maintain data integrity during the transition. Standards like SCORM and xAPI help facilitate the transfer of educational material. However, it's a good idea to verify the new system's compatibility with your course by attempting to upload the content. Training records, valuable for assessing program effectiveness, should also be moved to the new LMS. Provide your incoming vendor with a detailed description of the information to be transferred, ensuring they can convert it into a compatible format for their database. Don't forget to transfer any user-generated content (such as wiki pages or forums) as well, as this information can ease the burden on support staff. Lastly, pay attention to user profiles in the system. Gamification efforts can backfire and demotivate people if users' achievements are lost during the transition. Ideally, personal signatures, templates, settings, and other elements should also be transferred. Course Development An LMS is only as good as the quality content populating it. If you're transitioning to online learning, you'll need to prepare your courses. The first option is to create the content yourself. Authoring tools like iSpring, Articulate, and Elucidat allow individuals without programming knowledge to develop complete courses. Most of these tools produce content that's compatible with LMS platforms. If you have an instructional designer on your team, they can handle this. Alternatively, you might order courses from a specialized company. Reach out to your LMS vendor for recommendations. Even if they don't develop learning content themselves, they may recommend a trusted provider. Before diving into course development, ask yourself the following questions: What type of content do you need: presentations, videos, interactive tests, learning games, etc.? Which format would work best: PPT, MP4, XLSX, etc.? Should you package your content using one of the eLearning standards like SCORM, xAPI, AICC, etc.? For more information on eLearning standards, see this article. 5. Trial Run and User Acceptance Testing Before a company-wide rollout of the system, test it with a select group of users. This will provide a realistic assessment of the LMS as it mimics real-world conditions. The system should be fully operational for this test, though minor cosmetic errors can be overlooked. If you're planning for company-wide LMS usage, ensure your test group is diverse: include representatives from each department, from management to front-line employees. Have them use the system as they would in their day-to-day work. Everyone's unique viewpoint will contribute to the final adjustments made to the LMS. This is also a good time to promote the new system to employees. Communicate about the LMS and its personal benefits to each individual, especially if the software offers more than just job-specific learning. {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"1. Set Clear Goals and KPIs, Select Strategy","acceptedAnswer":[{"@type":"Answer","text":"You can’t judge whether your implementation has been successful unless you define what success is. This is why you need a clear set of objectives to gauge whether your work is bringing the desired results."}]},{"@type":"Question","name":"2. Assemble the Implementation Team","acceptedAnswer":[{"@type":"Answer","text":"These people will be at the forefront of launching your new LMS. 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Trial Run and User Acceptance Testing","acceptedAnswer":[{"@type":"Answer","text":"Before the system is ready for a company-wide rollout, you should try it out on a cadre of users. This would be the LMS’ truest test because it would mimic the real-world conditions. This should be done when the system is fully operational, though cosmetic errors can be allowed."}]}]}
Dmitry Baraishuk • 8 min read
Choosing an LMS: How to Make the Right Decision
Choosing an LMS: How to Make the Right Decision
How Belitsoft Can Help Custom LMS Development. Thanks to 15+ years of building and maintaining eLearning applications and a proven experience in making LMS’ from scratch, we can provide you with a unique and powerful system for improved learning outcomes. Ready-made LMS. We have a boxed LMS solution that could be just what you are looking for. LMS Customization. Our team can tailor any open-source LMS to your requirements, whatever they may be. LXP Development. Should you need it, we can buff your custom LMS up with AI and other features typical of a Learning Experience Platform. LMS Consulting. We can share our experience in the eLearning field to help you choose the best option. LMS Implementation. A wide array of implementation services, from training to data migration. GET A FREE QUOTE LMS Evaluation Criteria Here’s what you need to take into account while selecting a Learning Management System. 1. User Experience Design (UX) The system needs to be intuitive and easy to use. After all, technology should make living and work more convenient, not complicate things. Besides, a good UX increases the system’s value in your learners’ opinion, which makes change management easier. 2. Technical Aspects This is a catch-all criterion that combines functionality, integrations, deployment options, and more. The feature set is pretty self-explanatory, but it doesn’t mean that more features is always better. If you intend to use your LMS for mostly traditional online/blended learning, you don’t need the ability to create educational games or a superpowerful authoring tool. Yet these bells and whistles are something you will still have to pay for. Pick the feature set that is appropriate to your needs. “Integrations” are all about how well your LMS connects to other systems - Human Resources Management (HRM), Client Relations Management (CRM), accounting, and others. In the case of a large company, integrations can save a lot of money in the long run: for example, once a new employee is registered in the HRM, the account in the LMS is created automatically and the system assigns the rookie the appropriate courses - all without any extra manual input. This eliminates repetitive tasks and frees your employees to do something more productive and important. There are two leading deployment options: cloud and on-premise. Cloud-based LMS’ are accessible via a browser, as they are running on online servers. They usually employ a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, where the client pays license fees per month per user. Such systems have a much lower upfront cost, don’t require any investment in hardware or an in-house IT team, shift the data security responsibilities to the vendor, and are rather quick to implement, but is less customizable. Cloud-based software is extremely popular - 93% of companies use some form of it. The on-premise LMS’ are deployed on the hardware which is located - you’ve guessed it - on the client’s premises. The customer typically has to pay a lump sum to gain the right to use such software in perpetuity. The on-premise software requires only one payment (plus the associated costs of hardware and the IT specialists to maintain it), places the cybersecurity responsibilities on the customer, and takes longer to implement, but is typically more customizable.  Note that the customization flexibility described above mostly concerns ready-made systems. Custom LMS’ (more on that later) are different in this regard.  3. Implementation This includes the ease and speed of adopting the LMS. You might have courses that need to be transferred, hardware to be installed, and people to be trained. For more information on LMS implementation, feel free to read our article on that topic. 4. Support The vendor shouldn’t just sell you a system and leave you to fend for yourself. Rather they should provide options to help you out in case of any problems, be it a 24/7 tech support, or just occasional assistance from time to time. Pick the support plan according to your needs. 5. Security This is especially important if you plan to store sensitive information on the LMS, but any decent system will have built-in deterrents against hackers and ordinary human error. Depending on the software, this can be something simple, like role-based access to information and multi-factor authentication, or more complex like advanced encryption and blockchain database. 6. Cost This includes both the initial costs of purchasing and implementing the system and its total cost of ownership (TCO). A more expensive system can still be better thanks to its superior quality. What Are Your Options Before choosing a specific LMS, consider the broader categories it can fall into. Boxed LMS It doesn’t have to be sold in an actual box, but it is a finished product that is readily available for purchase. There are hundreds of them, with different feature sets, designs, and pricing. You can start using a ready-made LMS much faster than other options, it gives you a predictable payment schedule, and usually has a community around it that can be relied upon for advice. However, it can also be quite costly in the long term, forces you to adapt to the system (not adapt to you), and makes you quite dependent on the vendor. Customized LMS While every LMS allows for a certain degree of customization, this section concerns a more large-scale rework of the system to tailor it to the customer’s requirements. If the boxed version of the system is almost, but not quite what you are looking for, you can ask the vendor to make certain changes (e.g. adding new features) that will apply to your company and no one else. The proprietary systems can be modified only by the companies that own and sell them, while the open-source ones are accessible to pretty much anyone with the coding skill. Customized LMS’ require more money at the start than their boxed counterparts, but are more effective. Custom LMS If none of the ready-made systems fit your needs and customizing one costs too much to be viable, you can opt to develop your own. It is a grand undertaking, but so are its benefits, including total control over all the aspects of the system, great long-term value and security, and even improved company valuation should you go public at some point. For more details on custom LMS’ check out our article. Most Popular LMS’ JoomlaLMS JoomlaLMS is a powerful, yet easy to use software that is based on the popular Joomla! Content Management System. It is available in both cloud-based and desktop versions and has a mobile app. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Here’s what the users praise it for: Cost-efficiency. “As a teacher, I appreciate when a platform I use is very user-friendly and cost effective. I like that JoomlaLMS satisfies my professional needs. I am also very satisfied with the support team because they helped me a lot since my IT skills are not outstanding.” Convenience. “Super friendly and modern interface, receives frequent updates including security. It has several free and paid templates to make the look professional. As well as extensions to add features to the website or blog.” Flexibility. “In every instance that we had, where customisation was not possible, we were able to find a satisfactory work-around. For example, if students need to sit a final, external exam that is not part of the online training , the results can be manually added via JoomlaLMS. No other moderately-priced programme that we looked at was able to do this. This flexibility makes JoomlaLMS far more powerful than is seen at first glance.” JoomlaLMS standard dashboard Extraas (an exam preparation course based on deeply modified JoomlaLMS): But there are some disadvantages too: No community forum. “There is no user-based forum. Whilst the support is excellent and JoomlaLMS staff are endlessly patient and prompt at answering queries, I do think that the exchange of ideas and work around that users have found could really benefit the community.” Some Joomla! components aren’t supported. “The only negative thing I can say is sometimes the components, modules or plugins are not always supported when they are free so I would recommend buying only licensed products from long time vendors.” Canvas Canvas is a cloud-based LMS that is used in corporate training and academia alike. It has been on the market since 2008 and has gained a sizeable userbase. Canvas. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Here’s what the reviewers like about Canvas: Great feature set. “There's nothing in online learning that this learning management system can't do. It differentiates, it allows you to set hard and soft deadlines for assignments, it lets students work in groups, and it integrates with just about every educational website out there.” Convenient for teachers. “My favorite specific feature of Canvas is the Speed-grader, which changed my life when I switched from Moodle. I also like the way the online quizzes work. More generally what I like about Canvas is the unified design. Whereas open-source course management software feels like a hodgepodge of different options and designs Frankensteined together, Canvas feels like there is a design team actually thinking through the way it should look and operate.” Intuitive navigation. “All of the contents such as lecture slides, videos, homework, grades, etc are in one location under different tabs. It has been organized properly and I don't have to click 100 times to get to the page I want.” And here’s what they don’t: UX issues. “Like all course management software, there are times when I feel that too much clicking is involved to accomplish basic tasks or little things that should be possible are not. For example, when making rubrics for assignments, there is no way to shuffle the order of the categories. If you want to add a new line in the rubric between lines 2 and 3, you'd have to delete all the lines after 2 and start over from there. Little things like that, which aren't a huge deal, but sometimes do leave me scratching my head.” Limited mobile functionality. “It is a little bit difficult to use for beginners. The mobile app doesn't have as many features as those present on the website and it is also not able to view certain files, a user has to download them.” Slow support. “I remember the time we had to ask about the competencies which were not upgraded themselves as it used to be, and we contacted the customer support. We had waited for some months to get responded. So, that was very discouraging for us who wanted the immediate response to move forward.” Cornerstone LMS Cornerstone LMS (also known as Cornerstone OnDemand or CSOD) has gained a reputation as a reliable compliance training solution and boasts a large library of exclusive content.  Cornerstone LMS. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Videoconferencing support Gamification Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance This is what the reviewers consider the strong suits of Cornerstone: Ease of use. “I like how easy it is to use this program. As a facilitator, I had to assign training, review, rate, pull reports, and many other tasks within this program and everything was so easy and simple to use." Regular improvements. “I like that Cornerstone is constantly releasing new tools and features to enhance the LMS. They really listen to their customers and take in all advice to make necessary upgrades.” Powerful tracking capabilities. “What I like most about Cornerstone is that I can add and track our courses and customers who have attended our courses. A majority of our courses are offered virtually so being able to effectively track attendance for these courses in a simplified way is very beneficial to us. We also have advanced courses that our customers need and since we do not allow customers to take an advanced course with the pre-requisite course is extremely valuable to us. “ And this is what they consider its weak points: Buggy updates. "Cornerstone tends to roll out new features that are not ready to be rolled out. Odd one-off hard and fast rules (learner home having the "Add Subject" covering banners)." Outdated quizzes. “The Quiz functionality of the system is not good and not easy to use. Its not modern and every test you make has to be out of 100. Also, you can drag and drop questions in whatever order you want them to be. The tool is limited and needs to be upgraded for easier use.” NEO LMS NEO LMS is tailored to the needs of schools and universities and is used by various learning institutions around the world. NEO LMS. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance The users have praised NEO for the following: Good UI/UX design. “NEO LMS is very easy to navigate. Lessons can easily be done even without the user’s guide or manual. I really like the customer support because of its efficient and quick response.” Powerful feature set. “NEO has it all! I've a course creator and content integrator since 1996 and I can create academic solutions for an entire region, district and schools. NEO allows me to measure student performance across each boundary and create a community of learning among all stakeholders. NEO has very powerful tools that goes beyond the regular institution administration and operation, this is a holistic education tool!” Great customer service. “Customer Service is excellent. They are responsive to suggestions and customer requests. It is customizable for the school, and it has served our students and teachers well.” And this is what caused the users’ frustration: Subpar mobile app. “The app is very glitchy! Sometimes it just shuts down when a student is working in it. Also, not all of the quiz features work on the app. The first time students log in to the app is very confusing for them since they have to exactly type in the name of their district.” System-specific terms. “There are terms you have to know (for example, sticky) so you know what the function is, but no definition is offered anywhere. Math symbols are very limited." No offline mode. “As an educator and technology user in the classroom need to have the off-line capability so in countries like mine where electricity is not a constant student can keep working while there is no connectivity and resume once they are back within the range of our network coverage.” Absorb LMS Absorb is a powerful LMS with Learning Experience Platform (LXP) capabilities that has been on the market since 2002. Absorb LMS. Source Core features: Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Here’s what the users consider the system’s advantages: Powerful feature set. “There are so many features packed into the system, even in the mobile versions. Having a mobile version is a big plus due to many of our learners using iPads and the like." Ease of use. “Social media and marketing integration is easy to set up and use. Dashboards and reports are the fastest and easiest I have seen; reporting is highly customizable with just a few mouse clicks. Rapid deployment and migration.” Great customer service. “The company itself is great to work with. Their customer service staff is so nice and friendly, and the project manager and account manager I worked with helped me every step of the way.” And these are the disadvantages: Subpar multitenancy. “My biggest disappointment was that the multi-tenancy or segregating by departments did not function as we expected causing us to have to adjust our offering and prices for clients. When assigning courses you can only assign to a whole or sub-department, you can exclude. So if 99 customers get the library and one doesn't, you have to allow 99 clients instead of just restricting one. When restricting departments they can manage only the users and courses within their department. However, this does not apply to the mercury module, Global Resources, Competencies, Categories, Message Templates, Ecommerce, and Public Catalogs. So we had to disable access to department admins for these features otherwise they would see other departments (clients) information which is terrible!” Unpolished reporting. “Reporting features still need a bit of development to allow for more control and options for what should be saved in the report export document. Giving more options for data being displayed by a student transcript. Some features of pulling data from the metrics can be a bit tricky.” Expensive for small organizations. “The biggest issue is cost - it just wasn't viable for my smaller organization in the long run compared to other alternatives.” Open edX Open edX is a free open-source LMS created by MIT and Harvard University. It is mostly focused on delivering MOOCs. Open EdX. Source Core features: In-built authoring tool SCORM support Gamification This is what the users like about it: Convenient course management. “It is easy to break long courses into manageable chunks and to check a learner's understanding at each step. Usually this would require me to fly to meet my new sales agents, but now I can simply sign them up for the course and track their progress.” No cost. “Since Open edX is an open source project, you are able to use it for free and you also benefit from the community effort around it. The Open edX community is composed of people from all kinds of backgrounds willing to help anyone deploy, run and create content for Open edX. It's also very easy to create courses since Open edX provides multiple elements for content (text, HTML, videos, questions etc), and the user experience is clean and easy to navigate.” Helpful community. “Openedx has a wonderful community behind it - we have always got help from them if we ever get stuck. The product has evolved over the years and with a fantastic mobile app available - it has made learning and reaching the users far easier” And this is what they don’t: Access control issues. “We had to find a work-around for being able to hide internal (Sales agent) courses from the general public. It would be nice to have an internal course option available.” Complicated to install. “The deployment can be a bit cumbersome since it's a fairly large project. Luckily you are able to get help from the community or reach out to vendors.” Weak learner interaction tools. “The tools for learner interaction (i.e. the forums) are fairly weak. They need more modern features, and especially more support for team-based moderation.” Moodle Moodle is a free LMS that is available in both cloud-based and desktop versions. It is very popular and has a vibrant community around it. Moodle. Source Although a free open source system, Moodle is known for being hard to customize, unlike some other LMS’ (e.g. JoomLMS). Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Moodle advantages: Good documentation. "There is a good amount of helping documentation with Moodle you can find almost anything on their documentation. I am happy to say that our students are still using it daily." Good design. “The design and layout is simple and the best part about it is that it makes learning fun and interactive for the students.” Low cost. “Moodle is open source, and therefore inexpensive and low risk to test. If a company is considering eLearning, this should be your first option as a pilot. No pre-planning is as good as actual experience.” Moodle disadvantages (that can easily be overcome with the help of professional Moodle developers): Complicated implementation. “This is difficult to set up, particularly if you want to make use of the assessments. You need to define your users and your strategy up front or it can become a muddle with different departments adding "courses". Buggy updates. “Whenever updates for Moodle are released (six monthly) there are always some problems with existing content, especially with non-standard features that have been designed exclusively for a course or institution. Sometimes they are not immediately evident and can cause issues during the teaching period.” Hard for newbies. “Moodle is not intuitive to the novice. It took some time for me to learn how to use its many features and implement them well. I have been doing this for at least 8 years, but I am still learning more about the system and its capabilities.”
Dmitry Baraishuk • 13 min read
Cloud vs Self-Hosted LMS
Cloud vs Self-Hosted LMS
How Belitsoft Can Help LMS Consulting. Using our elearning software development and implementation experience for startups, SMEs, and large enterprises, we can recommend the deployment mode and the LMS that suits your company best. LMS Migration. We can help your business to move from cloud to on-premise and vice versa. Custom LMS Development. Thanks to 15+ years of building and maintaining eLearning applications and a proven experience in making LMS’ from scratch, we can provide you with a unique and powerful system for improved learning outcomes. Ready-made LMS. We have a boxed LMS solution that could be just what you are looking for. Available in both cloud and on-premise versions. LMS Customization. Our team can tailor any open-source LMS to your requirements, whatever they may be. LXP platform consulting, development and implementation. Learning Experience Platforms offer several features that are often not available in traditional Learning Management Systems to create a more personalized learning experience. We usually implement skill mapping to identify the skills present within an organization and mapping them to available learning resources; automatically customized courses based on individual learner preferences, skills, and career goals based on AI-powered recommendations, microlearning and gamification. We also provide career development tools such as career path visualization based on the skills and courses completed. GET A FREE QUOTE What Is a Self-Hosted LMS The LMS part of the term is pretty clear - Learning Management System. The “self-hosted” is a bit trickier: it means that the company using the LMS also owns and controls the hosting server, whether on-premise or elsewhere. Who Needs a Self-Hosted LMS Now that these systems have become more of a niche option than a universal one, here’s who can benefit from them the most: Security-conscious companies. In the case of organizations that store very sensitive information in their system, even the best cloud-based LMS’ become a liability. Large enterprises. Big companies likely have the infrastructure and specialists that can support self-hosted systems without trouble. They can also benefit from the better long-term value of such LMS’. Unique courses. If your company needs a custom workflow or a very special curriculum, cloud-based systems aren’t flexible enough to support them. Self-hosted LMS vs Cloud LMS While self-hosted systems are losing in popularity to their cloud-based counterparts, they have a number of advantages over the cloud-based ones. More Customization Flexibility Custom functions are an Achilles’ heel of the cloud-based systems. And it gets especially noticeable when the vendor is making updates. Any update has a chance to disrupt the custom features and even third-party integrations a user has. Feel free to check the reviews of the popular LMS’ to see what we are talking about. This is why the vendors of the cloud-based systems limit the users’ ability to make changes - it’s a one-size-fits-all approach. On-premise systems don’t have this problem. Your company would be an exclusive user of your version of the LMS and you’ll be free to modify it as you see fit. Better Data Security Possibilities Any LMS vendor worth their salt will take steps to protect their product against malicious actors. While cloud-based systems are generally pretty safe, self-hosted ones have more inherent potential in this regard. This ties in with the previous point on the list. For example, you need your system to be HIPAA-compliant. Implementing many of these security measures wouldn’t be viable for a common cloud-based system, but there is nothing stopping you from using them on your own server. Another part of the issue is that people using the same system share the same vulnerabilities. No software is unbreakable, and if a hacker locates an exploit that lets them access sensitive information, all the people on the shared platform become threatened. If your system has been modified, the vulnerability in question might not exist. Moreover, you can host your LMS on a server without access to the Internet whatsoever, negating the risk almost entirely. Better Integrations If you need to connect a self-hosted LMS to other software (HRM, CRM, ERP, etc.) you’ll have a much easier time. The shared cloud-based systems typically have integration options, but they are more limited and less reliable. More Independence from Vendor If the LMS vendor goes out of business, people using the shared cloud-based platform can kiss their system goodbye. The on-premise systems, however, have a number of ways to ensure that they remain working no matter what happens to the company that developed them. Examples include giving customers perpetual licenses for free, making the system open source, or distributing the on-premise version of the LMS as open source by default. Disadvantages of Self-Hosted LMS This is where the self-hosted LMS’ are inferior to cloud-based systems. Higher Upfront Costs Hosting an LMS yourself requires a substantial initial investment. This includes the payment for the perpetual license, as well as (possibly) domain name, hosting services, hardware, IT-team salaries, and more. The long-term total cost of ownership is lower, but the initial payment is much higher. More Responsibility Hosting and managing your LMS yourself takes much more effort than with a shared cloud-based system. You have to take care of maintenance, security, uptime, and many other things that are otherwise the provider’s responsibility. Updating Issues Working with a cloud-based LMS allows you to get all the updates almost immediately. Yes, sometimes they can disrupt the work, but other times they bring useful new features and improvements. In the case of a self-hosted LMS you’ll have to remain without updates entirely, pay for them, or have your IT-team work on upgrading the system. Popular Self-Hosted LMS’ JoomlaLMS JoomlaLMS is a powerful, yet easy to use software that is based on the popular Joomla! Content Management System. It is available in both cloud-based and desktop versions and has a mobile app. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Here’s what the users praise it for: Cost-efficiency. “As a teacher, I appreciate when a platform I use is very user-friendly and cost-effective. I like that JoomlaLMS satisfies my professional needs. I am also very satisfied with the support team because they helped me a lot since my IT skills are not outstanding.” — Ljiljana G. Convenience. “Super friendly and modern interface receives frequent updates including security. It has several free and paid templates to make the look professional. As well as extensions to add features to the website or blog.” — Carlos R. Flexibility. “In every instance that we had, where customization was not possible, we were able to find a satisfactory workaround. For example, if students need to sit a final, external exam that is not part of the online training , the results can be manually added via JoomlaLMS. No other moderately-priced programme that we looked at was able to do this. This flexibility makes JoomlaLMS far more powerful than is seen at first glance.” — Dile S. But there are some disadvantages too: Complicated maintenance. “It is difficult to show someone else how to maintain the website, as so many features are organized in strange fashions. Also, you have to click many times just to get to one item, and often has very clunky ways to finish up a project. Also, after a while, many links were irreparably broken. I also got multiple emails from Joomla - sometimes every few minutes. That seemed to be a flaw” — Mary W. Open edX Open edX is a free open-source LMS created by MIT and Harvard University. It is mostly focused on delivering MOOCs. Open EdX. Source Core features: In-built authoring tool SCORM support Gamification This is what the users like about it: Convenient course management. “It is easy to break long courses into manageable chunks and to check a learner's understanding at each step. Usually this would require me to fly to meet my new sales agents, but now I can simply sign them up for the course and track their progress.” — Marianne L. Powerful features. “Awesome features... I use less dynamic LMS platforms and this one is one of the most engaging. It feels like a real classroom; students can engage in real time as long as they follow syllabi. If you fall behind you can reset your dates and your grades are rolled over from the previous date. I've used the live video conferencing feature which adds to real-life interaction. The discussion boards and forums are aesthetically pleasing. You can download the app and the features are equally good. You can audit the course.” — Carol H. Helpful community. “Openedx has a wonderful community behind it - we have always got help from them if we ever get stuck. The product has evolved over the years and with a fantastic mobile app available - it has made learning and reaching the users far easier” — Million L.. And this is what they don’t: Access control issues. “We had to find a work-around for being able to hide internal (Sales agent) courses from the general public. It would be nice to have an internal course option available.” — Marianne L. Complicated to install. “The deployment can be a bit cumbersome since it's a fairly large project. Luckily you are able to get help from the community or reach out to vendors.” — Luiz A. Weak learner interaction tools. “The tools for learner interaction (i.e. the forums) are fairly weak. They need more modern features, and especially more support for team-based moderation.” — Reviewer verified by LinkedIn Moodle Moodle is a free LMS that is available in both cloud-based and on-premise versions. It is highly customizable and has a vibrant community around it.  Moodle. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Moodle advantages: Good documentation. "There is a good amount of helping documentation with Moodle you can find almost anything on their documentation. I am happy to say that our students are still using it daily." Good design. “The design and layout is simple and the best part about it is that it makes learning fun and interactive for the students.” Low cost. “Moodle is open source, and therefore inexpensive and low risk to test. If a company is considering eLearning, this should be your first option as a pilot. No pre-planning is as good as actual experience.” Moodle disadvantages: Complicated implementation. “This is difficult to set up, particularly if you want to make use of the assessments. You need to define your users and your strategy upfront or it can become a muddle with different departments adding "courses". Buggy updates. “Whenever updates for Moodle are released (six-monthly) there are always some problems with existing content, especially with non-standard features that have been designed exclusively for a course or institution. Sometimes they are not immediately evident and can cause issues during the teaching period.” Hard for newbies. “Moodle is not intuitive to the novice. It took some time for me to learn how to use its many features and implement them well. I have been doing this for at least 8 years, but I am still learning more about the system and its capabilities.” Chamilo Chamilo is an open-source LMS from Spain, which has been on the eLearning market since 2010. Chamilo. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Videoconferencing support Mobile learning SCORM compliance These are the Chamilo’s advantages: Flexibility. “Stable, mature, solid software. You can use it as a fully working LMS or just as a framework to create your own solution. Also the possibility for gamification or selling courses/sessions makes it even more attractive for running your own online academy. And with the skill wheel, talent management got easier.” Good UI and UX. “Chamilo is really easy to use as a student. As a teacher it is intuitive but very broad. You can create simple basic courses (text courses with multiple choice quizzes) or really advanced courses (conditional questions, wiki, assignments, group collaboration, forums, ...) It offers a huge set of features to organize students in classes, work with sessions (date based set of courses) or single courses. It fully pulls the card of open source and is thus invested in reaching out to open source solutions like Big Blue Button or OpenMeetings for webinar features.” Free. “Chamillo is a free learning management system that has can be used for medium sized businesses. Installation is easy as it comes in Softacoulous bundle available in any standard hosting.” And these are its disadvantages: Questionable architecture. “At the team, we are not 100% happy with the architecture behind Chamilo. It's not easy to make modifications since the html code is distributed in hard to follow chunks all over the place. The fact that it's using an unsafe language like PHP doesn't make it easier.” SCORM compatibility issues. “Although it supports SCORM content , some of the SCORM files I tried on Chamilo didn't work. That was the reason I had to move away . However , its internal authoring tool developed content functioned very smoothly.” iSpring Learn This venerable system has been on the market since 2001 and has both cloud-based and self-hosted versions.  iSpring Learn. Source Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance This is what the users like about iSpring: Ease of use. “iSpring Learn is an affordable and easy-to-use solution. You don't need to be an expert to use it and you can set the solution in just a couple of hours! Thus, you can quickly offer e-Learning courses to your customers. The users can also access to courses on their mobile devices with the app, which is a really great feature. iSpring Suite is perfectly integrated with iSpring Learn, so you can directly publish your presentations to the LMS. That means time saving.” Offline mode. “iSpring learn have the capability to track all my assignments and their completion statistics. the courses could be used offline. also the courses could adapt to any screen size. its a great platform for learning and enhancing one's skills.” Cost-efficiency. “Reasonable/fair billing No limit for on-line content I found this amazing when I first started using iSpring Learn in 2010. There seems to be no limit to how much content can be uploaded to iSpring Learn servers. I currently have about 10gb in the system. Other learning management systems I have used charged by the megabyte combined with the number of students. Great up-time track record. It goes without saying that students must have consistent access to the eLearning system.” And this is what they don’t: Slow to improve. “New functionality has only been added piecemeal, presumably where a client has paid for a new feature to match their specific requirements. The new functions then aren't applied across the whole system (since the client didn't pay for that work). The result is a "swiss cheese" of a product, with huge holes. For example, the API doesn't allow you to retrieve attributes that were added in new functionality. The API itself allows you to set and retrieve (limited parts of) individual records, but doesn't let you get access to reports programmatically. SSO is all-or-nothing - you have to have the same SSO for all Organizations, which sucks if you're using the same course material in-house as well as externally. And SSO doesn't support the latest standards. Discussion forums are similarly only open to all and can't be limited to Organizations. Presumably both SSO and Discussions were added before some client paid for multiple Organizations to be added.” Limited features. “eCommerce is limited. iSpring's definition of a "Course" is just about any content item (presentation, reading material, test, assignment, etc.). My "courses" typically have 10 modules and as many as 28 lessons. Each lesson contains about 5 content items. For eCommerce, it would be better to provide access to a full course (by my definition), instead of a single content item.” Weak reporting. “A report writer has been identified as one feature which would greatly assist the administrator in creating reports on the fly according to requirements he may have to get a view of course progress. The available online reports are good but self-generated reports would be a great feature.”
Dmitry Baraishuk • 10 min read
LMS Tips for Startups
LMS Tips for Startups
How Belitsoft Can Help Boxed LMS. We offer a ready-made LMS that has all the necessary features to get you started. Custom LMS development. With extensive experience in custom software development for startups, our skilled team will ensure your project is executed to spec, on time, and within budget. LMS Customization. If there is an open-source LMS that almost fits your business needs we can tailor it so that it is a perfect match. Product Development. We can use our 15+ years of software development experience to assist you with your product at all the stages - from prototyping and MVP to post-launch support. Learning content development. If you don’t have the time to develop your own learning materials, we can create them for you.  GET A FREE QUOTE How an LMS Helps Startups Grow Fast 1. Timely Answers One of the latest trends in eLearning is microlearning: instead of having the educational materials packaged as hour-long lessons, cut them in small chunks and make them instantly available to anyone who needs them. Does a sales rep have a problematic customer? Now they can get the solution to their problem immediately and convert the lead instead of letting him go. Does a developer need to know what a certain piece of code does? Now they don’t have to dig into the documentation to find out. Such an approach increases the team’s effectiveness dramatically and directly affects the bottom line. 2. Customer Training and Retention If your product requires customer training, no one can do it better than your own people. An LMS-based course would both show your clients how to get the most out of your product and save you from having to keep designated trainers on your team. Availability of training is one of the key criteria in choosing software, so having one gives you an edge on your competitors. What’s more, this is also a customer retention tool. According to Salesforce, the clients who buy their training program, are four times as likely to remain clients. 3. Quick Onboarding While it might take a while for a new hire to understand and adopt your company’s culture, they need to learn their responsibilities and duties right now. LMS makes it a breeze: instead of reading through boring manuals or wandering around like a lost puppy, the employee can watch a series of videos, pass quizzes, play games, and so immerse themselves in their new position. 4. Compliance Training Depending on the domain you work in, your employees might need to undergo compliance training, perhaps repeatedly. LMS can automate this process at all stages. When an employee is hired, the system automatically assigns them a course depending on the employee’s position, follows the learning process, and issues a certificate at the end. If your startup is growing rapidly, this is a must - imagine having to arrange classes for people at different learning levels. 5. Reporting and Analytics An LMS can track the progress of the learners and the way they approach the training process itself. Moreover, thanks to technologies like xAPI it can even monitor the users’ interaction with learning content that isn’t included in the LMS (e.g. MOOCs, YouTube, etc.). The information that the system gathers can be used to improve the training process later. 6. Scalability When you have a lot of new people joining the company, an LMS is the most convenient option to scale your training process quickly and cheaply. You don’t need to hire extra coaches or allocate classes and printed materials - just have your new hires log in and start. You might need to purchase additional LMS licenses, but that’s about it. Why Startups Should Use LMS' 1. Quick To Start As a small company on a tight schedule and budget, you need to start training right now. Thankfully, LMS gives you just that. With a cloud-based system, you can get started within a day, as long as you have your learning materials ready. Just upload them and let your employees know about that.  2. Better Engagement Modern LMS’ use a plethora of methods to make sure that users keep learning and enjoy the process. Microlearning, gamification, on-the-job training - all of these approaches help the individual people and the company as a whole. 3. Social Learning The ability to learn together has a ton of benefits that startups can make use of. Firstly, it promotes competition. Naturally competitive people will strive to outdo their peers both in learning and on the job. As long as those, who don’t want to participate in this, aren’t punished, this is a powerful motivation method. Secondly, it helps your employees solve problems on the go. Learning materials might miss something or your company can grow too fast for them. In these situations, the employees can only rely on each other for help. Once the solution for the problem is created, it can be spread through forums, chats, and other LMS communication features. Finally, it brings the team closer together. The friendly competition and mutual assistance improve morale and employee retention. 4. Continuing Development An LMS is the most convenient and functional way to help your employees constantly grow while they’re working. Thanks to the multimedia support, connectivity, and analytics, your people will become better at what they do and will be thankful to you for that. Most Popular LMS’ for Startups JoomlaLMS JoomlaLMS is a feature-rich yet easy-to-use LMS. It also has mobile apps for iOS and Android. JoomlaLMS has a free trial and both cloud and on-premise versions. The on-premise version starts at USD 299/yr and the perpetual license will set you back by at least USD 1196. The standard cloud version costs USD 37/month and covers up to 50 users. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Here’s what the users praise it for: Cost-efficiency. Convenience. Flexibility. But there are some disadvantages too: Complicated maintenance. TalentLMS Talent LMS is used by tens of thousands of people worldwide thanks to its user-friendliness and powerful array of features. TalentLMS. Source TalentLMS is free for up to 5 users and up to 10 courses. The cheapest plan costs USD 59/month is paid annually and USD 79/month if billed monthly. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance This is what its users consider the system’s advantages: Good UI/UX design. Powerful features. Cost-efficiency. And this is what they count as disadvantages: Requires workarounds. Limited language options. Problematic updates. iSpring Learn This venerable system has been on the market since 2001 and has both cloud-based and self-hosted versions.  iSpring Learn. Source For the first 100 users, iSpring charges USD 3.66 per user per month (billed annually). Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance This is what the users like about iSpring: Ease of use. Offline mode. Cost-efficiency. And this is what they don’t: Slow to improve. Limited features. Weak reporting. Coassemble Coassemble (formerly eCoach) is a powerful LMS famous for its attractive visuals and smooth UX. It is accessible from mobile devices but doesn’t have mobile apps. Coassemble. Source Coassemble costs at least USD 249/month (if billed annually) and USD 299/month if billed monthly. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance Gamification This is what its users consider its advantages: Ease of use. Solid customer support. Rapid course development. And this is what they consider disadvantages: Limited feature set. High cost. GoSkills GoSkills is a flexible LMS with great microlearning support. GoSkills. Source GoSkills has a free trial. The cheapest option covers 2 licenses and costs USD 29 per learner per month if billed monthly or USD 14.5 per learner per month if billed annually. Core features: Built-in authoring tool Gamification Videoconferencing support Mobile learning Learner portal SCORM compliance This is what the users like about GoSkills: Smooth microlearning. Ease of use. Mobile compatibility. And here’s what they didn’t: Video playback on Apple devices: No offline mode. Limited course creation functions.
Dmitry Baraishuk • 5 min read
LMS for Healthcare
LMS for Healthcare
Essentially, a healthcare LMS is a dedicated learning platform. Hospitals, health tech, and medical device companies use it to provide training on healthcare industry standards, medical product and device usage, and other pertinent topics. Whether for HIPAA compliance exams, mastering novel equipment, or staying updated with regulatory changes, a healthcare LMS simplifies onboarding, continuous training, and certification processes. Criteria for Finding Top Healthcare LMS What to Teach: Comprehensive Course Catalog A diverse course catalog that includes HIPAA, FDA, and OSHA compliance, specialized medical product instruction, and industry-sponsored CE/CME content is key to a good LMS. Administrators can then select relevant courses and assign them to the appropriate group of medical professionals. How to Teach: Personalized, Relevant Training Not every course is suitable for all hospital employees. The assignment engine within the Learning Management System provides a solution enabling administrators to allocate courses based on specific criteria, such as department, job title, expertise, and proficiency levels. Tailoring content to each participant's role and requirements, training becomes both meaningful and efficient. How to Assess: Progress Tracking & Certification Once training starts, it's essential for key stakeholders to monitor the learners' progress and completion rates. The LMS requires tools that reflect learners' performance, completion, certification, and compliance tracking. These tools give your healthcare organization a data-driven edge in managing training programs and meeting industry benchmarks, including Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, HIPAA, HITECH, FDA, GDPR, and the False Claims Act. How to Improve Outcomes: Incorporating Advanced Features But what happens if the training doesn't meet expectations? If courses aren't completed punctually, if talent retention programs are ineffective, or if onboarding lags? A versatile LMS will offer advanced features and analytics to identify these issues, allowing for timely interventions and adjustments. To significantly enhance learning effectiveness in the healthcare industry, we can integrate the following features into your LMS: Gamification. We integrate game-design elements into non-gaming contexts. Examples include awarding points for completed lessons, introducing a leaderboard, or unlocking extra levels upon course completion. Research has shown gamification helps improve learning outcomes, increase precision, and motivate the learners to excel—metrics that can directly impact patient care and save lives. We use our years of eLearning expertise to help in choosing and implementing gamification elements that will work in each individual case. For more information on gamification and its applications, refer to our relevant articles: Gamification in eLearning and Gamification in Healthcare. AI-powered Chatbots. Our team integrates AI-driven chatbots into your LMS to provide instant learner support, answer queries, and guide learners through their training journey. Chatbots enhance accessibility and efficiency by offering immediate assistance whenever needed. Social Learning. We help foster collaborative learning experiences by integrating social learning features into your LMS. This enables learners to share insights, collaborate on projects, and engage in discussions, creating a dynamic and enriching educational environment. Microlearning Modules. We recommend breaking down complex concepts into bite-sized modules that can be consumed on demand. Medical professionals can work toward their continuing medical education credits during moments, such as a traffic jam, morning commute, or any available 5-10 minute window. Microlearning promotes knowledge retention, making learning accessible and manageable, even for busy schedules. Real-world Simulations. Using VR and AR to simulate real-world scenarios for practical training is one of the top eLearning trends. Learners can apply their knowledge in a controlled environment, boosting their confidence and readiness for actual situations. Key Healthcare LMS Features Security & Compliance When it comes to your healthcare Learning Management System (LMS), we understand that safeguarding patient data and ensuring regulatory compliance are non-negotiable priorities. Our team ensures security and adherence to standards at every juncture. We strictly adhere to regulations, like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the U.S. Data segmentation, audit trails, and secure user authentication mechanisms are implemented to preserve patient data confidentiality. Our system includes secure file uploads, encrypted messaging, and role-based training to guard against unauthorized access and potential data breaches. We also believe in a multi-faceted approach to security. This includes data encryption, access control, and user authentication. Through regular audits and assessments, secure hosting, and data minimization practices, we maintain a vigilant defense against potential threats. Moreover, robust data backup and recovery strategies, compliance with regional regulations, and a well-structured incident response plan add an extra layer of security to the LMS. eLearning Standards Compatibility Unlike EHR/EMR systems, where interoperability is a problem that is still hard to solve, LMSs have the edge with unified eLearning standards simplifying data exchange. We apply: SCORM to standardize learning content formats xAPI for communicating data about learning activities among different systems, not just LMSs LTI to plug-and-play external learning content, software, tools, and more One significant advantage of these standards is the accessibility of learning materials. If your LMS is SCORM-compatible, for example, adding a SCORM-packaged course becomes a matter of a few clicks. Another benefit lies in advanced tracking capabilities. The versatility of xAPI, for instance, is evident in its wide-ranging monitoring and reporting features. An example of its utility is MedStar Health's initiative, where they employed xAPI to track resuscitation medic training, connecting it to apps, including a defibrillator simulator. Mobile support Healthcare professionals have diverse technological preferences, so it's important to make content available on various platforms. While many still rely on desktop setups, the growing trend leans towards mobile devices like smartphones for convenience. Here, the Learning Management System steps in by providing content that is accessible across a spectrum of devices and platform types, including iOS, Windows, and Android. This flexibility ensures that healthcare personnel can access training materials in sync with their preferred learning styles and habits. Integrations Integrating an LMS with third-party tools and applications via APIs brings considerable benefits. For instance, embedding the LMS with EHR software provides contextual training during patient record evaluations, promoting informed clinical decisions. Similarly, integrating with healthcare CRM systems and patient portals, we provide a consolidated ecosystem that offers immediate access to patient-specific educational materials and treatment protocols. API-driven integrations personalize the learning experience and extend the LMS's scope beyond healthcare training, empowering medical professionals with real-time information and elevating patient care. 3 Best Learning Management Systems for Healthcare in 2023 Based on G2 reviews, we'll list the top 3 healthcare LMS solutions in 2023. Relias Review Rating: 3.9/5 from 345 reviews Pricing: Сustom quote on demand, reportedly starting at $25 per license Relias assists organizations in addressing knowledge gaps with over 5,000 courses. Topics span from central sterile processes to wound assessment, with regular checks by 135+ accrediting bodies for compliance. Drawbacks: Some G2 users find the interface cumbersome and report issues like interrupted course playback. The video courses lack captioning, and there are inconsistencies in Relias' mobile applications. Users have also mentioned the system's limited interoperability, especially when importing courses and data. Healthcare LMS interface: Relias Docebo Review Rating: 4.4/5 from 366 reviews Pricing: From $1,600/month ($19,200 annually) per PC Docebo, suitable for expanding mid-to-large healthcare organizations, especially those undergoing expansion. While it doesn't focus exclusively on healthcare, it offers 80,000+ courses, blending general with healthcare-specific content, accessible across mobile and desktop devices. Drawbacks: Its vast range of features requires a learning curve, especially for non-tech savvy users or those unfamiliar with LMS platforms. Some LMS administrators have mentioned that it took them a month to become proficient with the platform. Like most ready-to-use solutions, Docebo comes with restrictions, including limited widgets and notification types, affecting user experience. Healthcare LMS interface: Docebo Absorb LMS Review Rating: 4.7/5 from 239 reviews Pricing: From $800/month ($9,600 annually) with an added $16 per active user annually. Absorb presents a cloud-based enterprise learning platform specifically designed for the healthcare industry. This platform equips clinicians with training, offers intelligent reporting tools for performance tracking, personalizes learning paths, and incorporates tests and assessments. The platform is flexible, allowing for tailored user experiences. Users can choose between mandatory or optional courses, while administrators gain insights into course completions and evaluations. Plus, Absorb supports extensive integrations with third-party software like Okta, Salesforce, and Zoom. Drawbacks: Large organizations should be cautious when considering Absorb. The vendor charges for every active user, which can result in significant costs, especially for larger companies. Some users have reported annual expenses reaching up to $25,000 under the Enterprise plan. In addition, limited API integrations have been flagged as a concern for those aiming to establish a robust system network within their enterprise. Healthcare LMS interface: Absorb Ready-Made vs. Custom LMS for Healthcare The healthcare sector has an array of LMS choices. While some might lean towards off-the-shelf solutions, there are compelling reasons to consider custom-made products: 100% match with your company's and patients' specifics. Ready-made healthcare LMS platforms aim to cater to a vast audience across various industries and scales. This broad focus often results in generalized systems that don't cater to individual companies and patients, which is a concern for most users. As a result, your training becomes less effective. Prioritizing and managing patient data security. The healthcare industry requires rigorous data protection standards. With a custom LMS, healthcare providers can implement bespoke security measures, encryption techniques, and access controls that comply with regulations like HIPAA. Such a proactive approach facilitates quicker responses to threats, allows for comprehensive security audits, and ensures smooth integration with existing systems — all while upholding patient confidentiality. Long-term cost savings through license fee elimination, reduced customization expenses, and streamlined integration and scalability at no extra cost. A customized LMS boosts training efficiency, lowers support and maintenance costs, and adapts to industry changes, resulting in improved ROI and patient care. Potential for commercialization. Building a custom LMS often stems from the inability of ready-made solutions to address specific needs. Your solution may interest other organizations with similar requirements. A proprietary LMS, with its unique branding, user experience, and features, can therefore become a valuable commodity in the market. Belitsoft Expertise in Action: UK Medical Practitioner Case Countries such as the USA, UK, and Canada mandate continuous learning for healthcare professionals. As a provider of both custom healthcare software development and LMS development services, we have created many similar products. Take, for example, our collaboration with a UK-based dentist. He sought creating a custom LMS for dental professionals, aiming to enhance their expertise, stay current with the industry, and effortlessly fulfill continuous education needs. Here's how we shaped his vision: Content Selection: We created an LMS with diverse dental courses, ranging from cutting-edge technologies to industry regulations. Personalized Learning: We tailored learning pathways to address the unique needs of dental professionals, leading to impactful learning outcomes. Progress Tracking: We integrated sophisticated tools for progress monitoring and evaluations, ensuring practitioners could monitor their growth and stay compliant. Enhanced User Experience: We emphasized usability, providing a sleek interface, clear navigation, and interactive features for effective learning. Belitsoft offers support beyond LMS creation and helps clients with various challenges: Custom LMS Development. If none of the existing LMSs fit your requirements, we develop a new one from scratch aligned with your specific requirements. LMS Customization. To modify an open-source LMS, we add the features you require or adapt the UI to fit your brand. Course Creation. According to your request, we produce educational content across a spectrum—from lectures to simulations and learning games. Consulting. With 17 years in eLearning and over 5 in healthcare, we guide you in LMS choices, training structuring, and data protection. GET A FREE QUOTE How We Create an Effective, Competitive LMS for Healthcare: Our Time-Tested Approach Stakeholder collaborating Engaging with stakeholders offers a comprehensive understanding of your organization's multifaceted needs. This includes technical necessities, operational considerations, and user-centric requirements. This collaborative approach ensures that our custom LMS solution is not only technically robust but also aligns seamlessly with your healthcare organization's objectives, compliance requirements, and user expectations. To grasp the diverse needs of your organization, we engage with stakeholder groups: System Administrators & Technical Support. Vital for daily software operations, their insights guide the technical and user experience aspects. Heads of Business Areas. Their input ensures alignment with corporate policies, compliance mandates, and branding. corporate policies, ensuring compliance, security, and consistent branding. Users (Medical Professionals). Direct user feedback is invaluable for tailoring user-centric features. Defining Key Functionalities An effective LMS is defined by its features. Our approach ensures a solution that meets business, user, technical, and security needs. Key functionalities might encompass: compliance with recent standards like AODA & WCAG, multilingual support advanced user privacy and security For existing LMS upgrades, we: examine the current system's alignment with business, technical, and security needs investigate evolving software trends in the niche and evaluate available solutions understand the software tools utilized by comparable organizations Developing an MVP With a clear grasp of needs and potential challenges, we define priorities for the development phase. Typically, this entails starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that houses the most essential features. This strategy ensures quick deployment, early user feedback, and forms a basis for future enhancements. Create training that perfectly fits professionals' busy schedules and brings notable results. Let's discuss the ideas. Frequently Asked Questions
Dmitry Baraishuk • 8 min read

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