Not so long ago, distance learning was not that popular. Now the situation has changed, and the demand for this kind of product has increased. This is understandable, since without leaving a comfortable environment, you can study something in a simple format. In order to realize the possibility of this type of service, it is necessary to prepare special software.
Online learning platforms owe their popularity primarily to their ease of use. This is where e-learning software development comes into play, offering a wide range of features in an accessible way. A well-designed e-learning platform also has a number of other benefits. Some of them:
- a good solution for any age group (the platforms can be used by both children and teenagers, as well as adults)
- the ability to transfer knowledge on almost any topic (language learning, science and humanities, creative or technical),
- access to education from anywhere and for any group of people,
- savings no need to rent a place for classes,
- useful and developmental functions (depending on the platform, such as access to the knowledge base or tracking your own progress).
Before you decide to create an e-learning platform, remember that in order to be successful in implementing this type of solutions, you need to thoroughly study them and adapt the actions well to your audience. It is best to contact professionals such as https://fireart.studio/javascript-development-services/ who will suggest the best way to implement your idea.
Professional software
Before starting the development process, it is very important not only to understand the user’s needs, but also to select the features that will allow you to use such platforms in an intuitive and efficient way. Answer the question: are you sending a product to a school, company, or individuals? By deeply analyzing your goal, you can predict in advance what type of platform and functionality will be appropriate in this case, as well as what large group the product should target.
What else needs to be done at the very beginning of the journey?
In order for the success of the project to be guaranteed, you will need to perform some actions:
- Prepare a suitable business model and product development strategy. Before the development process, it is worth considering the overall strategy of your platform, how it is monetized, promoted and developed.
- Analyze your competitors. Market review is good practice to introduce you to the platforms available, gather new ideas, and think about what you can do to gain a competitive edge.
- Decide which solutions are best to use to build your system. E-learning platforms can be built from scratch, or you can choose open-source off-the-shelf solutions like Moodle or Cocorico (each has its own pros and cons, we’d love to share our insights with direct contact). In the case of such systems, various integrations are also often implemented; features like chat are rarely built from scratch.
Take a look at the challenges associated with creating these types of products. One of the biggest challenges is maintaining user engagement, and to that end, various interactive features have been implemented to increase engagement. For example, challenges consisting of various tasks or the introduction of gamification elements work well.
Essential Features for Educational Software
Most professional e-learning platforms are equipped with a number of features that provide easy and effective access to learning. Of course, depending on the platform, these features may differ most importantly, they are tailored to your strategy and product recipients. Some examples are given below.
- A good audio-video system that provides two-way communication between teacher and student is worth its weight in gold for platforms for remote lessons.
- The ability to communicate two-way with an interactive whiteboard can be an important feature from both the teacher’s perspective and the student’s perspective. It allows you to jot down important concepts or definitions, create notes, and practice the exercises you set up during the session.
- All sorts of notifications are welcome the user should be aware of, for example, any changes and updates to the course, and also receive reminders when classes start.
- The functionality to collect basic content is very useful when the user wants to view material or use educational resources on an ongoing basis.
- The e-learning platform should be equipped with a chat that will allow communication between the training participants, for example, to ask questions.
If your eLearning platform has multiple courses, the user should have intuitive access to each of them. A course board with a clear overview and appropriate UX design will allow you to use the product effectively. The user should be able to join the course, check the required course information, and return to studies at any time after leaving.
Design of your eLearning platform
All the features you incorporate in your eLearning platform will become null if you don’t have a user-friendly and interactive design. While building your own eLearning platform there are a number of factors you need to keep in mind to ensure that your software makes the student’s learning experience and the teacher’s teaching experience a lot easier than before by streamlining the design of your software. These factors are –
- User-friendly UI that can help students and teachers navigate more easily is essential. Even if your software has a ton of features, if accessing them is a bothersome task then more users, especially students who get irritated easily, won’t use it. Ensure you develop your UI in the most user-friendly and intuitive way.
- How fast can your software open up and be used? How much system resources will it need? Many students who have gone online for their eLearning, and teachers too, have low end smartphones and laptops. Making software that takes up too much resources off your system will deter your users from using it and they will simply search for another resource friendly software.
- While not compulsory, if your eLearning platform can keep a record of teacher and student stats more organizations would prefer your eLearning platform over others. This is because stats streamline the entire process of keeping records which helps both the parties – the teachers by having an easier way of tracking the student’s progress and the students to know how much study they have done for a particular subject.
- Having a personalized interface according to the educational needs of the student can give you a competitive edge in the market. For example, making the interface more creative and child-friendly for students of 1st to 4th grade or more detail-oriented for university and college students shows that your eLearning platform pays attention to the needs of their clients.
Security
Your number one concern for your eLearning platform should be it’s security. While building your eLearning platform, we strongly recommend you make sure that your platform adheres to data privacy regulations (GDPR) and protects the data of the organization as well as its users.
The security interface should also have parental controls to limit child students from viewing content not meant for them. Security becomes a major concern if the platform is also where examinations are going to be conducted because having security flaws in such scenarios can mean a huge loss of data for the institution. Ensure that all security protocols are up-to-date and functioning properly to maintain client privacy and to secure yourself from legal action.
Conclusion
In today’s world where the pandemic has forced all educational institutions to turn towards online teaching, building an eLearning platform can be a greatly profitable venture for you. However, there are several things to keep in mind while developing it and we hope with the help of this article we bring them to your attention. If this article helped you out, please consider following our website for regular updates.
