The Digital revolution is turning into digital evolution little by little. Without seeing any life-changing technological breakthroughs comparable in scale with the invention of the Internet, we are nonetheless witnessing how familiar things are shifting into the digital world. The sphere of education is not an exception to this rule. Knowledge, like any other type of data, can be accessed the way which was barely imaginable a few decades ago.
In this article, we’ll consider the main benefits of eLearning solutions development. Also, we’ll take a look at an example of an advanced and full-featured online educational platform that can be built to provide new possibilities both for students and educators.
The Main Benefits of eLearning for Educational Organizations
Quick Delivery of Lessons
eLearning follows the modern trend of continuous changing. Using online educational resources, learners can get access to the most relevant and accurate info.
Web-based learning programs have quicker delivery cycles in comparison with traditional learning methods. It is noted that the implementation of properly designed eLearning software can reduce the time required to learn a particular subject by 20%-60%. There are multiple reasons for this feature.
First of all, a learning program can be rolled out pretty quickly. This process usually doesn’t take longer than a few weeks, which allows students to begin learning as fast as possible. A student can define the speed of learning that fits his requirements, abilities, and amount of available time. It’s a good alternative to the need for following the speed of the group. Also, students can skip a particular area of the learning material if there’s no practical need in it or it’s already known.
The described features increase the attractiveness of such educational programs among potential students. Therefore, educational organizations that promote eLearning programs along with traditional forms of education attract more learners.
Reduced Costs
In comparison with traditional forms of education, eLearning can be considered as a more cost-effective solution. A lot of resources can be saved since there’s no necessity in trainers, accommodation, and travel. This cost-effectiveness affects both educational organizations and students. Besides being a solution that helps to save money on education, eLearning allows increasing the profitability of an organization.
Custom software development companies can design a proper eLearning solution both for large and small organizations. Therefore, heads of educational institutions can be sure that applying for the services of a reliable software vendor they can quickly get a quality product in full compliance with their requirements and budget. Our Web-based Educator Software, developed according to the needs of Educational Compliance Software Company from the United States, was designed to meet the high expectations of our customers. The results weren’t disappointing. Customer’s review on Clutch confirms that cost-effectiveness is one of our core qualities:
- Is there anything unique about them that makes them stand out, compared to other IT vendors?
- I think they’re very cost-effective. When you’re in development, the cost can become very high. From a cost standpoint, it’s very reliable and very task-oriented. Compliance timelines are a big part of what we do, and they’ve been great about their sense of urgency with availability and reliability.
As another example of successful eLearning system implementation, we can consider the case of Education New Zealand, an organization that promotes educational programs to international students. The need for an online eLearning software was caused by multiple reasons. First of all, such a solution could help agents to provide the most relevant info on education and life in New Zealand, which usually leads to increased interest in educational programs. Education agents could improve their motivation and efficiency without any need for long-term study leave. The intention to reduce travel costs associated with face-to-face training was also a point of consideration. As a result, a few years after the eLearning solution was implemented, the number of new agents has grown from 566 to 1550 across the world. Also, Education New Zealand got the possibility to promote eLearning programs to agents using marketing communications and started to use this solution within the organization to train staff as part of the company’s induction program.
Scalability
If the number of learners is increasing, an eLearning program can keep up. In case a rapidly growing company wants to implement an eLearning solution to keep the employees well-trained, a Learning Management System (LMS) may become a pretty helpful tool. Cloud-based LMS solutions allow supporting the high level of learning programs even for organizations that plan to open new branches in another country. If an organization, say, plans to expand the list of countries for which it provides educational services or provides new disciplines to study, LMS can be used to develop a plan for adding a significant amount of new training content. Also, LMS can become useful if you start implementing a new eLearning system. You can use it as a tool that helps to evaluate the effectiveness of a learning program.
Less Environmental Impact
None of us wants to witness the turning of our planet into a garbage dump. Reducing the amount of paper in use, organizations can cause less harm to the environment. According to Britain’s Open University survey, paperless eLearning solutions allow reducing the use of energy up to 90% comparing to traditional courses. Also, the amount of CO2 emissions can be reduced by approximately 85% per student.
An Example of Advanced and Full-featured eLearning Platform
In this chapter of our article, we want to introduce you to an eLearning platform that provides the functionality required for studying, evaluation of the learning process, tracking staff performance, and reducing the amount of required paperwork. This solution has a modular structure, which means that in case of need, developers can implement new features and integrate new modules into the existing eLearning platform.
Online Booking and Payment Module
The intention to reduce the effort in booking and buying online courses is common for both educational organizations and students. Integrating this module with the software solution that you use, your students to find, order, and pay for any classes with ease.
This cloud-based service allows students to choose a particular discipline and get additional info, helping with making decisions. A set of input fields allows clarifying the details on the number of lessons, type of transmission, need for accommodation, etc. Total cost is calculated automatically according to the number of disciplines and additional services selected. The module allows making a one-click payment and sends e-mail notifications to the students.
Online Library Module
Adding this module to your eLearning system, you can provide students with the possibility of using the available info on different disciplines to create and publish custom-made books online.
The online library module allows users to create new e-books by adding new content via drag-and-drop, uploading some outside material, and customizing the cover. The sorting feature helps to arrange the available books by title, author, or discipline. The search bar allows quickly to find a particular book. Library owner can grant access to other users. According to the access rights, users can either read books from someone’s library or participate in content creation. Besides that, you can share a particular book via the link.
Students can read books online or use the exporting feature. While reading a book, a student can select text and add color-coded notes to mark important information. If needed, user notes can be compiled into a succinct summary of a book. These changes are synchronized across all devices that a student uses to get access to the library.
Knowledge Evaluation Module
The next module from our list allows evaluating the knowledge gained by a student.
This comprehensive tool allows conducting a test on a particular subject. After the test is completed, a student can get his scores along with some recommendations for further education. For example, if there are any gaps in knowledge, the eLearning system will provide links to the relevant e-book available in the library. It will allow a user to improve his knowledge in a particular discipline.
Data Management Module For Scholarships Awarding Organizations
This module provides the functionality required both by scholarship award applicants and award grantors.
The main purpose of this module is to connect students applying for awards with award grantors. To provide required info, a student can fill online forms. The eLearning platform can store such info as personal data, student essays, awards for participation in various competitions, etc.
The organization that provides scholarship grants, on its turn, can provide any info that an applicant for a scholarship can be interested. Such info can include the logo of an organization, a detailed description of the terms of the scholarship, contact info, etc. Also, an award grantor can search and track applications for a particular type of scholarship. It is possible to integrate a WebRTC-based video chat to conduct live interviews between applicants for a scholarship and award grantors.
Staff Performance Management Module
Properly designed web-based eLearning software can free the stuff of an educational organization from tons of paperwork. As an example, let’s take a look at the staff performance management module:
This module was designed to increase the efficiency in the establishments of education. This system allows evaluating how a particular staff member meets expectations. A number of dashboards (e.g., planning dashboard, progress-tracking dashboard, self-evaluation dashboard, etc.) allow tracking major KPIs. Data visualization tools such as pivot tables, graphs, and charts represent the results of the monitoring process in an easy-to-read way.
Users can create a timeline with all activities to be done. Each activity can be color-coded to show it’s importance. Also, you can check the current status of a particular task (planned, in progress, overdue, and so on). This module can be used to monitor the performance of a particular teacher or the whole organization. Pre-designed reporting templates allow following standards for educational institutions or implement missing standards if needed.
Document Workflow Module
Since paper documents were almost completely removed by digital formats, burdensome paperwork has almost become the ghost of the past. Nevertheless, there’s still a need for software that allows organizing the workflow and storing the info about students in full accordance with standards. This module helps to meet local education laws and regulations requirements with minimum effort.
It allows using predefined templates when completing forms. Also, the possibility to import and export data was implemented. All documents created with this module can be saved as a PDF file or printed.
Conclusions
eLearning solutions allow reducing the cost of education both for students and educators. Learning courses can be delivered quickly, which decreases the time required to learn a particular subject. Custom software development companies that have solid experience in the field of eLearning solutions development can create an online application containing described modules. As an alternative, if an educational organization already has an eLearning solution in use, the software vendor can expand the functionality by developing and integrating new modules.
If you need a teacher or student evaluation software, special education management software, such as Individualized Education Program or Response to Intervention software, our team has solid experience and resources to develop such software for you.