An LMS refers to an online learning management system that aids in learning processes. It is software that runs on the internet, connecting users/students from any part of the globe. It can be used in an institute to create digital classrooms and connect teachers with students. It can also be used in any office or organization for employee training regarding skills, policies, and compliance issues. Currently, many organizations (government and non-government) are using or thinking to start using an LMS due to its numerous benefits.
LMS not only simplifies the educational content but also establishes a whole learning process through detailed pacing, multiple assessments, a grading system, and a lot more.
There are two main components that essentially make up learning management software:
Admin panel – It provides control over all system interactions, including creating new courses, managing existing ones, communicating with learners, and evaluating progress.
User panel – This interface allows learners to register for the course and access the learning materials.
Today, we have come across many robust educational or e-learning portals that are apt platforms for many educators out there. But, how it is created is a different fascination altogether, don’t you think? Well, there is a thing called the learning management system that is the core of e-learning platforms.
Types of Learning Management Systems
Let’s learn about different types of learning management systems in this section:
1. Server-based learning management systems
The server LMS is meant to be installed on the owner’s server and it interacts with users via a browser. Universities first utilized this type of LMS and it is still used today. Furthermore, large corporations with a high level of information security and system control prefer it.
The demerits of server-based distance learning systems are the costs of acquiring a server, software, and administration.
2. Cloud-based learning management systems
Cloud solutions are the most commonly used distance learning platform. They are highly chosen by both private online school owners and business leaders in order to enhance their corporate learning due to their seamless and simplistic architecture. You simply pay for the use of the cloud, which means there is no need to purchase or manage a server.
There are ready-made training management systems available on the market as well as systems that can be upgraded with new features based on the objectives and specifics of training. To maximize the benefits of ready-made solutions, you must embrace their capabilities, acknowledge their limitations, and adhere to their standards. The use of open-source solutions is becoming increasingly common among businesses and educational institutions.
While searching for an LMS, you need to keep a few factors in mind, such as:
- Which features are required in Learning Management Systems?
- How many students or employees are you going to train?
- Are any extra add-ons required?
- How will the progress of students/employees be measured?
- How will the teacher communicate with the student or employee?
- What if more than one teacher is needed to teach a single class?
Although these are too many questions, eventually, it will help you choose the right LMS for your institute or organization.
When it comes to the features of an LMS, there is a list of features that can distinguish an ordinary LMS from the one you require. You can also get a custom list of features, which is a plus point.
Let’s have a look at some must-have custom LMS features.
Must-Have Custom LMS Features
Features such as grading system, notifications alert, creating notes, and online libraries, creating and designing courses are some basic needs for any institute or an organization. Apart from these, custom features like live chat, announcement board, calendar for important events, tests and quizzes, file sharing, tracking the progress of the students are the main requirements from an LMS. If you are spending a good amount of money on building an LMS, you would want most of these features to be integrated into the LMS in the initial stage.
More advanced features can be added later in the LMS by using IT support.
Here’s a list of some basic features of a good Learning Management System. You can explore them further in one of the solutions created by our development team – NorthPass.
Course & Content Management
The main objective of an LMS is the teaching and training of the students and employees. This feature is a must-to-have in an LMS because it helps the teacher/trainer to design courses and create content for students/employees. May it be a course, quiz, assignment, or assessment test, you can create using this feature.
Skill Tracking
It is an essential feature for an LMS in any organization rather than in an institute. Accept it that training an employee is way harder than teaching a student in a class. You can not fix the hours or timing for lectures. This is why this feature helps the employee to learn at their own pace. They can collect all the material and complete the course at their own pace.
Analytics, Achievements, Statistics, Surveys
An LMS is a platform where students can get everything from one place, but so does the teacher. Having a feature that can provide detailed analytical reports regarding the progress of a student/employee, their achievements report, and overall statistics of the entire class or at an individual level. Teachers and students can also conduct a survey using this feature.
Gamification
When you are modernizing the teaching ways by using an LMS rather than having a traditional classroom, then why not change the teaching methodology. Learning for the sake of learning is excellent, but at times it gets very dull. This is why the modern technique of teaching includes gaming. Yes, an LMS should have a gamification feature.
With gamification in long and dry subjects, you can get more engagement from the learner.
Social structure
Socializing between learners and teachers is very important. Having a community experience enhances the learning process. This feature helps students connect with teachers and other students.
Mobile Learning
An LMS should have intuitive mobile-friendly apps for learners. Having a mobile learning facility starts with the designing phase. It should be included in the architecture of the LMS from the very beginning. This feature is helpful when someone decides to take a course on an off-day. Also, it is useful for distributed teams.
Development Process – How to Create an LMS from Scratch?
Step # 1: Start with Creating an LMS Project Plan
The LMS development process first and foremost starts with an important step – idea validation. In this step, you need to find proof that investing a good amount of money in LMS is worth a try.
It will be more like a forecast for the future and the profit you will earn using the LMS platform in terms of having more students and fewer expenses or having more productivity from employees after training them. You will get a better idea of the LMS and eLearning marketplace with a deeper insight into why you need an LMS and who is your target audience for that. You should also think about the must-have features. Here, we recommend thinking in terms of MVP development, which will make the initial process easier.
Step # 2: Choose Your Service Provider for LMS
Choosing the right service provider is very important. The platform you choose for creating an LMS can be a custom or a ready-made SaaS. There can be other platforms as well, but the most recommended are SaaS-based platforms. A ready-made SaaS-based platform can help you customize everything. Here you have two options. Either you can build your future LMS from scratch or use a ready-made application SaaS.
If you decide to go with the first option, to build an LMS from scratch, then you should know that building a complex LMS with the features listed above, it could take about 400 to 500 hours. The work includes a lot of communication about the architecture, design, and arrangement of features. After creating the codes and integrating features, testing them one by one is another headache.
The second option of using a ready-made application SaaS, on the other hand, is pretty simple. In this application, you only need to customize base things like logo and branding colors. For using a ready-made SaaS application, you will be charged for the license fees or per-user fees. Once you pay them, you will get access to all the features of the LMS. In some cases, the ready-made LMS might need more add-ons for features that you require. To use the full functionality, you will need to use third-party software, which will charge you extra. This will definitely increase your expense, and sometimes it can be very expensive. Don’t forget that if you are not an IT expert, you will need a hand with the installation of this software, which will cost you separately. If you want to find out more about pros and cons of the popular Canvas LMS, read our article Canvas LMS Pros And Cons.
Both of these solutions have their own pros and cons. bis more preferable to their SaaS alternative because the SaaS solution is more expensive in the long run as it may cost you computing fees, monthly support fees, and installation fees apart from license fees. But at the same time, it has more efficiency and takes much less time to get installed and start working compared to a custom based LMS. This can be a perfect solution for large enterprises and corporations that have dedicated IT teams to do the job and don’t incur extra fees.
Before finalizing the service provider, there are a few things that you must consider.
Communication
Make sure that the service provider you are choosing is providing you with transparent communication with the team. They should be available to you at the time you need them. Also, they should keep you updated at every step of development by establishing clear communication. They should provide you with complete details on the tech stack and features your team is going to use. They should give you ownership of the codes as well.
Experience
Always check the profile of the service provider before signing the contract. They should have prior experience and expertise in the field or domain. Look for them in popular catalogues like Clutch or GoodFirms – they are fantastic places to read testimonials from real-life clients and review portfolios.
Pricing
As mentioned and discussed earlier, a custom-made Learning Management System is a bit expensive as it incurs monthly costs of computing and support. You may also need to pay additional charges for extra features.
Support
After-sales support is very important. You need to sign a contract with a service provider who at least provides technical support for a year or so. If need be, they can train your staff to manage day-to-day backups and maintenance.
Step # 3: Build Your LMS Website
When you choose a platform, you can start creating content – courses. In this step, you can start by creating a new course where you will need to add a description, attach some files, and maybe add videos and images to the gallery. In this step, you can also add some jobs/questions/networks. When you are done with adding content for the course, you can invite students to join the course.
At the initial stage, you can also add a feature to check the knowledge and capability of your student/employee by assigning a quiz or test to them
Step # 4: Make your app responsive and take care of UI/UX
Your own Learning Management System should be responsive, so it looks correct on all sizes of the browser. The app should work fine on all mobiles, tablets, and desktops. It should be responsive to all OS, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS. It should support all browsers like Chrome, Firefox, etc. The app should provide every user with an intuitive experience, may it be a teacher, student, or an admin.
Step # 5: Final Check
When you are done adding the courses and inviting users/students, now it is time for checking if everything is working as per your expectations. If there are no errors and everything is working fine, then you are done creating an LMS system. Now, it is time to utilize it at its full potential to recover your investment.
Step # 6: Release the app – Testing Knowledge of a Student/Employee
The best way to judge the capability of a student/employee is by assigning them a quiz/test/exam. With a Learning Management System, you have the option to check the answers of any student while he/she is doing the test and assign him/her a note or give him some tips to improve. You can also chat with the student about his approach. When he/she is done with the test, assign them grading based on their answers. In most LMS, you can immediately inform the students about their results. And in some cases, after every answer student has been informed of his/her answer is correct, so they don’t need to wait for the result. There are many ways in which you can further improve your online learning platform.
How to Create a Learning Management System?
Time to learn about how to create a learning management system with this all-inclusive guide. Let’s get started:
1. Research and mindfully conceptualize your strategy
In this whole article, we have emphasized research and mindfully planning out your strategy to launch your product, it is because the more you research the better you plan out your tactic.
An unplanned LMS launch carries a high chance of failure, many organizations fail to significantly consider doing research and development before launching a learning management system and then they get to face the repercussions.
Whereas a well-planned LMS launch helps you gain insights about consumer behavior, consumer expectations, prevailing market trends, and a lot more rational information that helps you improve your LMS launch strategy.
Ask yourself these following questions to validate your idea about a learning management system:
- What is the purpose of an LMS?
- Is my LMS going to address any user issues?
- LMS development will be handled by whom?
- In what amount does the LMS team plan to develop the system?
- Who are my competitors, and how do they help users with efficient UX?
2. Opt for an apt technology stack
Opting for an apt web development stack is something that decides how your learning management system will perform in the future in terms of technicalities. So, while choosing a technology stack, consider the type and functionality of your custom LMS solution, robust frontend, and backend, and hosting technologies that play their part while creating an efficient learning management system.
So, these are the top frontend and backend frameworks that are highly used in the year 2023 already. For databases, you can go for MySQL, MongoDB, or PostgreSQL for speed, reliability, and compliance.
When it comes to Databases, a learning management system is connected to relational databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL, these two databases are super compliant, robust, reliable, and rapid.
If we talk about cloud-based learning management system development then AWS (amazon web services) is the top choice as it’s known for its robust security, budget-friendly price, and productivity.
3. Create a learning management system specification and UI/UX design
Now that you have meticulously decided on the web development stack and have balanced out the list of all features, it is time to move towards a learning management system’s specification.
Deciding on a learning management system’s specification calls for a discovery phase with a robust team that possesses strong technical and communicational skills as well as holds the expertise to formulate logical questions and help you derive all the required information to make your learning management system next to what you expected.
At this stage, you are also required to form a schematic representation of the final LMS and budget estimation for the same.
After deciding on the specifications of a learning management system, designers conceptualize the UI/UX of the LMS in that accordance. Then they will begin with creating LMS mockups and wireframes for complex architectures, if everything is finalized in terms of design then the designs will be passed to developers for turning into a functional product.
4. Begin with the MVP launch of the learning management system
It is advisable to launch a minimal viable product at first so that you do not really have to rework the product based on the reviews you will receive from users.
Minimal viable product contains only core features of the learning management system so that when people start interacting with the product while BETA testing, they get a thorough understanding of an LMS and based on their reviews you can work on the rest of the features.
That way you will end up offering a favorable user experience since you have thoroughly studied and addressed users’ feedback and worked accordingly on further product development.
Once you have launched the final product, you are aware that users are going to appreciate it as the final product is certainly as per their preferences.
5. Release the final learning management system
Since you have gathered all the necessary information and metrics related to the MVP of your learning management system, all you need to do is to implement all the rational feedback that you received which will ultimately help you improve the user experience of the product.
The process of release management cycle:
- Request for changes of new features
- Release planning and design
- Software Build
- Review
- Test
- Deployment
- Support
- Issue Reporting and Collection
6. Launch and maintenance of a learning management system
We deploy the code as soon as testing shows that each feature works as expected by our client. To keep everything in order and avoid delays, our team employs the best software development life cycle methodology. Before the launch day, we also create a comprehensive guide on how to use the LMS features.
Apart from that, we provide end-to-end support and maintenance services after personalized LMS development is completed, and the system is fully operational. As you track the software’s functionality and gather user feedback, you can request modifications and/or changes.
4 Things That Can Help You Create The Best Learning Management System
Considering these 4 points while working on an LMS can help you generate the best learning management system, let’s check it out:
1. In-depth third-party integration
A learning management system is a multifunctional forum that offers instructors a platform to execute their knowledge skillfully to educate their target audience. So creating a 3rd party integration in an LMS requires a good understanding of both the LMS and the third-party application, as well as strong development skills and attention to detail.
Right from defining the integration requirements, and choosing the integration method to deploying the same. It all has to be carried out mindfully.
2. Support the most famous multimedia formats
The characteristics of a favorable learning management system should be ideally revolving around its multifunctional element. This is for allowing the educational process to be quite engaging and divergent.
Thus, both the learners and the staff should adopt the ability to communicate with multiple multimedia formats, such as text, audio, video, and photos.
3. Single login-all the functionality
Creating a different portal for students, teachers, and parents is something that will consume your unnecessary bandwidth. Splitting up an LMS is not a good idea. Instead, you can create a single learning management system for all to provide all the required insights through a single software.
4. Customize where it is actually required
Apply your process of customization where it is actually required. You can provide a separate toolkit for the educators for the betterment of their way of instructing their students. That way you are setting a beneficial and customized learning environment for students and adaptive options for teachers.
