Guide on How to Develop an ELearning Platform

Here we will discuss step by step guide on how to develop an elearning platform. The pandemic caused a great shift towards remote learning. E-learning platforms became an essential need in the online education process and it seems they’re not going to lose relevance. This is primarily because effective the online education industry is increasing and the latest numbers illustrate that: Globe Newswire 2021 report predicts the global e-learning market to reach $457.8 billion within the next five years.

So: no better time to catch the wave and build an educational platform, right? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to develop an elearning platform.

Research Market

A properly made market research is a reliable fundament of the future app. It lets you test the waters and gives valuable information about your market and business landscape. Effective market research gives clear insights into the following issues:

1. What issues does your product solve? (Is it “naked” EdTech, a place for instructional materials developed by other businesses or educational organizations, or do you have something you’d like to teach in mind? How is it going to work? How will it be different from the existing EdTech solutions?)

2. Who is your target audience? (Is your product for businesses to install corporate learning, for schools to conduct remote classes, or for individuals — to use for obtaining skills they need? What challenges in learning your TA has? How do they prefer to learn? Who’s going to pay for the product? What are the payer’s challenges?) 

3. What are the likes and dislikes of your future customers? (What is the language your TA prefers? What tone of voice your EdTech should employ?)

Can you answer these questions? If the answer’s yes, you can move to the next step.

Choose the Types of eLearning Platforms

To create a valuable product, you need to know what would be the type and aim of your platform. Here is a short overview of the main types of educational platforms.

LMS

LMS is widely used by schools, universities, and corporations for online training, and K-12 schools. It manages and delivers all kinds of content for learners, including courses, video materials (both in short five minutes snipped for microlearning and long lectures), and documents. LMS includes the following features:

• Managing courses, users, and roles;
• Learning analytics;
• User feedback;
• Synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (self-paced) learning.

64% of global learning and development experts agree that LMS systems aren’t “nice to have” anymore; they’re necessary now.

Learning Experience Platform

Also known as LXP, the learning experience platform is a consumer-grade educational software created to help users discover new, more personalized learning opportunities. LXS is used to satisfy the learning needs of people aspiring for personal growth and skills development. Core features of LXP are the following:

• Features for content creation & curation;
• AI-based recommendations and training;
• Analytics;
• Chatbots;
• Gamification;
• Integration with third-party technology platforms.

Among the popular LXPs that are already playing the e-learning market, there is Coursera and Khan Academy.

Video E-Learning Platform 

Video platforms for education are widely adopted by educational institutions and corporate organizations. Some of the key features of Video e-learning platform are listed below:

• Admin panel;
• Course creation;
• Course page;
• Video streaming;
• Text and video chat

These are used for virtual classes and real-time corporate training exchange of asynchronous educational videos and digital resources for a seamless educational process. It’s much simpler than the two types we’ve discussed above, easier to develop, — but there’s a market opportunity to offer customized video learning platforms to different educational institutions: secure, personal, tailored to their specific needs.

Online Training Platform For Employees And Job Seekers

This kind of platform caters to business owners and managers who want to check the candidate’s expertise. It includes:

• Rewards and leaderboards;
• Editable course library;
• Analytics.

Learning programs can be custom and correspond to the position and experience. Organizations can use it in the hiring process.

Find and Hire Your Team

After you’ve figured out “what,” “for whom”, and “why” of your development process, it’s time to hire a team.

Elearning platform requires hiring an entire team of professionals from UI/UX designers to business analysts to develop. The right development partner will be more likely to cover all your development needs efficiently and without delays. But how do you choose the agency to rely on? Below are 3 main tips.

• By recommendations. Rely on word of mouth to learn about agencies worth contacting (and agencies worth avoiding, too).
• Check review websites/hiring platforms. Browse websites like Clutch, Upwork.

When you settle on companies you’d like to work with — review their portfolio cases (look how Diversido.io organizes their portfolio), learn about their tech stack, and search for feedback from its clients. Then, discuss the costs and terms of development and choose the option that fits your requirement for speed of development and costs.

Create an MVP

A minimum viable product known as MVP is the simplest version of a product with fundamental functionality. The features of MVP are enough for early users to test it and provide feedback.

Define the scope of MVP to decide on what are the “nice to have” and “must be” features to deliver value to your business and customers.

MVP empowers you to make sure you’re investing in a platform that has chances for success.

Test Your Product

It’s a common practice to release a test version of a product to interested users who are ready to give some feedback.

1. Advertise the release of the test version to attract first adopters
2. Take a while to let users browse your platform and encourage them to leave reviews.
3. Gather feedback from the audience

Testing allows verifying the platform’s behaviors in real-user conditions — and then, you have to react to what you’ve discovered.

Enhance The Platform Using Feedback

Building a platform with core functionality and putting it into a real user test creates room for improvements. Here are three basic steps to take towards meaningful enhancements.

1. Analyze users’ feedback.
2. Fix bugs that users had to face
3. Figure out if the platform helps users reach their goals

It’s also a good idea to have clear learning-related KPIs in mind when giving your product away for testing: you have to, from the start, track how efficient your platform is for learning. Using reviewers’ feedback — with the help of instructional designers — you can adjust your mechanics and UI to enhance your audience’s progress. Hope you can choose the guide on how to develop an elearning platform.