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It’s not so easy to gain a competitive edge in the online education market, especially if you’re new to the industry. Your newly built eLearning solutions can either vanish in the crowd or take off. To increase the chance of getting on the positive side, mine the full potential of system integrations.
Depending on your business goals, you might need to pair up your learning management system with an advanced video player or a custom business intelligence module. Keep reading to learn about these and other integrations that are able to bring real value to your edtech business.
Tapping into Online Video Platforms
Touted to be the optimal learning format, video can significantly improve learners’ ability to remember concepts and details. With this in mind, integrate your LMS with a robust online video platform (OVP) that will allow you to automate the entire content management lifecycle — from video ingestion and transcoding to processing and playout.
The OVP will enable you to manage all videos in a single content management system. This includes trimming and clipping, file grouping, creating playlists, adding metadata and tags, subtitling and dubbing, as well as content archiving and scheduling. Besides, you’ll be able to create and easily manage multiple user groups needed for distributed content creation.
Among other workflows you can automate with an advanced OVP in place are content compliance with legal and brand style standards, video monetization, billing, as well as user access, device, and subscription management.
Making the Most of Social Media
Online learning owes much of its success to learner engagement. Whether your LMS is used in the workplace, in educational establishments, or at home, gamification carries much weight. However, introducing a gamification mechanism, like badge-based assessment, might not be enough.
To fully accommodate users, pay particular attention to integrating your eLearning solution with social media. This will not only allow learners to easily manage their LMS profiles with social media accounts, but also share their achievements with a wide range of peers.
One of the ways to incorporate social learning into your online training experiences is creating social groups for every particular course, where participants could communicate and get additional learning materials. Moreover, Twitter and Facebook can help boost engagement thanks to hashtag-enabled discussions during online webinars, for example.
Leveraging Innovative Proctoring Solutions
A lot will go into enhancing your eLearning solution with proctoring functionality, but the rewards are worth it. In contrast to traditional methods of exam taking, this cutting-edge technology fully automates the process — from verifying learner identity to simultaneously overseeing thousands of online exams.
The footage taken from a student’s camera is analyzed against a number of parameters, including head movements, light adjustments, audio level changes, and window resize events. Exam sessions can also be red-flagged if the system detects an unauthorized person or items like books or mobile phones.
As a result, underpinned by proctoring functionality, learning management systems not only notably improve the assessment accuracy, but also make the process of exam-taking non-intrusive for learners.
Getting Value from Analytics
The more comfort and engagement you provide, the better learning experiences will be. And to make sure users get what they want from your courses, you’ll need to connect your eLearning solution with an advanced business intelligence module. What does such system integration give you?
By assessing learner interactions with your LMS, you’ll be able to understand whether users need better gamification, additional interactions with tutors, or more video materials for a particular course. And a thorough cross-device usage analysis will help you decide whether you have to invest in mobile optimization.
Robust BI capabilities are also necessary for gauging learner performance throughout the entire course. And insights into intermediate results will help you adjust your learning strategy and courses in real time for higher learner engagement and satisfaction.
On a Final Note
OVP, social media, proctoring systems, BI software — the list of LMS integrations can be extended depending on your business needs. But before you invest in integrations, gauge the feasibility of pairing up your eLearning system with other solutions. This way, you’ll not only maximize business value, but will also avoid wasting money.
