Building a Learning Management System (LMS) from scratch is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor that allows you to create a tailored platform to meet the specific needs of your learners and educators. In today's educational landscape, a custom LMS can offer flexibility, control, and unique features that off-the-shelf solutions may not provide. This guide will walk you through the essential steps involved in developing your own LMS, from defining your project requirements to choosing the right technology stack and ensuring a seamless user experience. Whether you're an educational institution, a corporate training provider, or an entrepreneur looking to enter the e-learning market, this comprehensive approach will equip you with the knowledge and tools to successfully build an effective LMS.
In this article you will learn:
- The importance of LMS development,
- Custom LMS Features,
- How to build a custom learning management system?
- What is the total cost of LMS development?
What is LMS?
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. The global learning management system market has skyrocketed and was expected to reach about 17 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.
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?
Which solution is the best?
Where will you set up the LMS?
Who will help you configure the LMS?
Although these are too many questions, eventually, they will help you choose the right LMS for your institute or organization. What is worth paying attention to is whether to include AI innovation in the LMS.
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
LMS features such as a grading system, notifications alert, creating notes, and online libraries, creating and designing courses are some basic needs for any institute or organization. Apart from these, custom features like live chat, announcement board, calendar for important events, tests and quizzes, file sharing, and 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.
Read also: How To Start An EdTech Company Or Startup
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, training an employee is often more challenging than teaching a student in a classroom setting. Fixed lecture hours and timings may not be feasible in the case of employee training. That is why this feature enables employees to learn at their own pace. They can access all the learning materials and complete the course according to their own schedule using online courses.
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. If that is not enough, you can find more LMS features in EdTech Trends To Watch In 2020
Now let’s move ahead to the main topic and discuss the steps to build an LMS from scratch.
Development Process – How to Create an LMS from Scratch?
Let’s begin the journey!
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.
You need to ask yourself:
Why do you need to create an LMS website?
What problems currently your organization is facing and how this LMS will solve them?
Who will build the LMS from scratch?
Who will take care of the LMS implementation?
How much are you ready to invest in learning management system development?
After noting down the answer to these questions, you will have your own LMS project plan in your hand.
Now, you have finally decided to invest in a Learning Management System (LMS). You have a clear purpose in mind and have already compiled a list of essential features that the LMS must have. It is now time to search for a suitable service provider who can deliver the Learning Management System you envision. You need to find the right LMS development partner who can transform your idea into a functional reality, focusing on effective Learning Management System Design.
Let’s discuss the second step on how to choose a service provider.
Step # 2: Choose Your Service Provider for Learning Management System design and development
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 colours. For using a ready-made SaaS application, you will be charged 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.
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 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.
What is the total cost of LMS?
Here’s a breakdown of the cost that may incur while building an LMS. Keep in mind that this cost is an approximate estimate rather than being confirmed.
Setup Fees
Min: $4,000-$7,000
Up to: $25,000
Annual License and Per User Fees
License Fee: $20,000 annual
Per User Fee: $2 to $5
Hidden Costs
Fees for Self Hosted LMS: $25,000 (One Time)
Extra Add-on Fees: between $99 and $1199 a month
Hiring an IT Vendor: $4,000 (Monthly)
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How to develop an eLearning Management system: Selleo’s experience
Selleo has been in the software development market for decades. With one of the best and expert professional Development teams in Poland, we have designed and developed LMS for many industries. Some of our stories are as below:
Click Aula, Brazil
ClickAula is an eLearning platform dedicated to Brazilian students. It is a perfect place for finding interactive, online classes for children aged 2 to 15 years old on animals, nature or learning math using Lego. Unlike traditional classes, the solution offers children a unique opportunity to explore their interests through interactive video classes.
ClickAula was looking for a team of software engineers to speed up the development of the MVP. Our collaboration was focused on delivering an MVP as quickly as possible in order to shorten the product’s time-to-market while preserving the code quality.
The entire development was divided into week-long sprints, each one starting on Monday. The team also held 3 meetings during the week and remained in constant communication via Slack or Google Meets.
The client stated:
Thanks to the Selleo team, ClickAula gained an MVP ready to be released and sold. It is a powerful platform focused on teaching children various skills like Maths, English as well as Capoeira or how to deal with anger.
Defined Learning, US
Defined Learning is an eLearning platform to prepare students for the future by helping them stay engaged with lessons, encouraging critical thinking and collaboration. Its mission is to help school districts achieve all this through real-world project-based learning. They provide relevant tools to educators that need them to implement and assess engaging PBL that drives student achievement.
Defined Learning contacted Selleo as they were looking for a software development company to bring an idea to life and build an eLearning platform filled with courses fitting the registered students' personal needs from scratch. The initial concept was to create an educational website, but our developers transformed it into a powerful eLearning platform.
The project development process was divided into monthly iterations with a set of main features selected by the client. Any gaps were filled with bug fixes and performance improvements.
Neutopia, Australia
Neutopia is a social publishing and e-learning platform which enables the aggregation and sharing of resources focused on the different aspects of creativity, design, psychology and leadership. The users can create playlists of their favourite educational materials organized into specific categories such as articles, books, events, courses, videos or websites.
Neutopia looked for a software development house to create a better platform for learning from a teacher’s and student's point of view. Having the part of UX designs and the information architecture design the client was in need of back-end and front-end services, and some UX design help.
We used a Scrum approach while developing this project with a client as a Product Owner and the rest of the Scrum Team on our side.
Client Testimonial:
Selleo excelled at the interpersonal parts of software design as well as the technical elements. They used daily communication to keep the project in check. Their company culture clearly nurtured an energetic and informal working environment.
Summing Things Up
LMS systems are crucial for institutes and businesses to effectively educate and train their students or employees. They enable virtual connectivity, allowing you to engage with them from anywhere at any time. Implementing an LMS not only brings significant benefits to educational institutions and organizations but also yields fruitful outcomes such as enhanced productivity, a more skilled workforce, and, above all, increased employee satisfaction.
Contact us to learn more information about eLearning Software Development and get the best services!
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