eLearning Billions

According to a report by Global Industry Analysts, the global eLearning market is projected to reach $325 billion by 2025. This is fueled by technological advances, increasing access to high-speed internet, and a growing emphasis on lifelong learning.

A wide range of different types of players and offerings characterizes the eLearning industry, such as:

• Traditional universities that offer online programs
• Companies that develop and sell online learning platforms
• Online tutoring services
• Content providers
• And many other specific providers to different industries

According to the Babson Survey Research Group, in 2020, more than one-third (34.7%) of college students in the US were taking at least one online course. This highlights the trend of eLearning adoption among educational institutions. Keep reading for a deeper understanding of how this impacts WordPress and LMS platforms.

Why the eLearning Industry Continues to Grow

The eLearning industry is continuing to multiply due to several factors. Technological advances, such as WordPress and LMS, are the major factors driving this growth. These advancements have made creating, delivering, and accessing online educational content more accessible and cost-effective.

With the widespread availability of high-speed internet and mobile devices, learners can access online courses and educational materials from anywhere. Additionally, learners can do so at any time.

This increased accessibility has made eLearning more convenient and appealing to many learners. This includes both traditional students and working professionals.

Another factor contributing to the growth of the eLearning industry is the growing emphasis on lifelong learning. As technological change accelerates, individuals continuously update their skills and knowledge to stay competitive in the job market. eLearning provides a flexible and cost-effective way to accomplish that.

According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, the global eLearning market is expected to reach $398 billion by 2026.

The Need for Learning Management Systems

A learning management system, or LMS, is a software application or web-based technology used to plan, implement, and assess a specific learning process. Typically, LMS provides an environment where educators and learners can connect, communicate, and share resources to facilitate learning. Many LMS platforms also provide tools for tracking student progress, managing and delivering educational content, and assessing student performance.

Who Uses LMS?

Learning management systems are widely used in the eLearning industry. They support the delivery and management of online courses, training programs, and other educational content. An LMS can be used by educators and trainers to create and deliver content, track student progress, and assess student performance.

Organizations also use them to manage and deliver employee training programs and individuals to manage their learning and development. In recent years, businesses, schools, and universities have been increasing their adoption of LMS to adapt to the growing trend of remote or hybrid learning caused by COVID-19.

Benefits of LMS

There are several benefits of using an LMS for eLearning. First, LMS provides a centralized location for storing and managing educational content, making it easier for educators and learners to access and share resources.

Second, LMS makes it easy to track student progress and assess student performance, providing educators with valuable data that can be used to improve the learning experience. Third, LMS platforms are highly scalable and can support many users, making them ideal for organizations of all sizes.

Fourth, an LMS provides a convenient, cost-effective way for individuals to gain new skills and knowledge, regardless of location or schedule. Overall, LMS is a powerful tool for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the eLearning process.

WordPress as a Platform for Learning Management Systems

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that allows users to create and manage websites easily. It is an open-source platform, meaning it is free to use and can be modified to suit the needs of individual users or organizations.

WordPress is known for its ease of use, flexibility, and scalability, making it one of the most popular CMSs in the world. It’s estimated that over 60% of all websites using a CMS use WordPress; this indicates how popular this platform is.

WordPress can be used as a learning management systems platform by leveraging several available plugins and themes. These plugins and themes provide various tools and features that can be used to create and deliver online courses, track student progress, and assess student performance.

eLearning with WordPress and LMS

WordPress can integrate with other tools and services, such as payment processors and email marketing platforms, to support the full range of functionality needed for an LMS. It can also create online communities, online marketplaces, and learning portals.

There are several advantages of using WordPress as a platform for LMSs. One significant advantage is that WordPress is open-source, which means it is free to use and modify.

Manageable Costs

This can significantly lower the cost of developing and maintaining an LMS, particularly for small and medium-sized organizations. WordPress is user-friendly and highly customizable, which makes it easy for educators and trainers to create and deliver content, and for organizations to adapt the LMS to their specific needs.

Access to Support

WordPress has a large community of developers, users, and supporters, creating a constant flow of new features and capabilities. This makes it versatile, constantly adapting to the market’s changing needs.

Customization

Furthermore, the many available plugins and themes make it easy to add new functionalities and create a professional-looking website. Overall, using WordPress as a platform for a Learning Management System can provide a cost-effective and highly customizable solution.

LifterLMS Case Study: A WordPress-Based LMS in Action

A leading social enterprise in Kenya, Toolkit iSkills used LifterLMS and WordPress to create an online vocational training platform to empower underserved, impoverished youth. Their mission is to offer workforce development for these high school dropouts and individuals who need to gain skills to pursue sustainable employment or jobs.

Toolkit iSkills recognized that the ability to bring its courses online would scale their impact and reach a wider audience. Before bringing their courses online, students had to travel far to get to a workshop, and the time and cost were often prohibitive.

With the help of LifterLMS and WordPress, Toolkit iSkills have created an online vocational training platform, delivering free online entry-level courses in plumbing, welding, tiling, flooring, painting, scaffolding, and more.

Within six months of the launch of Toolkit iSkills in the summer of 2019, around 1000 students signed up for the participant database, giving them the ability and opportunity to do things they never thought possible and to work towards a brighter future.

What is LifterLMS?

LifterLMS is a powerful learning management system (LMS) plugin for WordPress that provides various features and capabilities for creating and delivering online courses, tracking student progress, and assessing student performance. Some of the critical components of LifterLMS include the below list.

Course Builder

This feature allows you to create and organize your course content in a drag-and-drop interface. You can add various types of content, such as text, images, videos, and quizzes, to your course and customize the layout and appearance of your course pages.

Quizzes and Assignments

LifterLMS provides various tools for creating and delivering quizzes and assessments. You can create multiple-choice, true/false, and open-ended questions and provide instant feedback to students. You can also use quizzes and assignments to track student progress and assess student performance.

Drip Content

This feature allows you to release course content over time. You can set specific release dates for each lesson or module; students can only access content when available.

Membership and Access Control

LifterLMS provides options for creating and managing membership levels, which can be used to restrict access to specific courses or sections of a website. This feature allows you to create different membership levels, such as free and paid, and assign additional access rights to each group. This way, you can control who can access your content and when.

Student Management

LifterLMS provides tools for managing student data and tracking student progress. You can view detailed student profiles, track their progress through your courses, and view their quiz and assessment results.

Reports and Analytics

LifterLMS provides various information and analytics to help you track student engagement, assess student performance, and improve the course content. This way, you can analyze your data and optimize your course to enhance your students’ experience.

Comprehensive Solution

LifterLMS provides a comprehensive solution for creating and delivering online courses, tracking student progress, and assessing student performance. Its wide range of features and capabilities allows for very comprehensive management of eLearning experiences, including membership management, access control, student tracking, and reporting and analytics.

All this functionality, combined with the versatility and scalability of WordPress, makes it an excellent option for educators, trainers, and organizations looking to create an eLearning program.

The Role of Enterprise WordPress Agencies with Learning Management System Experience

Organizations of all sizes can leverage WordPress agencies like WebDevStudios to implement WordPress LMS eLearning solutions like LifterLMS to meet their education and training needs. For instance, it can create and deliver employee training programs, track progress, and assess performance.

This can improve employee training and development efficiency and effectiveness. Eventually, this leads to a more productive and skilled workforce.

Any organization can use an LMS to create and sell online courses or offer subscriptions to a membership-based learning platform. Here are some sectors that benefit from using LMS.

Government and Schools

Governments and schools can use an LMS to create and deliver online education programs, track student progress, and assess student performance. This can be especially beneficial for schools moving into remote or hybrid learning.

An LMS can give students access to course materials, quizzes, and assessments. They can track their progress and performance in real-time.

By using an LMS, schools can ensure students receive a high-quality education. These institutions can also provide teachers and administrators with valuable data that can be used to improve the educational experience.

Enterprise-Level Companies

Enterprise clients can also benefit from LMS. Training and education goals can be met by leveraging the knowledge of WordPress agencies like WebDevStudios to implement WordPress LMS eLearning solutions like LifterLMS. For example, large-scale corporations can use an LMS to create and deliver professional development programs and track employee progress and performance.

Additionally, enterprise clients can use LMS to create and deliver custom training and education programs tailored to their specific industry or field. This can be especially useful for organizations that need specialized training and education, such as healthcare providers, or organizations that operate in heavily regulated industries, such as financial services.

By leveraging the capabilities of an LMS like LifterLMS, enterprise clients can ensure that their employees have the skills and knowledge they need to perform their job functions effectively and stay up-to-date with the latest developments in their field.

Additionally, by working with a WordPress agency like WebDevStudios, enterprise clients can receive expert guidance and support throughout implementing an LMS solution, which can help ensure a smooth and successful implementation.

The Future of eLearning and WordPress

In summary, the eLearning industry continues to increase, with the global eLearning market projected to be a 398 Billion dollar industry in a few years. As more and more organizations, businesses, schools, and individuals turn to online education and training, the need for effective and efficient eLearning solutions has never been greater.

WordPress LMS solutions like LifterLMS are well-suited to meet this need, providing a cost-effective and highly customizable way for educators, trainers, and organizations to create and deliver online courses, track student progress, and assess student performance.

The Future of LMS and eLearning

The future potential for the use of WordPress-based LMSs in the eLearning industry is significant. As technology advances and more organizations and individuals become comfortable with online education and training, the demand for eLearning solutions grows.

The need for online training and education increases as more organizations move to remote or hybrid working models. WordPress LMS solutions like LifterLMS, with their flexibility, scalability, and ease of use, continue to be a popular choice to meet these needs.

Conclusion

I encourage readers to use a WordPress-based LMS like LifterLMS. Organizations can receive expert guidance and support by working with an experienced and reputable website agency like WebDevStudios. Doing so ensures that their eLearning program is successful and effective.

Furthermore, with LifterLMS, organizations can benefit from its comprehensive solutions. It is an effective and cost-efficient way to create and deliver online courses, track student progress, and assess performance.

About the Author

Chris Badgett is the Founder and CEO of LifterLMS. He first learned about online education while on a glacier in Alaska. He is an experienced course creator, covering topics from organic gardening to woodworking. Chris is passionate about helping other entrepreneurial educators find success. You can follow him on Twitter.

The post Unlock the Potential of the $398 Billion eLearning Industry with WordPress LMS Solutions appeared first on WebDevStudios.

There is not a one-size-fits-all option when it comes to a learning management system (LMS). Let’s examine what you need to set one up and explore finding the one that is right for your situation.

Hosting Considerations for a Learning Management System

It’s an old adage that you get what you pay for. This is especially true when it comes to setting up the right environment for your LMS. Your basic entry level hosting plan is not going to serve you well.

You want to find a plan that understands the unique needs of a learning management system. One of the primary concerns is that much of your content cannot be cached.

A large segment of the LMS market charges for their online courses. Your membership and ecommerce system should not be subject to heavy caching.

As users progress through courses, you want to be sure they are seeing your latest module updates. You also want the paid member experience of a course landing page to be different from a nonmember experience.

Your users, who may have signed up for various levels, need the access to what they paid for on their specific membership level. Aggressive caching can lead to poor customer experience and unintended results.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a handful of hosts that understand LMS needs:

• WP Engine
• Pantheon
• Nexcess
• Pressidium

These options all offer staging sites, which let you test out new features before you implement them. This is particularly helpful, as online course creators want to expand their offerings and experiment to see what those new feature might look like.

Page Builders and WordPress LMS Courses

Many folks, especially if design and development are not in their wheelhouse, love to use page builders. Page builders are a successful way for folks on a budget to build a website quickly and efficiently in the WordPress ecosystem.

However, page builders may not be your best option when creating online courses. They add another level of weight to your website, which can slow down your user experience.

Additionally, page builders also have some innate caching which is problematic. If you scale up from 100 course subscribers to 1,000 or more course subscribers who are simultaneously using your website, these challenges are compounded. Users may not be seeing the content that you want them to see quickly and correctly which leads to unhappy customers.

If you do go the page builder route, make sure that the one you choose has an official relationship with your LMS of choice. It’s important that the two entities have a working relationship with the goal of a seamless, bug free, and lighter-weight integration.

Finding the Right LMS for You

There are lots of different options when it comes to learning management system plugins. Some have been around for years. Others are relatively new on the scene. Here are just a few of the top contenders on the scene.

LifterLMS

LifterLMS has great entry points for those wanting to test out an LMS for the first time. To begin, the, Lifter plugin is free. Many of the other plugins in the space come with at least a nominal yearly fee.

Of course, the free Lifter version is a bit of a no frills option. You’d have to buy a package in order to integrate ecommerce, newsletters, and other features. Nonetheless, this free version gives a potential customer a great opportunity to experiment with the installation on a development environment without incurring cost.

Demo Site

In addition to the free version of the plugin, Lifter has a demo site. For a dollar, you can try out all the features that you can potentially have on LifterLMS to decide if their products and its addons are for you.

Many other learning management system demo sites only showcase limited features, Lifter literally gives you the kitchen sink. You have 30 days to experiment on this demo site to make decisions. If you need more time, a dollar isn’t a heavy lift.

Addons and Bundles

Once you have some idea as to what features you need, Lifter offers one-off purchases for addons or bundle packages where you can save money to meet those needs. They have official integrations for ecommerce platforms, several form plugins, newsletter options, and more. And if you are shopping for a theme, they offer LMS-friendly themes too.

Service

One of the most noticeable features of LifterLMS is their customer service. They have an extensive knowledge base, support forums, a Facebook group, a regular webinar series, blog, and other options to give their customers the helping hand they may need. For anyone new to managing a learning management service, this type of service is valuable.

Additionally, their enterprise level package comes with a feature called “Weekly Live Office Hours Mastermind” where customers have one-on-one live access to the Lifter team to talk about best practice and to talk about specific needs.

LearnDash

LearnDash was recently acquired by by StellarWP and the Liquid Web Family of Brands. StellarWP also owns iThemes, Restrict Content Pro, The Events Calendar, Kadence WP, GiveWP, and IconicWP, which is a huge advantage if those are products you are using.

As StellarWP puts it, “This opens the door for exciting new integrations and collaborations across teams and products.” Also under the Liquid Web brand is Nexcess hosting, one of our recommended hosts for an LMS. There is a strong commitment to make what was already a solid brand even better.

Improvements

Some recent improvements at LearnDash include Stripe integration outside of WooCommerce, an improved WooCommerce integration, AI course generators, and a cadre of Gutenberg blocks to make course creation easier than before. They also have a free demo site where you can try out three different installations of LearnDash to experiment with the software before you buy.

Extensions

LearnDash has a wealth of official extensions that cover ecommerce platforms, several form plugins, and membership group and forum options. They also have a wide variety of third-party services that can tackle everything from gamification to SCORM compliance.

Service

For customer service, they have an extensive knowledge base, support forums, a Facebook group, online events, blog, and more to give their customers the helping hand they may need.

Tutor LMS

Tutor LMS is owned by Themeum. They are probably most well known for their WordPress themes, but they are also responsible for the WP Crowdfunding plugin, the WP Mega Menu plugin, and more recently for their Quebly Gutenberg blocks. The Tutor LMS plugin is free to download, so you have the advantage of experimenting with it before committing to buy any of their addon products.

Additional Features

This particular LMS plugin doesn’t have quite as many addons or integrations with third-party services as other LMS solutions. However, they do have a couple of unique offerings that give you additional features, such as courses in more than one language with WPML Multilingual CMS, Google classroom integration, and an events calendar option.

Migration Tool

Tutor LMS also realizes that sometimes folks might want to switch products. To that end, they have built a migration tool that converts LearnDash and LearnPress courses to Tutor courses. One thing to remember here is that the tool is only migrating the courses, not historical learner data like course progress, so that is a consideration.

Sensei LMS

Sensei LMS doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that many of the other plugins in the LMS space have. So if you are looking for a more streamlined approach, Sensei might be for you. For example, there isn’t a strong level of gamification, and there aren’t a wide variety of official extensions that work directly with third party plugins like payment processors and forms.

WooCommerce Extensions Required

If you are not going to charge for your courses, the plugin is free. If you are planning to charge for your courses, you have to connect it with a variety of WooCommerce extensions to receive payment and manage membership.

On the other hand, one of the advantages of Sensei is that it was created by Automattic. If you are using Automattic products, like WooCommerce and Jetpack, it integrates seamlessly with them.

FSE

A notable feature of Sensei is that, unlike other players in the LMS field, it has embraced the Full Site Editing (FSE) experience. At the moment, FSE is being utilized to create a focus mode, which other LMS solutions have, but not within the FSE experience.

FSE is still in its infancy, but as capabilities develop, there should be a seamless rollout with additional enhancements to Sensei.

Membership System vs LMS

Perhaps courses aren’t the main crux of what you you offer. Maybe you want more of a membership experience with discussion forums, exclusive blog content, and only the occasional course. You might not want to bloat your website with an LMS plugin that isn’t being heavily utilized.

The good news is that there are a variety of WordPress membership plugins that offer some basic course options within their packages.

MemberPress

MemberPress has a course builder extension. Courses can be protected or public and require no additional coding. Everything utilizes drag and drop functionality.

Paid Memberships Pro

Paid Memberships Pro has a free LMS addon where customers can create courses. Course and lessons can be public or require membership.

Contact the LMS Experts

As you can see, reputable, dependable, and impressively developed options are readily available for your needs. Hopefully, this article informs you in such a way that you can spot the best learning management system to fulfill your goals.

If you find yourself still in need of some professional guidance, contact WebDevStudios. We love building LMS websites for all types of industries.

The post Selecting a Learning Management System for You appeared first on WebDevStudios.

In very simple terms, a Learning Management System (LMS) is a website that hosts eLearning programs and provides students and/or employees a way to participate in online training. Implementing an LMS with WordPress is something we have done for several clients here at WebDevStudios (WDS). For example, we implemented an LMS for Starbucks for their employee intranet. The corporation needed a platform they could use to train Baristas worldwide on the different drink recipes from their menu, as well as the equipment used to create those yummy treats! In this guide to building a Learning Management System with WordPress, I’ll take you though a plethora of common features that you should consider when developing your LMS, as well as plugins to help.

Because WDS built a custom solution that uses WordPress, BuddyPress, and BadgeOS Starbucks’ employee intranet allows Baristas to log in, take quizzes based on training videos they’ve watched, and receive participation badges based on their training progress and quiz scores.

Common LMS Features

An LMS has several different features for online training. When the time comes for you to consider building a Learning Management System for your organization, your first step should be to write out a list of the requirements you need. Then, begin your search for the options that are available to you. This article should help you get started on narrowing down your requirements based on some of the more common features available in today’s LMS platforms.

Course Creation

Probably the most important feature of any LMS is the ability to create courses that meet the goals of your organization. Look for the ability to create categories of different types of courses, create lessons, quizzes, topics, and assignments for your learners.

For the Starbucks example I mentioned at the beginning of this article, we built an LMS with WordPress that helped the company implement lessons that included a video for the learner to watch, followed by a quiz they had to take on the video they just viewed. In order to proceed to the next lesson, they had to finish the existing lesson with at least 80% accuracy.

Reporting

You care about the learning program, as well as the learners who are participating, so it is important to keep track of all the details and data surrounding your platform. A well-built LMS platform should provide you with the ability to track a learner’s progress, including how long that participant spent taking individual quizzes or assignments and all quiz attempts, as well as the ability to retrieve an easy-to-read detailed report that gives you an at-a-glance visual record of how well your students/employees are performing.

Your LMS Dashboard should give you the ability to see detailed data, such as the number of learners in your program(s) and the number of courses and assignments (both completed and not completed). Additionally, it should allow you to utilize filters to drill down a view of more specific data, like the number of learners and their progress per course. With detailed reports, you can gain insights into your LMS and how your learners are utilizing the program(s).

Administration

Being able to provide a learning platform online is a huge value to your organization, but having the tools available to manage that process is equally important. You should look for features like user profiles, a robust email notification process for learner engagement, group management, test expiration, clearing data, assigning grades, and rewards.

Content Management

Content is super important to any website, whether it is using an LMS, or not. However, when building a Learning Management System with WordPress, you should know that its Content Management System (CMS) offers the ability to create content that coordinates with your LMS offerings. WordPress CMS is pretty straightforward.

Many LMS with WordPress integrations give you the ability to use a technique called ‘drip feed,’ which gives you the control to schedule lessons over a period of time and create a guided learning experience with options to schedule your lessons. For example, if you want to schedule lessons after enrollment in your platform on a specific date, you can easily do that through an LMS with WordPress platform. Additionally, using an email notification system within the LMS will ensure your learners receive notification on your selected lesson dates.

Systems Integration

A good LMS system will integrate into existing programs like a Human Resources Information System or billing systems, for example. WordPress already has a pretty robust API for third party integrations. Look for an LMS system, like LearnDash, that complements that with integrations for systems like Stripe, Zapier, MailChimp, Slack, Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, to name a few.

Automated Communication

Good communication takes a lot of administrative time and overhead to accomplish successfully. A good LMS provides you with the tools and features you need to make communication easier. Features such as desktop application and notifications to give your users a visual reminder (in-browser or in-app) on their pending progress, plus automated notifications about their account, courses, and progress are all key to their overall learning experience. An active and dependable email notification system, when properly set up, can be a huge time saver for the administrators of the site. Notification can be set up to run automatically, reminding users about courses they need to take or steps they still need to complete, as well as automating emails to managers and instructors for things like course progress or regularly scheduled reports for courses they manage.

Social Community Implementation

There are a variety of ways to implement a community experience for your employees and learners when building a Learning Management System with WordPress. Even if it’s a private intranet, your users may appreciate that extra effort of making the system feel like a social community. Some examples of this are an Activity Feed, Leaderboards, Reviews, and Badges/Achievements, all detailed below.

Activity Feed: On past client projects, we combined the BuddyPress plugin to provide an additional social layer to the LMS platform by allowing users to create full personal profiles, communicate with other learners in the program, and maintain an engaging activity feed, as well as Leaderboards, which display achievements of others who are also partaking in the courses and lessons.

Leaderboards: Leaderboards are a great way to boost course engagement through powerful gamification. Online games wouldn’t be half as fun without the playful competitiveness of the leaderboard displaying who has crushed the most candy! Leaderboards tap into our competitive spirit, prompting us to keep moving forward.

Reviews: We see it everywhere when we shop—online reviews from people who have purchased a product can be a huge determining factor on whether or not we will purchase the same product. LMS systems are no different. If learners have had a great experience with your program or a specific course, an LMS system can give them the ability to review and rate it so others who are considering taking the same course can gain insight from the reviewer’s experience.

Badges: Gamification in a learning community makes it fun and exciting. By giving learners a visual reward that they can display on their user profile, or share on their social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), you can provide a fun way for them to display progress and achievements towards their goals. WDS was a partner in the creation of the official BadgeOS plugin for WordPress and BuddyPress, which allows you to easily create achievements and issue shareable badges as your users succeed.

Mobile Applications

At the very least, your LMS platform should be responsive, meaning, it should be accessible on all devices: desktop/laptop, tablet, and smartphone. A responsive LMS platform provides you and your learners with access to the learning program(s) 24/7. From a learner’s standpoint, they can view their progress on-the-go with their smartphone, from the comfort of their living room couch on their iPad, or even in their home office on their desktop or laptop. From an Administrator’s standpoint, this gives you the ability to check progress and communication with your users from anywhere 24/7.

When building a Learning Management System with WordPress, we are able to create a companion app for the iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) platforms that your users can download from the various App Stores (Apple Store and Google Play). The example shown here is an application we created for the YMCA.

Multiple Language Support

Depending on your audience, you may want or need to provide several language options for your platform. Although English is the default language for the WordPress platform, it is also internationalized for many world languages. The language translation files already exist to provide a website that offers more than one language variation. A good LMS integration for WordPress adopts this internationalization from the framework of the WordPress platform, so that you can make sure your courses, lessons, quizzes, and content are all available in the languages you require.

eCommerce / Monetization

Some organizations utilize WordPress and LMS integration to augment their existing training and onboarding needs for users, such as new or existing employees. However, there are also organizations out there that create online learning courses for profit and are interested in monetizing the courses they publish. Think about how an organization like Lynda.com has successfully published their vast library of training courses online. As a user, you can browse their library of available courses and then select and pay for the ones you wish to take. All of those transactions, including payment, occur online without leaving your website.

The same is true for a WordPress website that has an LMS integration. You can put single courses up for a one-time purchase or create a recurring subscription that allows users to gain ongoing access to your library of training courses on a monthly or annual basis. You can also utilize eCommerce tools to create a membership site to sell membership access to your training site. Other options include creating course bundles, course licensing, or à la carte specials for one-time purchases, coupon codes, and discounts.

The LMS plugins we work with for WordPress websites all have integrations with popular payment gateways, like PayPal, Stripe and 2Checkout; as well as full integrations with popular eCommerce plugins for WordPress including WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.

WordPress LMS Plugins

There are several LMS plugins available for integration into the WordPress platform. Here are two that we have used successfully to implement a dynamic and exciting learning platform for our clients:

LearnDash

LearnDash is a commercial LMS plugin for WordPress that is easy to use for course management. You can create different kinds of courses with lesson plans and quizzes. The quiz offerings give you multiple ways of formatting quiz questions (multiple choice, long form, etc.) and allows you to set prerequisite conditions, such as requiring an 80% grade on the previous quiz before you can proceed to the next one (similar to the feature we built for the Starbucks example). It also has a nice drip feed feature, which I mentioned earlier in this article, that allows you to create customized learning paths for your users.

Sensei

Sensei is an LMS plugin from the creators of WooCommerce. Sensei has built-in BadgeOS functionality to allow you to integrate badge rewards and achievements to provide some gamification to your online course offerings. It is a flexible LMS that allows you to create quizzes and assignments and gives you the opportunity to grade them manually, or automatically. It integrates well into the WordPress platform, allowing you to create a nice visual theme for your courses that match the branding and visual design of your website. Because it works on WordPress, content management is also a breeze—whether you need it for course content creation, blog posts, or articles on your website.

In Conclusion…

I hope this article has helped you make some sense of the various offerings that are provided when building a Learning Management System with WordPress. This article does not come close to touching ALL the possible options and features, but it hits the high notes to give you a place to start when you are developing your list of requirements. Maybe you even found a feature or two that you had not previously considered.

No matter the plugin you choose, WordPress is the best platform to run an effective, exciting, and dynamic learning management system because it is designed to make it easy for you and your organization to manage your content and overall website—leaving you the time to run your business. Whether you are a small business or organization looking to ramp up your online training offerings or a larger, corporate enterprise organization interested in making your company intranet or employee training a little more exciting and fun, get in touch with us about helping you implement the LMS you need. We have the experience and the passion to help you make it happen!

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