Online education has recently gained incredible traction, and this comes as no big surprise considering the worldwide lockdown. To remain up to speed on user demand in the time of COVID-2019, educational establishments and businesses are looking for best ways of delivering high-quality services.
Advanced learning management systems (LMS) seem the optimal technological option in this regard, but with so many LMSs available on the market, how do you make sure you give users what they need?
With an off-the-shelf system in place, you might satisfy some basic needs of today’s learner. But if you want to stun the competition, you’ll need to leverage best practices around custom LMS development and enhance your solution with sophisticated functionality.
Online proctoring: Automate exam taking
Unlike conventional methods of conducting online assessments, remote proctoring offers unparalleled ease of use and transparency. Powered by computer vision tech, it fulfills multiple purposes — from verifying student identity during the registration to overseeing hundreds of simultaneous remote exams anywhere in the world. But what does the whole process look like and how exactly does proctoring keep cheating at bay?
This innovative method allows accurately tracking learner activities through their webcam, and then the footage is analyzed by AI — in real time or in an offline mode — to detect suspicious activities. A session can be red-flagged for head movements, light and audio level changes, window resize events, and more. The system will also alert you if it notices unauthorized persons in the room or detects items — like books, mobile phones, smartwatches, etc. — that can help students cheat.
As a result, such smart, data-driven automation helps you eliminate human error and significantly increase the accuracy of evaluation results, at the same time making the exam-taking process less intrusive for students.
Media asset management: Speed up content delivery
If you provide mostly video learning materials, you can’t dispense with a comprehensive media asset management (MAM) tool. Embedded in your LMS, it will save you time and money by automating the whole content management lifecycle — from video ingestion and transcoding to processing and playout.
Sophisticated MAM functionality will spare you the headache of manually monitoring the quality of your video streams, taking charge of detecting anomalies like glitches, black screens, artificial text, and more. And underpinned by AI, this mechanism will seamlessly adjust content to any screen resolution and network condition.
Advanced metadata management and enrichment, intelligent course localization with subtitling and dubbing management, content archiving and scheduling, smart generation of course highlights — these and other media-related operations can also be automated through an MAM-powered learning management system.
Artificial intelligence: Provide hyper-personalized experiences
Online learners are becoming choosier than ever, so if you want them to stay tuned to your eLearning content, introduce AI-fueled
personalization.
Deeply analyze user behavior throughout the course, including material choice, performance, feedback, and interactions with tutors. With these insights at hand, you’ll not only be able to deliver tailor-made content recommendations, but will also provide an extra layer of comfort and flexibility in terms of subscription options.
Besides, AI-powered personalization will help you increase satisfaction among your enterprise clients who usually need learning courses to be optimized for different branches of the organization.
You can also notably improve your service offering and entice more clients with customizable BI reporting. Use the power of interactive dashboards to present up-to-date information on tutor and student performance, budget spending, learning programs’ ROI, and other critical aspects that will help your clients make more informed decisions.
AR and VR: Enable immersive training
Another way to beat competitors is to add AR and VR flair to your learning management system. Enriched with such innovative features, your educational programs will not only help users train high-precision skills but will also boost learner engagement. AR instructions, VR simulation, 360-degree content, interactive 3D boards — the options are numerous.
Real-life scenarios will help learners develop skills quicker and remember information easier with no risk involved. And tutors will get a great opportunity to monitor performance mentally, physically, and emotionally, beyond bare data analytics.
No matter the industry, you can use a powerful mix of digital learning and immersive technology to enable shared real-time virtual workspace. For instance, if you plan to build a healthcare LMS, think 3D visualization for preoperative planning, AR-based instructions, and VR-assisted robotic surgery simulation. And if you focus on financial education, enhance your system with VR features so that banking staff could train to better serve clients.
Building future-proof learning experiences
Custom development is never a walk in the park, but investing in a tailored LMS may be the smartest move you make. With advanced proctoring functionality, AR and VR features, hyper-personalization, and powerful media asset management, you’ll have more chances to attract online students and provide them with outstanding learning experiences.
About the author:
Yana Yelina is a Technology Writer at Oxagile, a provider of software engineering and IT consulting services. Her articles have been featured on KDNuggets, ITProPortal, Jaxenter, Singularity Hub, and Datafloq, to name a few. Yana is passionate about the untapped potential of technology and explores the perks it can bring businesses of every stripe. You can reach Yana at yana.yelina@oxagile.com or connect via LinkedIn or Twitter.
