Development of an Online Learning Management System (LMS)

We were recently approached by a client asking us to assist them in facilitating the build of an online learning management system. The platform will be used to host online courses and content for subscribed users.
This is not a type of project we previously worked on but knew it would be something we could easily roll out for our client.

To complete this project, we worked in four stages:

Stage 1: Requirement Gathering

We scheduled a consultation meeting with Client A to get a brief of their specific requirements.

The brief outlined that we needed to complete the learning management system in a short space of time to ensure it was up and running as soon as possible. Our goal was to find the most flexible solution given their needs.

Stage 2: Requirements     

Following the consultation, we identified the areas we would need to implement to successfully create the online platform.

– An LMS platform that supports the SCORM standard (see index for SCORM definition)

– Landing page website for marketing/selling individual courses

– Sign-up form and subscription management

– Time limited access to courses

Given the requirements we opted for Adobe Captivate Prime as provided by a reputable company/provider which was paramount since it’s a cloud based platform and not hosted in-house, it supports the SCORM standard and has clear and extensive documentation for their API/developer program which would be required for creating a seamless work-flow between the website and the LMS platform.

We decided on WordPress CMS for the website as this was the most flexible option given the clients budget and time constraints as we could easily integrate a course management and payment system which would be necessary prior to enrolling customers on their chosen courses.

Stage 3: Information on the workflow 

To achieve the intended workflow, this being customers having the ability to purchase the course and be granted access with little to no manual intervention, we needed engage the adobe LMS API.  This would allow us to automatically create accounts for students and enroll them onto a specific course once their payment has been successful.

Each course would have a specific cost associated and a time limit for completion after which the account would be revoked. Accounts could be manually disabled via administration from the WordPress back-end.

Stage 4: Working with the client   

Courses first need to be uploaded to the Adobe LMS platform but then can be imported to the website. Once imported the client would have to manually assign a price and publish the product/course. We were able to create a fully functioning Learning Management System, designed to meet the client’s exact specification and budget.

Index –SCORM

Shareable Content Object Reference Model:  is a set of technical standards for e-Learning software products. SCORM tells programmers how to write their code so that it can “play well” with other e-Learning software. It is the defacto industry standard for e-Learning interoperability.