How to Create an LMS (Learning Management System) from Scratch

The healthcare crisis caused the necessity of leveraging technology-driven solutions almost in every industry. Education is not the exception. E-learning, learning management systems, a variety of educational platforms have already become our new normal.

Educational software has never been so in-demand as it is in recent years. More and more people engage in e-learning, as it’s convenient, accessible, and easy to use. The education software market is predicted to gain $11.6 billion by 2025 compared to $10.4 billion last year.

Other statistics show that:

• there are 74 million LMS users worldwide
• companies create an LMS website as 87% of active users have web-based access
• 65% of top LMS users are corporate managers
• 90% of students prefer online learning to offline
• 4.6 million college students participate in online classes
• government institutions take 2% of the LMS software market 
• 21% of the global LMS market is covered by the education segment
• e-learning course development takes up to 90% less energy compared with offline courses
• at the beginning of 2020, 466 million ed-platforms/apps were downloaded from Google Play and 470 million from the App Store.

Today the world experiences a massive transition towards e-learning. The market is predicted to develop more and reach $370 billion U.S. by 2026.

In the article, you will find out what an LMS system is, how to build a learning management system, and what LMS features are necessary to include.

What’s a Learning Management System?

A Learning Management System (LMS) is software that creates and manages content for educational purposes. Today, online courses and a variety of apps and platforms allow you to learn something new in a more convenient, faster, and less expensive way.

Companies develop a learning management system to promote the learning process with the help of

• individually-adapted content;
• content management and teacher’s notes
• student-teacher collaboration
• integrated common tools
• gamification methods
• culture-based environment
• accessible built-in analytics

Read more: how much does it cost to develop LMS

Types of Learning Management Systems

To build a custom LMS, you need to understand the types of learning management systems and the difference between them. First of all, they are defined according to the purpose they have to fulfill within the particular organization. The list includes

• individual & enterprise
• commercial & free
• licensed & SaaS
• on-premise, cloud-based, & integrated
• pre-developed CMS & built-in add-ons

Let’s go through some comparisons:

The Process of Creating an LMS

Once you decided to create an LMS platform, your team needs to establish a list of features that should be added to your learning management system. Let’s take a look at some of them. Usually, LMS allows you to

• create and manage courses
• use a dashboard with organized information
• provide an examination (online)
• include reporting
• participate in discussions
• set up events in calendars
• create student profiles
• check attendance
• include gamification mode
• insert educational material from 3d parties websites
• interact via a variety of communication tools (chats, forums, emails, Video conferencing)

Also, a good e-learning platform:

Provide the analytics of results

Measuring successes and failures are critical to users’ satisfaction and learning motivation.

Is secure

The security of corporate and personal data is a crucial matter for any organization. The learning management system also has to be encrypted and secure from privacy disclosure or possible information leakage. So, consider adding an IP blocker, multi-factor authentication, data encryption, Backup data storage, and so on. Protected privacy increases user satisfaction and enhances positive experiences.

Has users roles and permissions

To ensure data security, the feature allows editors to customize access to certain information and functionality.

Provide support

After signing up, users should watch training tutorials to become aware of how to navigate the platform. Also, if ant errors occur might need technical support. The ability to turn to an expert and get support is an important thing.

Read more: how to create an e-learning website

How to Create a Trading Platform

The process of LMS development as in software development in general consists of mini sprints that are self-integral development steps. That’s how the stages look like:

Project planning

At this initial stage, the team plans how the project will be carried out. Before getting started conducting industry research, learning an idea’s value on the market, may prevent a potential failure.

We recommend answering the following questions:

• What problems will your LMS solve in the company and for users?
• Do you have competitors on the market? Who are they?
• What is the budget for LMS development?
• Who will develop it?
• Will it be customizable?
• Can it handle numerous learners or should be limited to a certain group?
• Should it include 24/7 support?

Analysis of requirements

To ensure the team is on the same page and understands what software has to be deployed 100%, the next step is to gather requirements from every project stakeholder. After this, you can think about timeframes, tech stack, design, testing, production iterations, and people involved.

Design

Since e-learning became an integrated part of our daily lives, it is not surprising that users expect their online training platform to be responsive on various devices: computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

No matter how great the content is, users won’t return to a product after having a bad user experience. Design should be simple enough for users to understand without any assistance. Colors have to keep learners focused, motivate them to study, and not distract (advertising, pop-up windows, etc.)

Project implementation

When everything is being set up, the team knows what has to be done and the timeframes. The plan with iterations is also created and there are approximately two weeks before the first demo with the client.

MVP

MVP or Minimum Viable Product is the basic version of your future learning management system. The main idea is to reduce time and effort and test the idea before the full-fledged product development. We recommend starting with the MVP because this way you can test your product by building the core features, checking the working hypotheses, and getting users’ responses.

Testing

We recommend initiating testing at the beginning of the product development life cycle and involving the quality assurance team from the planning stage. This way the team will have a full understanding of the project and perform testing sessions each time there is a release. You won’t disagree that it is always better to start testing small than test the system at the end and acknowledge that it is not working.

Deployment

At this stage, each team member creates the system’s architecture according to requirements that have been discussed before. In Agile this process happens in iterations, where one feature is developed and released at a time.

Maintenance

If you need your LMS to be supported after launch, consider signing a contract with the development team. You can get constant technical support or just fix problems per request.

The question of how to create an LMS is impossible to answer without finding an experienced team. So, let’s move forward.

How to build your own LMS?

If you have an idea to create a custom LMS, that requires finding a team with relevant experience. There are basically two main options: assemble an in-house team or hire a vendor.

In-house team

One of the ways to build an LMS from scratch is to find and hire a whole software development team (including engineers, QA experts, designers, project managers, and other eLearning specialists). The obvious advantage of this approach is that you control the entire development process and can make changes at any time. However, you have to rent an office, cover expenses for setting it up, sick leaves and vacations, and last but not least, to compete with other companies to attract specialists.

Outsourcing

Now we want to pay your attention to the process of finding the outsourcing partner who will take over a software development stage. Delegating is better for the following reasons. It

• Saves money (you can skip hiring, training, and housing step)
• Reduces operating cost
• Allows you to concentrate on core processes
• Gives access to an expanded talent pool
• Allows picking the most efficient outsourcing partner
• Makes it possible to hire the whole development team or separate experts
• Produce fewer risks
• Offers different cooperation models that fit best for you

There are several tips worth taking into consideration:

Reviews

A trustworthy company is recognized by its previous business partners. Usually, they express their satisfaction and results by providing feedback or leaving reviews. Don’t underestimate this phase during your decision-making process.

Communication

Transparency is always a high priority throughout the whole development process. To prevent any risk your web development team needs to understand your requirements.

Experience

That’s pretty obvious that the company that has expertise in education and experience with LMS development services is aware of the possible pitfalls and scenarios on how to avoid them.

Cooperation model

The right cooperation model is a key to your successful partnership with an outsourcing team / The three most common models are

• Rent-a-Team model works in a way that you pay for time and materials spent on the product development and can change requirements during the implementation stage.
• If all your requirements and acceptance criteria are clear you can easily explain them to others, try the Project Team cooperation model. 
• If you want to hire a development team dedicated to the long-term project from start to finish, Dedicated Team approach is the best option for you. The client pays a monthly salary for the workload of each team member and the services they provide.

Read also: Benefits of augmented reality in education

Consider Inoxoft Your Trusted Partner in LMS Development

Inoxoft offers education software development services and developed numerous educational projects for startups, businesses, and institutions implementing gamification, and language e-learning software to provide learners with new horizons for their self-education paths.

If you want to:

• Use built-in authoring tools to create custom enterprise courses
• Develop programs for employee training
• Establish unique training approaches
• Monitor career movements and manage mentorships

Don’t hesitate to contact our experts and create an LMS from scratch!

Final Thoughts

E-learning and LMS in particular have already become our future. This modern approach to learning is convenient, efficient, adaptable, and easy to use. If you are still interested in how to make an LMS, contact Inoxoft’s LMS developers, so they explain how to deploy a top-notch educational platform.