A Proven Path to Adopting the Open edX Platform

Every day it is becoming clearer that online learning has great potential to dominate several industries and both small and large communities. This has also helped us face and eliminate some of the biggest challenges and issues in this era of knowledge. The inclusion of powerful technologies in our daily lives such as AI, big data, AR/VR, IoT and many others have changed the face of education and improved the quality of learning for the students.

Many online learning initiatives are being planned and deployed every day but to stand out in the crowd, the learning experience has to improve. There are several challenges in three main paths.

• Incorporation of specific technology that can streamline the operations
• Effective creation of engaging learning content
• Strategic marketing of the resulting product

In this blog, we will discuss some of those challenges from the perspective of a service provider and how Open edX® helps organizations eliminate these project-based challenges. We will also see how the Open edX offers a proven path to adopt its applications and helps businesses offer the best online learning experience to their students and audiences. Let’s now take a closer look at the challenges faced by the students.

Challenges Of Online Learning

Constant Struggle To Adapt

Switching from the traditional lectures and face-to-face instructor training to computer-based online learning sessions is an entirely different experience for most of the students. Resistance to change does not allow them to embrace these new changes in the online learning environment. On top of that, it takes time to get familiar with LMS and methodologies of computer-based online learning. Online learning and discussions are changing traditional learning into more dynamic and real-time feedback sharing. Students who are more into note-taking with a traditional mindset, find it quite difficult to cope up with this new change. Embracing this new change and discussing them with their peers can change their mindset and prepare them for online learning.

Technical Problems

Many students do not have access to high bandwidth internet connectivity and fail to keep up with their fellow online classmates. Their old computer systems are not capable of following the modern LMS and this results in a poor learning experience. Most of the students live off-campus and find it extremely difficult to tune in with their technical requirements. Many students do not even own a computer system. The only feasible solution to this issue is to know exactly what kind of technical difficulties students are facing and what technical support they need before enrolling for a particular course.

Computer Literacy Level

Although most of the students are smart and technically sound, limited knowledge of computers is one of the major issues students are facing today. Many of them cannot operate basic programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Word. File management problems are new issues to them as they have no knowledge in this area. Technology proficiency is a must for online courses and one needs to have the basic computer literacy to cope up with modern learning and online courses. This enables them to effectively manage their courseware in an organized way without any difficulties. While basic computer literacy enhances the students’ knowledge in the field, having deep knowledge of computer hardware allows them to better participate in the online learning sessions without any issues.

Time Management

As online learning sessions require lots of intensive work and time, managing the time is a difficult task for eLearners. A regular schedule planner is an effective tool to help these online learners set their courses and assignments. Effective time management is something that separates the traditional students in a classroom from the modern learners in an immersive virtual classroom.

Motivation

Many online learners lack self-motivation which is an essential requirement of modern learning methods. After enrolling in a distance learning course, many learners fall behind and give up the idea of learning. There are several reasons for this lack of motivation including technical issues, poor learning environment and many more. A positive attitude and strong will to cope up with the modern learning methods are some elements that can increase their motivation. Though these aspects are hard to implement, modern learners need to understand that is it necessary to stay motivated to reap better results and benefits of eLearning in the future.

These issues and difficulties arise in several industries and this is where Open edX comes into the picture. Let us see how the Open edX online platform has transformed the shape of online learning and offered a proven path to the best online learning experience.

Why Adopt Open edX?

Open edX comes with tons of advantages and delivers interactive learning solutions that not only increase learners’ motivation but also improve engagement. It is quite innovative, robust, scalable and continuously improves growth. It is an open-source online platform that allows the organization to design MOOCs that are tailored to their specific learning requirements.

The main objective of this platform is to help organizations to learn everything about Open edX apps and make the best choices in adopting this technology. It helps organizations to overcome the challenges of online learning so businesses can focus more on offering the best experience to the learners.

Learning never ends and Open edX completely understands the difficulties of this sensitive journey. This ultimate learning platform offers the required resources, applications, solutions and support in the form of four main stages.

4 Important Stages

Discovery

The very first stage is all about discovery. Understanding the Open edX platform from the inside and getting familiar with the applications that are a part of it is really important. This is a stage for experiencing the start of the Open edX applications as a starter, new learner, content curator, developer, designer and admin of the platform. To help the organizations create state-of-the-art online learning courses, Open edX offers a set of important components.

• Information
• Resources
• Tools
• Website knowledge base
• Sandbox site
• Demo site
• Lite Cloud subscriptions

These components are powered by the Open edX platform and come without any time limitations.

Provision

When an organization is ready to get its Open edX project up and running, there are numerous ways to provision the Open edX platform. Open edX assists businesses in different ways on-premise and through cloud-based initiatives for successfully managing their eLearning needs.

On-Premise Approach

The on-premise approach is a traditional self-hosting way that involves installation, configuration and deployment of the applications in the infrastructure of the organization. In such a scenario, there is nothing such as ‘one-size-fits-all’ and it becomes very important to choose the right application from the ecosystem and Open edX helps businesses design the right courses according to the needs of the particular project. Over the years, Open edX experts have delivered enterprise-grade eLearning solutions and helped a large number of organizations by implementing the best industry practices.

Cloud-Based Approach

Software-as-a-service or a cloud-based model is the most convenient approach. In this case, enterprises can have a fully hosted or a managed range of Open edX applications instead of installing and configuring them directly in the architecture. The learning management system is still published in the domain of the organisation but it runs on the elastic cloud infrastructure that supports a high level of service, application management, data security and other operations. In a cloud-based scenario, the challenges related to scaling and hosting are dynamically managed. This reduces time-to-market and cuts down significant costs.

Management

Some of the processes including configurations after setting up the platform require a certain level of training. To bridge that gap, the Open edX platform offers an additional management console that can easily simplify most of the configurations and management. This adds to extra branding, content management and incorporates reporting capabilities to streamline the site and courses.

Optimization

As the online learning initiatives evolve and grow there is always room for expansion, optimization and integration with other platforms and services. The ultimate mission of the Open edX platform is to stand by the business initiatives of the organizations to ensure that the challenges are eliminated and the requirements are met through to the end.

Proven Path To Open edX

Marketing the online courses is always challenging but your content management systems can also be integrated with the Open edX platform to offer a seamless experience to your learners and audiences. So we have seen how Open edX eliminates several problems and assists organizations offer the best experience to their students. Open edX not only offers a proven path to adopting but also stands up to its promises through to the end. Incorporate this technology into your organization’s architecture and contribute to developing the best online learning courses.