Build a Simple e-Learning Website: Main Features, Business Model, Cost Estimate

Crux: An e-learning platform is a formalized teaching portal powered with digital resources.

Context: Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know. The pandemic has sparked a slump in many sectors but the spurt in remote learning and the demand for remote tutors is growing. The companies that offer online programmes through live teaching are hiring remote instructors, offering new courses and increasing their teaching capacity. This spike spans across all experience levels and counts upon the zeal to teach, the grasp on the subject and how smart that person is on the video.

Marking Online Presence

As the virus fear keeps locals indoors, the focus has been digital and online. Customers look for contactless sales experience and going forward, the big company executives are creating those experiences in the absence of glitz and glamour.

Popular Examples

The trend of online learning started a little before proper lockdown.

Gymnasiums: As an example, with gymnasiums unlikely to open soon, the sale of fitness equipment has surged in proportion to the demand for virtual trainers. Under lockdown, the online streaming by gyms, health clubs and fitness studios has gone up. Some e-commerce portals have also added a ‘digital personal trainer’ section on their app. According to a prevailing e-commerce portal – Snapdeal, customers buy fitness coach and nutrition expert consultations that they’ve recently added on their website. It helps customers in evaluating their performance and home workout routine as compared to their virtual classmates. Apps and virtual classes keep fitness enthusiasts busy.

Courtrooms: Judiciary is also taking its baby steps to tech solutions. The functioning of most district courts was suspended due to social distancing norms by the government. Now with tech doing its bit, e-filing, e-notice, virtual hearings, e-evidence, authenticating orders – almost every pending process is being taken up according to urgency, impact, feasibility, viability.

Art Sessions: Educational institutions have been conducting art and craft, yoga, music and dance online sessions, keeping the pandemic and current situation in mind.

To Get on Track Post The COVID Fiesta

Institutes of learning have made good use of technology ensuring that learning for the students does not stop. Online tutorials, teachers making videos and use of applications like Zoom and MS Teams are bringing all students together in the times of the lockdown. Children are made to study curriculum-based classroom teaching, activity-based projects and learning of new attributes and skills.

What is the need to have e-learning websites?

E-learning websites work with a vision to democratize the learning process – irrespective of the location, demographics, and the speed of the internet. They focus on people who wish to avail of their courses and learn from best educators.

The Challenge with e-learning Website

With the number of active learners o the platform increasing daily, problems like adapting the course to work for multiple geographies, across the regional contexts and varying internet connections, tag alongside the standard struggles of user retention. Doing things under the light of the sun, some smart solutions need to be devised to make the content relatable, useful, important, believable, inclusive, unifying, inspiring, contagious, evocative, and emotive.

How to build an e-learning website?

An e-learning website needs to evolve from an idea, the wireframe/prototype needs to be developed, the business model should be selected, UI/UX design, technology and tools required, the cost and the market readiness is to be estimated based upon the competitor behaviour.

How does an e-learning website work?

The users have to register with the platform, create a personal account, search, and select for a course, make the payment (if applicable) and start learning. The e-learning platform approaches teachers and instructors, providing them with various tools to create and deliver content for their users. The remaining marketing and distribution activities are handled by the e-learning platform team.

Selecting the Right Business Model to Build an E-Learning Website

It is important to structure out the way the app/website will earn money. The types of business model include:

Paid Certificates – Besides the course cost, the users pay for a platform verified certificate that is accepted in various places. This can also include creating tie-ups with various universities and educational organizations and providing the learners with verified paid certificates to ensure that you have a continuous channel of revenue coming in.

Subscription-Based – The users have to buy a paid subscription to the website periodically (monthly/annually). Once they purchase a subscription, they will only have to pay a small amount of money to access all the information on the website.

The Affiliate Model – The online course comes with links to various books or equipment like Kindle that the user might need to complete that course.

Corporate Collaboration – Any business organization collaborates with the e-learning service provider company and have some specific courses related to their operations.

Paid Courses – Websites earn the most from this model. When a student purchases a course, a part of the revenue goes to the instructor who uploaded the course and the remaining goes to the website owner.

Primary Features of an E-Learning Website

An E-Learning website can have some common features, features within the student profile and features in the teacher’s profile.

Common Features

• Register/Sign Up
• Managing the Personal Profile
• Customer Support/Chat
• Business collaboration

Student Profile Features

• Searching Categories/Filtering Courses
• Getting recommendations based on their search behaviour online
• Tagging a Course before making the payment
• Easy payment options for enrolment

Teacher’s Profile Features

• Course Creation and Modifications
• The dashboard will include the course lists and performance insights (which will be updated periodically)

How should the E-Learning website look?

A seamless and simple interface, coupled with fluid navigation is a definite determinant in the success of the website. Points that must be considered while designing an e-learning portal should be:

• Consistency of information
• Simple Modules and Sub-categories
• The Visual Design – The images, illustrations, and animations
• The website should feature specific and concise content with appealing graphics and animations.
• It must be optimizable
• It must be easy on load

The Technical Mavericks for an E-learning Platform (Web/Android/iOS)

Options for Video-Streaming of Course with Cost to build an e-learning app/website

• CMS, Moodle Based: WordPress, Joomla etc. – Quite affordable, themes, plugins have one-time cost.
• With Raw Code: ASP, PHP, JAVA, NODEJS etc. (and the ones discussed above) -> one-time considerable cost, recommended for long-term control and stability.
• With ready-made themes: Weebly, Wix – Quite affordable, one-time cost.
• With ready-made teaching websites: Teachable, Thinkific etc. – Charges on a monthly basis with minimal to no upfront cost.

Some additional plugins and add-ons might be required in addition to the above technology stack along with some third-party tools to let you add additional functionalities on your website.

Essential Considerations: e-Learning Website Development

Students and adolescents (across demographics) are naturally inclined towards online courses to uplift their skills and expand their portfolio. The courses structured by E-learning portals suit to their specific needs and eventually help in their progressive outlook.

How do most competing firms earn?

• By providing unlimited access to free courses and the paid ones are reasonably priced.
• There are small courses, masters’ and bachelor’s courses available from top universities.
• There are courses created to enhance the real-life skills of the learners, which might be useful to them to eventually find a job.
• They cover a wide range of topics for skill-building, activity-based learning, programming and management etc.

While the business requirements can scale up and the subsequent business model might get updated, audience expectations, demand in the market – activities of competitors must always be kept in mind in order to stay competitive. Wish to create an e-learning website to cover the side-effects of Lockdown? Get to know more about e-learning website development services.