Teach employees with Drupal

Teach employees with Drupal platform and reduce corporate training expenses

Introduction

E-learning boom is gaining momentum. That can be explained not only by the convenience of use but also by the low cost. Many businesses that are interested in developing employees can save a lot of money by implementing e-learning instead of offline learning. Besides, according to SHIFT, 42% of companies say that implementing e-learning has lead to a revenue increase. 

This article will show you why you should use Drupal for creating an e-learning platform. 

Drupal Learning Management System (LMS)

There are Learning Management Systems available in Drupal. But first, let us tell you why we choose and advise using Drupal:

  • Easy to manage content

  • Customization

  • Mobile friendly

  • High speed

  • Safety

  • Access to community support

Remember, online learning platforms for businesses should be specialized on the company’s goals and should fulfill employees' needs. For example, you need to increase sales, but some sales employees don’t possess the necessary knowledge. That means you need to provide a course where the employees will learn this information. It’s also possible to create a course not only providing knowledge but also for training existing skills.

Here are some tips the company can use while providing an educational course to the employees:

  • Use blended learning. Don’t concentrate only on a specific way of producing materials for studying. Drupal allows mixing learning tools by using video, texts, flashcards, etc. because it has video-based modules, gaming and gamification content, scenario-based learning, microlearning modules, multilingual courses, images, and infographics.
     

  • Create learning paths. Tracking different participants' ways of learning teaches to allocate some problems which need to be cut out or improvements that need to be made. For example, if your employee doesn’t know how to prioritize everyday tasks to achieve a company goal, an e-learning platform should train the employee on how to do it. 
     

  • Reward and recognize training achievements. Even on e-learning platforms, rewards motivate for studying. Here is a tip. Make a microsystem of students where they can act as experts and students at the same time. Some students can help others by correcting their answers and for these corrections receive a nomination like “the best correction”, “the best mentor”, “the best-provided information”. Such gamification increases engagement.
     

  • Ask your employees what they need is the easiest way to engage employees in corporate learning and make the learning effective. The thing is, the revenue generated per employee is 26 % bigger for companies that offer e-learning, according to Topyx.

Drupal modules and profiles for e-learning

First, define a company’s e-learning goal, then choose a realization tool. It can be a profile or a combination of modules. We made a review of Drupal modules and profiles which can be used for e-learning goals. Take a read and choose the best for the company.

  1. Opigno
    This is the Drupal LMS module. The Opigno profile includes the flexible access system based on such roles as a student, teacher, coach, administrator, etc. It has the Theory and Quiz modules to create engaging and interactive content. Opigno has adaptive learning path management, where training materials can be adapted to every student according to his/her previous achievements and some conditional rules. There is a module that manages virtual classroom sessions and allows to implement Instructor-led sessions.
    One of the Opigno advantages is the implemented certificate module. If a student successfully completes the training, a PDF certificate is automatically generated. The e-learning platform is more valuable when it provides students with certificates.
     

  2. Open Academy
    This is a Drupal distribution that brings the best in web publishing for higher education on a customizable Drupal platform. It’s designed to provide academic departments in higher education with a ready to use the website. It has sections for courses, news, people, events, and publications. Recent news, events, and publications are listed on the main page. Open Academy is easy in use because of design simplicity. Besides, most academic department's needs are well accomplished there.
     

  3. Julio
    Julio is a distribution targeted for schools, school districts, small colleges, and academic departments within universities. There are sections about faculty and staff, students’ life, academics, admissions, parents and guardians, and sports. Empowered persons can create announcements, events, galleries, and group posts in all sections except for the faculty and staff.
     

  4. Course
    The Application Programming Interface (API) in the Course helps to allocate goals which can be added to the employee’s workflow.
    There is a possibility to use objects which will be marked as graded or ungraded course objects. Also, the Course provides a framework for external learning application integration.
     

  5. Room Reservations
    This module is created for managing study rooms being used while learning.
     

  6. Quiz
    The Quiz module in Drupal allows building graded analytics, the results can be displayed after and during the quiz.
    It’s an effective way to track a student’s progress because it’s easy to analyze. The students are able to see their improvement and also to receive feedback from an administrator. This module also includes the certificate module. Read about 10 Drupal modules for quizzes.
     

  7. User Progress API
    The User progress API module was sponsored by Pennsylvania State University. It has been developed for charting students’ progression throughout a system. 
     

  8. Badges
    The digital badging Drupal module helps provide a visual demonstration of achievement to enhance accomplishment in the eyes of the student as well as college admission officers.
    Such digital images as badges help to recognize learner’s skills and achievements. That type of visualization gives an opportunity for the student to actually feel improvement during studying.  
     

  9. Certificate
    The Certificate module creates and awards PDF certificates using tokenized HTML templates.
     

  10. H5P - Create and Share Rich Content and Applications
    This module is an authoring tool for rich content - you can create interactive videos, flashcards, board games, etc. Besides, H5P also enables your site to import and export H5P files. H5P files are package files for HTML5 content and applications. You can easily upload them to your Drupal site and publish rich Internet content and applications. 
     

  11. Social learning/Messageboards
    Communication between students matters, it’s like at university. The Social login and Social share Drupal modules allow to log in using the social network sites, which also helps in sharing the content with the student’s network.
    You can also read about 10 Drupal modules for communication with users and 10 free Drupal modules for integration with Social Media.

While providing an e-learning platform to your employees, don’t forget that a company learning management system should be well-designed, otherwise, all good intentions will sink in the “failed user's experience” sea.  

Also, guarantee consistent instructor presence at the platform. Two types of problems will be solved by doing this. First, it will be easy to ask some appearing technical questions, therefore studying will go faster. Second, when a lack of motivation captures some students, there is an opportunity to address the instructor for motivation.

E-learning saves money

Take a note! Companies that use e-learning save money. According to SHIFT, IBM saved approximately $200 million after switching to e-learning. In addition, here is an advantage for corporate sustainability conscious companies. Britain's Open University study found that producing and providing e-learning courses consume an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than face-to-face training.

There are other advantages like convenient and flexible access, different learning styles availability, employee’s self-motivation, measurable results and reporting, interactivity and gamification, collaboration and community building.

Conclusion 

After learning the main advantages and possibilities that the Drupal platform has, it should be easier for you to decide which platform to choose for creating an e-learning website. Contact us, we will see your business needs and goals and then offer the best decision, based on our experience.

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