The internet is not only for fun entertainment and messaging. Online learning platforms or marketplaces, which pursue a truly noble cause of education, are huge right now. You can turn your career around in several weeks with these courses and you study all the things like a regular student. This means that everyone has tasks to do, but the schedule is very flexible, offers different materials, and everyone gets their reasonable freedom. You’ve probably heard about online learning platforms like Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, and many others. With these platforms, you can study what you really need and like.
Learning platforms allow everyone around the globe to study different topics at a pace they feel comfortable. It is such a powerful tool. Learning with online platforms breaks many barriers built by traditional educational means. All you need is Internet access and will to study. Sheer motivation and hard work is the key. You are surrounded by the things you like and you don’t see people that you don’t like. Due to these factors, your learning abilities might be higher than you’ve expected. And if some course isn’t free, it’s still cheaper than offline courses because you don’t have to pay money for different utilities there like water, cookies, place to sit, etc. So if you think that you can’t learn something because the school and college days are over, you aren’t exactly right.
Considering that every person values their time, everyone takes the most out of their free time. Smartphones come in handy here. They are everything these days. One can study, read, work, explore news, manage their finances and household, manage their health and time, etc. Online learning will definitely grow more during the next several years than ever before.
Many universities are glad to stick with this online education trend. You probably know Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Berkeley University of California. etc. And they have a great variety of courses for everybody. They also collaborate with different solutions online learning marketplaces so they can offer their education to different people that are interested in learning something new or to upgrade their knowledge.
Not all courses are certified though. But they still can be popular and be highly ranked. A lot of people can take courses just for fun, or because they are curious, or just to get some more practice on a particular subject.
Online Learning Platform. What Is It?
But not every online course can be technically called an online learning platform, let alone an online learning marketplace. A consistent educational resource must:
- provide students with a learning material on any device and anywhere in the world;
- provide tools to create and upload courses;
- provide management tools for tracking the learning progress;
- provide the performance measurements;
- provide different multimedia materials like video, audio, text, presentation, quiz, test, etc.
The business model is quite simple. A student registers on the online learning marketplace, gets the subscription package and chooses a course from the list of classes. And then, he/she attends the class online. Teachers also can join an online learning marketplace to teach. They have to register on the platform, enter their class details, upload a video tutorial and additional materials for the class, and list their class on the marketplace. That’s it!
Ways to on the Site
To earn money with the online learning platform, you have to cut the commision from the price tutors set for their course or to make your platform subscription-based. The latter option helps you pay a tutor according to the number of people that have enrolled in his/her course.
Pick a business model depending on your expectations and target an audience. If you can’t decide what model you should pick, ask a professional to help you with that. For additional advertisement, you can add banners on the website or make a promotion for tutors and courses within your platform. These schemes are both beneficial for a platform owner and tutors. We list the benefits below:
- Portal owner earns from the subscription fees that the student pays to get access to online classes.
- Teacher gets the chance to address a huge audience at a single place and get paid by the site owner for listing a class based on the number of students who have attended it.
- Student is able to attend classes on different topics anytime and anywhere as per convenience by just paying a certain amount of money.
This is how online learning platform business should work. But there are more aspects that you should consider when starting the education platform.
Key Features of Online Learning Platform
Your online learning platform should be, above all, user-friendly. When someone visits your platform, they should find all the necessary information. Everything about courses, teachers, payment methods, etc. Let’s take a look at some important features that you should consider implementing when creating an online learning platform.
Class Creation
It should be as easy as possible. Just put some kind of a button that says ‘Create Class’ in the user profile. This should lead to a form that a potential teacher can fill to specify their class name, subject topic, type of their course, either it’s free or premium; then, the study materials must be uploaded (video, text, audio, etc.). Include also the draft option so that people could finish filling the form later. It is more convenient for people who have a lot to specify.
Teaching Feature
Anyone can teach these days. You have to encourage those who have something to teach to use your online learning platform. Therefore, all users that are registered should have an opportunity to create their own class. The landing page of your platform should have all the necessary information and features so that users understand what’s it all about. Here are several ideas for your landing page information:
- how much students they can teach;
- how much money they can get;
- a success story;
- other small benefits.
So the better your landing page is, the more students and teachers will use your online learning platform.
Mobile Adaptation
Don’t forget to make a nice mobile app for your online learning platform! It’s a huge deal these days. Lots of people don’t even use their computers, they just use their mobile devices. So make it clear, user-friendly and intuitive. Make sure, that it is easy to use for both teachers and students.
Consider also having a live chat on your platform because lots of users have questions that they need to be answered by an actual person. A live chat will enhance communication and boost your platform ratings.
Ratings and Reviews
The feedback and reviews that users leave concerning your platform are crucial. They let others understand your hits and misses and if there are way too many misses no one will show up on your online platform. But, it’s very important to have that section, don’t ever neglect it. It might help you make your online learning platform better.
Listen to the people’s voice. Let the teachers make different learning experiences and not only videos and texts. With a fresh, engaging program, you will gain lots of satisfied students that will buy different courses at your platform. Let users show their results, find their mates like in social media, suggest new courses on the topics they might like, add some stickers or stars for every student achievement. That will keep them motivated and satisfied.
Conclusion
Lots of online learning programs step up in this game of online education. It’s fun for every searching mind and it brings people together. These online programs are either open-source or cloud-based platforms.
This is one of the biggest trends in education these days. Everyone is on the phone and everyone values their time, so some fun educational topics might come in handy. Online learning is the industry that grows and expands every day. So it’s a great opportunity to start a nice business here. Even though there are lots of online courses, there are still a lot of free niches for special platforms and you can create one of those with us. Just get in touch!
