Top issues you will face when developing your own Learning Management System
Most of the edupreneurs who start with the concept of blended learning think of building a custom in-house learning management system.
We often hear this statement from many educational entrepreneurs
We are building our own software
What they don't realize is that, unlike physical buildings, a software is never done. It needs constant updates, new features, and bug fixes.
Here is a compilation of the top 6 issues which you would face when building your own LMS.
These help you make informed decisions while going for a learning management system.
Finding Right Person
It is very difficult to find the right talent for building your custom LMS.
The best-talented people are usually better at working with big MNCs.
And most importantly the person building your LMS should understand your problems.
You don't need any run-of-the-mill developer.
You need a developer with domain knowledge of learning management systems.
And it is very hard to find them...
Design
Designing a proper UX for the LMS is often an undiscussed topic.
This comes with careful research, understanding, and empathy towards your target audience...
...In your case, the student.
If not properly communicated to the designer, the final design might not be easier to use for your students.
You'll end up spending more time training your students on how to use it.
A poorly designed app will also eat up on your marketing expenses since they play an important role in your churn rate. The student might abandon purchasing your course if your LMS is very difficult to use.
Custom software development agency
You might think custom software development agencies might help solve your problem.
Working with an agency is super expensive.
We've seen many take this route and burn their fingers. They realize after a few months that they got duped by a custom software development agency gobbling a huge amount of development costs.
The reason is that most custom software development agencies work in the context of man-hours of development.
So the more time they spend, the more you pay.
It is very difficult to find a custom software development agency with quality, cost & time.
Even if you somehow manage to get it done, you need someone to maintain the software.
The open-source route a.k.a Moodle
Instead of building a custom system from scratch, you might think why not take up Moodle and deploy it on a server?
Moodle is the perfect example of how you can make a learning management system ugly.
Moodle is a complicated behemoth. It does too many things.
Even if you succeed in deploying, the intangible costs come in the time and effort it eats up in educating your team to use the same.
Hosting costs
If you think once the software gets developed the expenses will stop, you are totally wrong.
We might be lured by the attractive prices offered by different hosting vendors especially shared servers.
However, as your site starts growing in traffic the shared servers begin to slow down. This is called bandwidth throttling.
Your students will have trouble accessing the content. Many might bounce getting fed up with the contents not getting loaded.
The natural step would be to go with a dedicated server which is going to add up to your costs as you scale.
Mobile App Support
You would've somehow managed to deploy web version of your LMS.
Once you release, your students will start asking for Android & iOS support.
Now you've to start doing the same cycle from the beginning.
Mobile Apps are a beast on their own. If not developed and tested properly, they'll put you into a downward spiral of development hell.
Conclusion
As you see, developing an LMS ain't so easy. This is not to demotivate you from trying.
But...
Is it worth the time and effort?
The best way would be to go with a professional LMS vendor who takes care of all these troubles.
This helps you focus on the work which you are best for - creating awesome content and helping students learn.
Even bigger coaching institutes like Allen, Aakash, Brilliant Pala, MadeEasy take this route of using a third-party LMS to boost their online presence.
It is quicker, safer, and much easier.
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