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The E-learning industry is one out of a few industries that are growing right now due to the COVID19 pandemic. Therefore, the demand for online training and E-learning solutions development is growing too.
Recently Chief Business Officer of Academy Smart Iryna Kurkina interviewed our dear friend and customer from the Netherlands, Alain Rees, and had the opportunity to talk with him about crucial factors to take into account while building the E-learning Management System.
Alain Rees is a Director at Cyber Inc. – a company that creates privacy and security awareness products that can be adjusted as desired with ease. He has more than ten years of experience in online and in offline security awareness topics. Iryna and Alain also discussed our LMS solution developed with Academy Smart.
How did the idea to develop the LMS come?
“ A few years ago, we were working with an LMS that worked fine for one customer, but it was not multi-tenant. We got in touch with the Academy Smart team and they first examined the requirements and came to the same conclusion as we did – build the LMS from the ground up. “
What is the target audience of this product and what problems does it solve?
“ We deliver privacy and security awareness training and e-learning to companies to help them reduce the security risks that come with a human factor.”
Where and when did you start, and where did you get your first financing?
“ It all started with the LMS project leader who is the best, asked questions that even with our years of experience we didn’t think of.
Because we have a business, we financed the project ourselves. Academy Smart agreed to be paid after every delivery of a working feature. In that way, we could manage the financing very well.”
What is the final goal of the product?
“ The goal of this product is to bring a focus onto Europe, as our other LMS platform has more than 40,000 active users per day in 35 different countries.”
When do you expect to have the system live? Who will be your first uses?
“ So, we have been since this past month, but there are still a few features that need to be developed.”
You are a Director of the company, but in addition to that role, you are also the LMS product owner. What problems, if any, did you face during the development process?
“ I was a systems engineer 20 years ago and studied IT at university. I was also an IT business consultant for many years. And I think I’m the only one that can manage my own ideas. Of course, my team and Academy Smart made significantly helped me during the process. The problem I faced during development was that we didn’t think of some features. But, thankfully, that was never a problem for the Academy Smart team.”
Which background is required to be able to start/manage the development of an LMS system?
” I guess that experience with LMS and some basic understanding of e-learning, in general, will get you halfway. The other half in my case is imagination.”
Do you notice any intercultural differences between IT specialists integrated from Ukraine and your in-house development team?
“ We have been working on multiple projects with other development teams from other countries. We use one language, English, and that works out fine.
Where I think that this team has an advantage over other teams we have worked with is that people at Academy Smart speak their mind like the Dutch, and they are so dedicated. “
What would you advise for those company’s representatives willing to create their own E-learning management solution as a MUST HAVE to think about before initiating an LMS development project?
“ In order to have an LMS working constantly, you must divide your work into small projects.”
What is the advantage of using interactive videos as educational tools in comparison to other types of content?
“ I believe that with active learning you learn more and remember the lesson longer. The other benefit is that learners cannot just skip to the end.”
From your experience, can interactive video be a full-fledged educational tool or does it still require complementary items like quizzes, surveys, etc?
“ You have to think of multiple ways to educate. It is not very difficult to get test answers right if the lesson and test are within the same 10 minutes. In my opinion, they should be more separated.”
We hope you have learned crucial factors to take into account while building E-learning Management Systems and have gained a few tips and tricks to help you start the cooperation with the Academy Smart development team to create E-learning solutions.
Let’s develop SMART!