Jen Nikolaeva

For the past 4 decades, online learning has been evolving from the first uses of computer conferencing at The Western Behavioral Sciences Institute in 1982 to online courses and higher education programmes today. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic schools were forced to switch to e-learning due to safety reasons.

Nowadays online-held classes not only help you learn anytime but also help bring together students and teachers from anywhere in one place. Since online courses are easily accessible by a simple gesture of just connecting to the Internet, there are certain benefits to keep in mind when choosing them.

We’ve already touched upon the pros of accessing courses anytime and anywhere, but why is it important? Well, since learning has become part of our everyday routine, whether it’s corporate training and upskilling or learning a new hobby, people still need to find time in their schedules to do it.

An opportunity to be flexible in making room for new knowledge is crucial in today’s busy world. Learning even from your mobile phone is another great feature of online learning, making it accessible to almost everyone.

Being able to teach thousands of people at the same time is impossible in an offline environment. Online learning gives us this chance to share knowledge with people from all over the world. Coursera alone has over 90 million registered users and over 7000 online courses.

Companies use scalability to conduct training to inform, upskill and onboard employees every day. Since remote and hybrid work models become more and more popular these days, this wouldn’t be easy to do without doing it online.

Instead of renting out spaces for workshops and training, flying out trainers and participants you can just enrol students into your LMS (Learning Management System) and meet in a virtual classroom. No spending on textbooks and printing out materials needed — everything can be done online.

There are 4 learning styles that people prefer to receive information:

• Visual;
• Auditory;
• Textual (reading and writing);
• Kinesthetic.

Being able to know your audience and their learning style can help you create courses that will be highly engaging and useful for your students. You can easily put together, tailor and re-arrange materials accordingly any time you need to.

Tests and quizzes can be fully automated in knowledge checking. Students can get immediate feedback on how they understood a certain topic, and instructors can track progress in real time. Gamification elements in assessments like badges, points and progress bars will keep learners engaged and motivated.

Online learning provides great tools for supporting students throughout their journey. Tracking progress, setting goals and direct communication through forums and chats will help you always stay connected to learners. It can not only bring you valuable feedback but also give you a sense of purpose when reading their wins while learning.

One of the most beneficial things in e-learning is measuring metrics for your courses and students. There are a few key learning metrics that can be measured to give you certain insights.

This metric shows how many students finish the course. Low rates might indicate that the materials aren’t engaging or there are obstacles along the way. Good analysis might help you find the parts of the course that show low rates and refactor the materials through student feedback.

This metric is for courses and activities that have pass or fail criteria. Students with higher scores in certain activities are more likely to acquire all the needed knowledge and complete the course.

Feedback and surveys are a great way to measure how students actually like the training. Asking them what they find useful and what is not worth their time can help you gain data on how you can make your course better for your learners.

These metrics are similar but show a little different insights.

Drop-off rate usually highlights problematic points during the course and measures the percentage of learners who stop progressing after a certain chapter in the training.

A high churn rate indicates that learners stop and leave the course before finishing it. It can mean that our course is not engaging enough or doesn’t fulfil the learners' needs.

High rate shows us that our students are actively completing their learning activities, telling us they are interested and motivated, and that we are doing things right.

Training Cost per Learner is calculated by dividing total training cost by the number of participants and helps organisations measure the financial investment for each employee. It’s a good way to understand the investment in employee development within the company. The more employees you train with one course the less the cost per learner, making online learning once again cost-effective.

LMS platforms such as Seturon not only give you insights into the learning metrics but also the general statistics for your courses.

For example, Seturon dashboards give you visualised data on:

• Students with assigned courses — making you keep track of all your learners and not forget to assign them the needed learning;
• Most enrolled courses — showing you the most popular topics your learners are interested in;
• Total courses and groups;
• Ungraded assignment — reminding you when new ones arrive to be graded.

You can book a demo to see what features this LMS has and how it aligns with your training goals.