What are the things to look for when choosing an online Course Builder Platform
If you're considering creating your own online course How do you determine which is the best online tool for creating courses? It's likely that you're looking for an online platform created to allow you to easily and swiftly create amazing course without needing decades of programming experience.
Choosing a course platform isn't easy, particularly considering all the options offered in an overcrowded market. This is what we believe you must look for in an online course building platform:
- Ease of use
- An engaging learning experience
- Clear pricing plans
- Integration with tools you already use
- Flexible payment options for your learners
Let's look at each of these components further down.
Easy-to-Use Course Builder
Choose an online course application that comes with a straightforward built-in editor that's easy to operate and expand. It should be simple for you as the creator to immediately be aware of how your material will appear to your students. It is also important to feel comfortable enough to experiment and explore course tools for continuous improvement as a teacher.
You can utilize the Drag and Drop Course Builder to organize your course into categories, lessons, and topics. The way the Course Builder functions in this video:
A Learning Experience that is Engaging and Fun
The purpose of every class is to effect a change within your learners. Engage your learners and keep them motivated, and a transformation is expected to occur by itself.
You should look for these features that can encourage engagement:
- Video Progression. It is important to ensure that the videos can be viewed easily and not be skipped.
- Gamification. A recently conducted study found that gaming has resulted in 14% better assessment scores. Gaming can be as simple as introducing a points system or giving the award and badges when learners complete a lesson or a set goal.
- Assignments. Assignments at the end of each lesson helps keep students interested by giving them direct feedback and trackable grades.
- Quizzes. The right quiz can give students the opportunity to test their skills and also a method for you to evaluate students' progress and their engagement.
- Analytics. Analytics allow you to determine which students are performing well and which students may require a little more help. This can also lead to improvement in the content of your subsequent courses.
- Discussions. Building community is an integral part of online learning. Forums or a discussion boards will allow learners to share ideas and tips and also congratulate one another for their achievements.
Price Clearness for Creators
Based on the platform used to build courses The cost for building and hosting your course can reduce your profit.
If you're building on the SaaS technology, then it may be simpler to get started with, however it may come at a higher cost. Furthermore, you won't manage your own course, and your course is limited to features offered by the SaaS plan. The self-hosted course creator will have a higher learning curve and is more DIY. In addition, you'll need contemplate your own hosting that could be a further cost. However, you'll have complete control and ownership.
Look for a platform that has a clear pricing policy immediately. Many online course platforms provide various pricing options, based on creators' needs. Look for a fixed monthly or annual fee that doesn't include transactions or commissions. This way once you've gotten a few sales to cover your platform costs and the remainder is yours. You don't have to consistently lose a percentage of sales you increase.
Integration of tools You Already Use
You're likely already using an email autoresponder to communicate with your readers. Or maybe you've become accustomed to tools like Zoom, Slack, Zapier, Convertkit, and others. When you're using tools that are familiar to you this makes it much easier to develop a more complete application.
It's recommended to check out the integrations pages of a course-building platform before making the leap. Be sure that the platform you choose is flexible enough to allow the integration of third-party software tools from the ones you like.
Flexible Payment Options for Your Learners
Having flexible payment options to give learners one-time payments such as installments, subscriptions and installments will increase the amount of sign-ups for courses.
Additionally, having multiple payment gateway options such as PayPal, Stripe, or WooCommerce allows you to be paid using the method of your choice.
You might want to set various pricing plans for your online course. In this case, you might decide to sell your program at a single price, or with monthly payments. In selecting the platform that will manage your online course make sure they have the option of selecting from a range of pricing options to set for your students.
Stay clear of Analysis Paralysis
Try out our course-building tools such as the drag-and-drop course builder, in our course creator demo experience.