Online learning platforms have gained substantial popularity due to the increased reliance on remote education. To get the best out of your time & money it is mandatory to select the best online course platforms.
In this article, we will elaborate on the best e-learning platforms and their key features. The online learning platforms equip educators and academic institutes with the resource and tools for creating intuitive online courses. Your needs may be varying. Some may require frequent usage of online video courses. Others may need only hosting and selling online courses, whereas some prefer interactive courses. Therefore it is essential to review each of the online training platforms and judge the best usage for your business.
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Content Index
- How to select the best online course platform?
- How to design an online course?
- Best online course platforms
Best Online Course Platforms 2020
- Thinkific
- LearnWorlds
- Teachable
- Podia
- Click4Course
- Kajabi
- LearnDash
- Ruzuku
- Academy of Mine
- WizIQ
- SkillShare
- Udemy
- TalentLMS
- Udacity
- Alison
- OpenSesame
- Digital Chalk
- PathWright
- Zippy Courses
- AccessAlly
How to select the best online course platform?
- Provision to conduct quizzes, polls, questions and answers, games and projects
- Accessible from various online and mobile devices like desktops, laptops, tablets, mobiles
- Features enabling interaction and collaboration among the students like instant messaging, chats, sharing of documents
- Support of various content types like PowerPoint presentations, word documents, excel sheets
- Ability to impart instructions via videos, webinars, streaming, simulations
The above features are the key ones that you should look for in the online training platforms for crafting a robust learning management system.
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How to design an online course?
Before proceeding into the list of best online course platforms, let us understand the steps for creating an education platform:
1. Firm the objective of the course
Students and learners primarily focus on understanding the learning objectives before registering for a course. Hence it is essential to state the purpose concisely and clearly without any discrepancies. It also helps the learners to judge the outcome and the benefits. While setting up the objectives, you must not ignore the fact that online courses are meant to fast pace the learning.
2. User-Friendly Interface
The education platform must be user-friendly, easily accessible, and navigation convenient. It is the best way to gain the interest of students and learners. Searching for the courses, duration, and mode of learning must be available easily on the UI for the participants. Registering for the courses need to be self-guided with proper instructions and explanations.
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3. Planning and Organizing
This is a crucial step in designing online courses. Since the classes are attended virtually in remote locations, the content must be precise yet containing the required logic and facts. Providing inline videos and hyperlinks is an effective method to engage the students. Use cases and real-life examples are preferable options to attract participants.
4. Enable self-guided and learner-enabled training
Learners avail online courses as per their convenient time and duration. Many prefer self-guided learnings at weekends or out of office hours. Therefore it is essential to provide different learning modes and methods.
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5. Interactive content
Interaction between participants is the critical success criteria for an online course. You must ensure the contents are supported with images, gamification, quizzes, and audio. The students gain interest and turn out to be effective in knowledge enhancement.
6. Assessments
Assessments and exit tests are important to judge the progress of the students and learners. The feedback helps to understand the strengths and weaknesses for further enhancements. You can design questions, quizzes, and tests and provide evaluation scores.
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7. Certifications
The majority of the learners prefer attaining certifications after completing a learning course or program. If you can provide the same through your platform for online classes, then you can invite more registrations from the students. It is good to build up a partnership or affiliation with any recognized university or institute or education board. Authentication will provide the students with additional confidence in the courses.
The Best Online Course Platforms
1. Thinkific
Considered as one of the best e-learning platforms. It is quite popular when it comes to creating and selling online courses. Its key features include:
- User-friendly front end interface for easy navigation and usage
- Tools and resources for selling content via email marketing
- Provision to provide certifications
- Supports creation of unlimited courses and training programs
- Ability to create different pricing plans and educational packages
- Embedded Templates for selecting and designing the course content and assessments
- Integration with almost more than 1500 apps for email, payment, campaigns and many more
- Easy to send marketing brochures and social media notifications
- You can either opt for a free trial or register in their monthly plan
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2. LearnWorlds
Very popular as one of the most interactive and best online education platforms. It provides all the facilities to create, sell and promote online learning courses. Its key features include:
- Drag and drop facility to create course content templates with ease and comfort
- Embedded e-commerce platform for selling online courses to prospect learners
- Integrated marketing tools for reaching to the targeted audience
- Provides course building academy and facilities to conduct live virtual classes
- Ability to attach videos, online assessments, documents, ebooks, accessible to students during the course programs
- Free trial provision coupled with a monthly pricing package
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3. Teachable
Teachable is considered as one of the best online course platforms, similar to Thinkable. It offers the best marketing facilities for selling and promoting your online courses. Its key features include:
- Ability to customize your website through their repository of designs, templates and themes
- Provision for granting certifications to the participants
- Facilities to conduct quizzes and assessments
When it comes to comparison Thinkific vs Teachable, one is strong at design and themes while others have robust features for marketing and campaigns, respectively. Both consist of robust resources and tools for creating online learning courses. There might be slightest differences in the features. It is advisable to perform a comparison of Thinkific vs Teachable before deciding on the right platform for your business.
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4. Podia
One of the best online course platforms, providing easy usage facilities and assisting in for a well-designed course structure. Its key features enlisted below:
- An excellent user interface, with provision for customizations as per your preference
- Provision for placing your sales widgets on your web page
- Facilities to add membership and also coupons for added discounts and benefits
- Easy to access and search learning courses
- Integrated with various social media platforms and other marketing tools for campaigns
- They offer a free trial and a monthly plan too
5. Click4Course
One of the new and best online course platforms competing with market leaders. It offers similar interesting features and has gained quite popularity among the learners. Some of its key features include:
- Facilities to create unlimited courses under multiple categories
- Supports different types of learning modes like audio, video, PowerPoint presentations, etc
- Provision to conduct surveys and tests
- Ability to create certificates for the respective courses
- Generating analytics and reports on the course performance and learners’ progress
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6. Kajabi
Considered as one of the robust and best online course platforms. Compared to other platforms, its pricing is a bit higher, but its facilities are amazing. It has earned the trust of millions of online businesses and educationists. The key features are:
- Easy to use templates for course design
- Embedded pricing, membership and subscription facilities
- Integrated with the social media and marketing platforms for the promotion
- Convenient e-commerce platform for selling your online courses
- Provide real-time insights, analytics, and reports on your performance
- Accessible in all mobile and smart devices
7. LearnDash
One of the best-integrated platforms for online courses. Its fully integrated with WordPress and is considered to be very reliable and secure. Its key features:
- Special drip-feed content allowing automatically delivering the desired content as per the pre-defined schedule
- Easy selling of courses based on the selected pricing model
- Provision for certificates and badges
- Facilities for interactions with students through chats, instant messages, surveys, feedback, quizzes
- Provides forums to the members for discussions and consultations
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8. Ruzuku
Easy to use online course software and platform. Instructors and teachers are preferring it due to the convenience and comfort it offers in designing the courses. Its key features are enlisted below:
- Facilities for configuring subscriptions, and coupons
- Easy access to unlimited courses
- Capability to embed streaming facilities, videos, audio in the content
- Ability to use powerpoints, images, PDF and word documents for the course materials
- Students can create their profiles as part of their membership programs
- Dashboards and reports providing learners’ progress
- Marketing tools and resources provided for promotion
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9. Academy of Mine
It is considered one of the best online course platforms when it comes to personalizing the learning programs. Medium and small education businesses mainly prefer to leverage this platform. The key features are:
- Robust analytics and dashboards for tracking performance
- Effective marketing tools and resources for promotion
- Accessible in all mobile and smart devices
- Serves multiple industrial sectors for their learning management
- Provision for live virtual classes, webinars, self-paced learning
10. WizIQ
They are pioneers in providing facilities for live virtual classes and online video courses. Its key features are:
- Customized creation of virtual classrooms
- Provision for online course creations
- Facilities to conduct tests and assessments
- Embedded e-commerce platform for selling online courses and learning programs
- Analytics and dashboards for real-time performance and progress insights
- Creative learning templates and themes for course design
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Their main objective is to build up a professional environment in the learning world with creativity. Its key features are enlisted below:
- Unlimited online courses on various categories
- Forums for students to discuss and deliberate
- Course planning and organizing is easy and convenient
- Feedback and assessment of the learners’ progress can be shared easily
- Facility to select courses revolving around the latest trending technologies and subjects
12. Udemy
Udemy is one of the most popular and best online course platforms. With its huge number of instructors, students, and online courses, it dominates the marketplace. Its key features include:
- Creating videos with multiple lectures
- Easy promotion of the online courses and learning programs
- Provision for marketing through emails and campaigns
- Facility to create unlimited courses under a wide array of categories
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13. TalentLMS
A cloud-based online course software and platform. It is easy to use and does not require any high-end technical skills. Some of its key features are:
- Facility to conduct webinars, online courses, and training programs with ease
- Ability to post quizzes, surveys, and feedback
- Provision for granting certifications to the participants
- Provides capability for interactive content creation through images, infographics, video and audio facilities
- Integrated with various marketing tools for promotion and campaigns
14. Udacity
If your motive is to create technology courses, then Udacity is the best platform for you. It has a rich category to select from like Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Autonomous systems, and many more. Its key features are:
- Guarantees creation of certificates for the learners
- Surveys and feedback mechanisms were provided for collecting comments from the students
- Templates, themes, and categories were provided to design the online courses
- Equipped facilities for virtual classes as well as self-paced learning
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15. Alison
Alison is a free and easy-to-use online course platform. The courses are offered under various categories like Health, IT, Science, Humanities, Marketing, and many more. The key features are enlisted below:
- Supports multiple languages like English, Italian, Spanish, French
- Easily accessible from any region in the world
- Provision to create courses for certifications, diploma,s and various other learning paths
- Facility to conduct courses for specific jobs or to enhance career skills
16. OpenSesame
Suited for Corporates and considered one of the best online course platforms. It supports multiple courses, categorized under various heads. Its key features are:
- Facility to conduct webinars, presenting white papers, ebooks and case studies
- Courses are offered based on industry, product, role or by regions
- Provision for a free trial followed by monthly subscriptions
- Provides instant messaging and chat facilities
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17. Digital Chalk
It provides a unique feature by supporting the SCORM model. The full form being the Shareable Content Object Reference Model. You can create your online courses offline and then import them into the platform. The other features include:
- Offers various formats for designing your online courses
- Provision for conducting instructor based training, online virtual classes or self-paced learning
- Create your brand with logos and images for marketing and promotion
- Ability to track the progress of students
- Real-time insights into performance through analytics and dashboards
18. PathWright
It is one of the best online course platforms when it comes to distance learning. It has a huge database of instructors, learners, and courses. Its key features are:
- Superb design templates and themes to select for designing online courses
- Provision to embed case studies and real-life examples into your course content
- Use interactive modes for content in the form of video, audio, etc
- Facilities for surveys, feedback, question and answers and discussion forums
- Free trials followed by various monthly plans to choose from
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19. Zippy Courses
A good to use platform for selling online courses. Its key facilities and features are enlisted below:
- Drag and drop facilities for creating a well-designed content
- Set pricing plans for the courses as per your preference
- Provision to modify the enrollment dates
- You can schedule the release of your content
- Email notification facilities for sending across to students as reminders
20. AccessAlly
The platform is well integrated with WordPress. It provides all the features to facilitate the selling of online courses with ease and convenience. The key features are :
- Provision to create high-end course material and content with embedded video, images, audio and infographics
- Create pricing plans and memberships for the online courses easily
- Provision for offering group licenses or enrolling into bulk courses
- Tracks the progress of the students through dashboards and analytics
- Helps in creating affiliate dashboards and commission structures
- Facilities for robust marketing tools and resources for promotion
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Once you have selected the online course platform, you must register and start designing your courses as part of the free trial programs. Once you are comfortable with the tools and software and satisfied with the performance, you can try the monthly plans.
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