From covid pandemic the educational sector has raised a demand for the online educational system. The educational system has been moved to a web based learning platform. Learning management system helps in maintaining a centralized content, offers ease of reporting & tracking, eliminates the cost of printing the study materials, easily tracks the progress of the students, and is a single source of content.

The main advantage of developing a learning management system is that it organizes the online learning system in a location, provides unlimited access, reduces learning and development cost, reduces the learning and development time, proper compliance regulations, quick & convenient, social learning experience.

To develop a learning management system from the scratch we have worked on for the below main features Content support system, Flexible e learning management, Assessment and skill tracking, Reporting & Analytics, Social elearning.

If you have decided to build an LMS from scratch here are the steps

Develop the LMS Project plan
Choose the best features for LMS
Choose the right technology
Create specification and design
Develop MVP development
Test and launch a pilot version
Perform final implementation

Step 1: Develop the LMS Project plan

To start the learning management system from scratch, first develop the LMS project plan. Research and plan the purpose of the LMS and how you are going to develop.

Collect all necessary information and analyze your goals, vision and mission. Develop a marketing analysis to make it a profitable business. Do a competitor research analysis. Plan for the scope of work in which business model and requirement you are going to implement. Plan for an architectural design. Plan for the detailed project timeline and prototype. Plan and work on estimated cost.

Step 2: Choose the best features for LMS

To create an Learning management system there should be simple features that can be listed in the LMS. Without it, LMS won’t be good. Lets see the major features that we can add in LMS.

User Permission
User Management
Data reports
Knowledge Assessment
Notifications
Centralized materials for learning
Course management

Additional features can be

Offline Learning tracker
Compliance checker
Smart scheduling
Gamification
White labeling etc

Step 3: Choose the right technology

Choosing the right technology stack will be safe to run LMS, fast and secure. A learning management system development involves technologies like Front-end, back-end, database and hosting.

To build LMS back-end we can use the most popular frameworks like Django, Rails, Node.js, and others. Frontend refers to that user can interact with the product. The popular framework that can be used is Vue.js or react.js.

Learning management systems will be connected to the relational databases like PostgreSQL or mysql. They are fast, reliable, and compliant. Digital ocean is a fast and secure hosting service, other than that Amazon web services are the best for their pricing, security, productivity.

Step 4: Create specification and design:

The first impression is created by the design that you use in the LMS. Good, effective designs are important so that users will be happy using it.

Step 5: Develop minimum viable product

MVP is the version that your product with basic features is meeting the customers expectations. MVP collects the feedback at the early stage of the development. When MVP is ready you can proceed to launch the beta version.

Step 6: Test and Launch a pilot version :

Launching a pilot version is to identify the possible errors in the system and functionality.

Step 7 : Final implementation

Lets see the useful tips to survive on implementation process:

Collect the feedback from the users
Use strategic plan
Develop marketing strategy
Request for developer support when required

Hope these steps are helpful. These are the main points that will help you to develop the learning management system from scratch.

How to develop a learning management system from scratch