Open LMS vs. CYPHER Learning: Which LMS Provides a Superior Elearning Experience?

The key to unlocking eLearning potential lies in selecting the right learning management system (LMS). Institutions need an LMS that's not only secure, but also highly configurable and capable of supporting their unique educational goals. This allows for the creation of tailored learning journeys that truly resonate with each student.

This article dives into the core features of Open LMS and CYPHER Learning, helping you pick the platform that best aligns with your organization's vision for learner engagement and success.

Meet the Contenders!

Open LMS

Open LMS is a leading provider of open-source LMSs built on Moodle™ technology. In conjunction with an extensive partner network, the platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to deliver effective, customized, and engaging eLearning experiences. This includes features covering AI-powered content creation, proctoring, learning analytics, and even advanced ecommerce functions.The platform, along with your course content, is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud architecture. This ensures world-class scalability, guaranteed security, and a near-perfect 99.9% uptime. Additionally, dedicated support by a team of LMS specialists ensures any platform-related issue or inquiry is handled promptly—the average first response time is 50 minutes.

Open LMS caters to diverse learning needs with two distinct versions:

• Open LMS EDU: Designed specifically for academic institutions, empowering schools, colleges, vocational education and training (VET) institutes, and universities to deliver exceptional learning experiences.
• Open LMS WORK: Focused on employee training, targeted at businesses and organizations with existing learning and development (L&D) programs, or those looking to implement one.
  
  

CYPHER Learning

CYPHER Learning is a cloud-based LMS offering content creation tools and learning experience automation. CYPHER Learning’s marketing emphasizes its AI-powered content creation suite, aiming to simplify the process of developing learning materials. While the platform caters to a number of audiences, corporate training is a significant focus area. It provides common LMS features such as learning analytics, third-party integrations, assessment tools, and dedicated support.

Open LMS: Key Product Features

1) Strong AI Authoring Capabilities

Open LMS's open-source architecture empowers you to access specialized functionality by integrating best-of-breed tools from a plug-and-play ecosystem of providers. This flexibility is exemplified by its partnership with Teachermatic, which unlocks versatile AI-powered content creation within Open LMS. This user-friendly app leverages AI to generate a variety of high-quality educational resources, all on one convenient platform.

Simply input the desired topic and Teachermatic will create lesson plans, quizzes, rubrics, and even discussion prompts to get your classroom buzzing. This frees up valuable time for teachers to focus on what matters most: guiding their students and fostering a dynamic learning environment.

Teachermatic offers over 50 AI-assisted generators, including:

• AI lesson plans: Generate in-depth lesson plans tailored to your specific criteria, ensuring a well-rounded educational approach.
• AI multiple-choice quiz maker: Produce various multiple-choice questions to assess any learning objective. Export questions to Open LMS formats or popular platforms like Kahoot! or Quizizz.
• AI rubric generator: Effortlessly create clear grading criteria for assessments, saving you valuable time and effort.
• Class question generator: Spark engaging class discussions with a range of thought-provoking questions that promote active participation.
• Scheme of work generator: Plan your term and year with ease using structured, curriculum-aligned outlines that incorporate best practices.

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2) Optimized Mobile Experience

The Open LMS mobile app, available on Android and iOS devices, empowers learners and instructors to manage their learning and teaching experiences anywhere, anytime. Here's what users can do with the app:

• Access courses
• Complete and submit assignments
• Receive course notifications and messages
• Engage in forum discussions
• Sync their Open LMS calendar with their device's calendar
• View course grades and earned badges on their user profile

Plus, the app allows learners to download content for offline access, empowering them to upskill and reskill on the go. Instructors can also provide feedback, grade assessments, and connect with students with the app, breaking free from traditional classroom limitations.

3) High-Level Customization Capabilities

Because Open LMS is open-source, it benefits from the extensive Moodle™ community. This community, made up of developers, educators, and eLearning enthusiasts from around the world, contributes to a vast collection of plugins and resources. These resources extend the functionality of Open LMS, allowing you to tailor it to your specific needs with a wide variety of customization options. Also, Open LMS provides code review services to guarantee that the integrations you select won't introduce security vulnerabilities or disrupt your current configuration.

On top of that, Open LMS lets you tailor nearly every aspect of the platform's appearance, from logos and colors to fonts, ensuring it seamlessly integrates with your organization's branding. This creates a consistent and cohesive learning experience for users, reflecting your organization's values and goals.

4) Personalized Learning Designer (PLD)

PLD is a tool that works exclusively within the Open LMS platform. It allows instructors to automate elements of their courses, personalizing student learning based on their interactions with the course content. This includes actions such as:

• Notifications for upcoming deadlines and course activities
• Automating assessment feedback
• Tailored training recommendations based on a user's learning history

Overall, PLD allows instructors to take quicker action when remediating or accelerating learning paths based on each student's unique performance.

5)  Enhanced Multi-Tenancy Capabilities

This feature, available in Open LMS WORK, allows organizations to manage separate learning communities on a single platform. Each community, also known as a tenant, can be customized with its own branding, sign-on, courses, forums, regulations, and achievement incentives.

This makes this feature ideal for large organizations or university systems that want to divide their training and learning resources among their various departments, schools, or entities, all within a controlled and organized environment. It also enhances security by ensuring learning groups keep their sensitive data within a separate and secure space. In addition, administrators can share learning and training content with specific tenants without duplicating materials, saving L&D teams time and resources.

Open LMS’s true multi-tenancy capabilities are rigorously tested to ensure that your data remains fully secure. Many other LMS providers use a less sophisticated approach involving different instances that cannot properly sequester data and limit administrator access. This compromises security by facilitating data breaches while also failing to comply with federal regulations.

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6) Advanced Ecommerce Solution

Open LMS offers a built-in ecommerce suite allowing administrators to sell courses, certifications, and more—both individually and as subscriptions. This empowers educational institutions and businesses to boost their revenue directly, without needing costly or complex external solutions.

The suite lets you tailor your offerings with features like limited quiz attempts, site memberships, premium content within free courses, or live event registrations. You can also track user progress after buying a program or certification, and monitor details like purchase and expiry dates—all within a user-friendly platform.

7) Comprehensive Analytics and Reports

Traditional eLearning analytics often fall short. But the partnership between Open LMS and IntelliBoard helps you take your learning data further. It goes beyond basic metrics, capturing a wider range of data points, including crucial learner engagement and retention indicators. This richer data empowers you to make informed decisions and optimize your learning programs strategically.

The Open LMS Reports Engine (ORE) simplifies the data analysis process through its comprehensive reporting capabilities and real-time data visualizations. A wide range of data sources are available, including course completion metrics, enrollment data, cohort information, badge issuance records, learner feedback, and more. This allows for a granular level of detail, ensuring organizations can readily identify the precise data points most relevant to their specific needs.

Moreover, reports and data visualizations can be embedded directly within the dashboard for effortless access. Administrators retain complete control over report visibility, with the option to maintain privacy or selectively share them based on user roles and permissions.

CYPHER Learning: Key Product Features

1) Built-in AI Content Creation Tool

CYPHER offers AI 360, a feature powered by Microsoft Copilot AI that allows users to generate course content. AI 360 can convert existing content like videos or PDFs into courses, complete with quizzes, gamification elements, and competency mapping. In keeping with common eLearning standards, the platform accommodates various course delivery methods, including self-paced, instructor-led, blended, and microlearning. Additionally, CYPHER provides AI Crosscheck, a tool that helps enhance the quality and reliability of the AI-generated output.

2) External Course Platform Integration

As with Open LMS, the platform allows you to integrate course content from platforms such as Coursera, edX, and Go1. This expands your course library and caters to various learning preferences.

3) Multilingual Support

CYPHER automates content creation in over 50 languages. It also translates course messaging, forums, and notifications, facilitating communication between users of different languages.

4) Adaptive Learning

Echoing Open LMS’s PLD functionality, CYPHER offers a feature that personalizes the learning and certification experience for each student. Instructors can create instructional paths with various content formats, from courses and videos to quizzes, that adapt based on student performance. Cypher can also analyze student data and recommend additional resources or activities based on individual progress and goals.

Open LMS: Weaknesses

1) Trading Off Autonomy for Expert Assistance

Choosing Open LMS as your provider means partnering with a specialist team who will co-pilot your learning platform. This takes away some autonomy over minor tweaks, but ensures a helping hand during technical hiccups. While complete control over the system might be appealing, it's highly beneficial to have dedicated software engineers and LMS experts who handle updates, maintain plugins, and protect your sensitive data.

2) External AI Authoring Tool

Unlike CYPHER, which offers a built-in AI content creation tool as part of the base product, Open LMS provides access to AI content creation capabilities through a partner. While this external integration might be a downside for some institutions seeking a built-in solution, if you don’t currently need AI content creation, it'll work out cheaper because you aren't forced to buy the AI capability. Open LMS's other advantages could also outweigh the need for a fully integrated AI authoring tool.

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CYPHER Learning: Weaknesses

1) Lack of Multitenancy

With CYPHER, you can’t create separate learning communities within the same LMS. All of your users will have to use the same portal, meaning everyone has access to the same content regardless of relevance, and the same experience regardless of their specific needs.

2) Limited Mobile Experience for Learners

CYPHER doesn’t offer a mobile app. Therefore, learners on the go will be limited to accessing the platform through their mobile web browser, which can result in a less than optimal learning experience. Additionally, learners won't have access to offline content, meaning they’ll require an internet connection at all times.

3) An Overreliance on AI?

While CYPHER with AI 360 allows for streamlined course creation, it's important to consider the potential limitations of relying too heavily on such features. Even with quality assurance tools like AI Crosscheck, creating complex learning content or achieving specific learning objectives still requires some specialized subject knowledge to achieve the desired outcome.

Thus, when evaluating CYPHER with AI 360, you’ll need to consider your specific content and course requirements to determine if it offers the right balance of automation and control for your needs. AI currently still requires human input, so while AI functionality is undoubtedly beneficial, an LMS still needs strong, non-AI-focused fundamentals.

4) Closed-Source, Limited Flexibility

Using a closed-source LMS like CYPHER hinders your ability to create in-app functionalities, as you depend on the limitations of the company's proprietary technology and its developers. Open-source technology like Moodle™ offers a lot more flexibility, as it can be modified and used by anyone. Further, open-source communities are constantly developing and sharing resources, so you might find pre-existing add-ons that you can download and modify as needed.

When Is Open LMS Not a Good Fit?

Relying on Open LMS might not be the best choice if:

• Having a built-in AI authoring tool is a must for you
• You don’t need a multi-tenancy feature since you manage a single learning community with homogeneous needs
• Your learners won't need to access their learning materials on the go

When Is Cypher Not a Good Fit?

CYPHER learning may not be the ideal solution if:

• You’re a tertiary education institution, as the emphasis on AI-powered authoring may not be relevant because of your complex learning objectives.
• You need a mobile app to provide your students with a seamless learning experience on the go.
• You want to enhance in-app functionality without being restricted by the company’s proprietary technology.
• You want to offer your students the option to learn offline, promoting inclusivity for learners who have difficulty accessing the internet consistently.
• You need to manage multiple learning communities, each with its own configurations, without incurring additional costs for hosting each one.

One Key Takeaway: Choose Open LMS!

Open LMS delivers extensive configuration options and a wide range of features, fueled by the world's largest eLearning community and a passionate team of educators and LMS experts. Here's what you gain by choosing Open LMS:

• A learning platform that seamlessly aligns with your needs, from software configuration to visual branding.
• Multi-tenancy features that can be leveraged for seamless learning management across large institutions, organizations, or extended enterprises.
• A more tailored and empowering eLearning experience made possible by learner path personalization.
• Enhanced strategic decision-making enabled by comprehensive analytics and real-time data visualization tools.
• Access to course materials both online and offline, so learning won't stop even without an internet connection.
• Optional AI authoring tools through our partners.
• Increased revenue with advanced ecommerce capabilities built right in.
• The ability to integrate cutting-edge tools from a plug-and-play ecosystem of providers, or develop your own.
• A solid partnership with a team of LMS experts committed to seeing your program flourish for years to come.
• And more!