The past few years have witnessed significant growth in the eLearning industry. Key factors powering this growth include easy accessibility to the internet, a rise in smartphone consumption, and a need for education through convenience. The pandemic also played a vital role in this growth. With schools and colleges undergoing a complete shutdown, resorting to eLearning was the only alternative available. However, the convenience of gaining education at leisure still spurs its growth today despite schools, colleges, and other institutions starting traditional classes. Consequently, along with the popularity of online learning, new opportunities in eLearning software development are opening up for software development companies.
eLearning Features A Software Development Company Must Integrate
By facilitating learning without boundaries, eLearning has changed how learning was previously perceived. As architects of this new educational paradigm, custom software development companies in the USA help whet intellectual appetite with their eLearning software solutions. These solutions have become immense repositories of diverse information, rapidly changing the pursuit of learning across industries, subjects, and audiences.
But to cater to such vast global intellectual, functional, and security requirements, the developed eLearning solution must integrate certain essential functional and technical capabilities. Also, to choose the right tech stack, a custom software development company must understand the characteristics and features that define the usability of eLearning software. Let us parse through the different functional requirements of eLearning before looking into the factors that influence tech stack choice.
- User access management & authentication
Access management helps determine who can access the eLearning platform, the level of access individual users must have, and the resources they can access. User management and authentication are primary requisites of eLearning software. It helps improve software security by restricting confidential data access to users who can authenticate their identity using unique credentials like user names and passwords.
- Reporting & Analytics
Integrating reporting and analytics tools helps businesses understand and categorize learners, optimize offered content, measure its impact, and improve eLearning software outcomes. Hence, a software development company must integrate tools within an eLearning software technology stack to help track, report, and analyze data. Insights from the generated matrix-based data reports can help businesses understand learner proficiency and satisfaction, track learner progress, judge course engagement levels, predict learner behavior, etc.
- Integrations & Interoperability
eLearning solutions comprise varied eLearning management systems, eLearning portals, platforms, and other external tools. Integrating interoperability tools during eLearning software development makes information sharing between the different eLearning applications secure and standardized.
- Accessibility & Usability
Various people with different physical and cognitive abilities, diverse needs, and learning preferences handle the eLearning software. Improving its interactive user interface, navigational features, etc., will help improve its accessibility, making it more inclusive. Some ways by which a software development company in NYC can ensure this include providing auditory and visual alternatives, using simple, clear, and concise language, improving color and font size, and assistive technology compatibility.
- Security & privacy
An eLearning software aggregates data from various touchpoints. The data collected also varies in its sensitivity. Data security is crucial for an eLearning system. Implementing stringent data security and privacy measures benefits businesses in more ways than just sensitive data protection. They also help maintain user trust, and prevent fraud and cheating during financial transactions while ensuring compliance with the required data protection regulations and laws like the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation. Some effective techniques used by a software development company to enable enhanced security and privacy of their eLearning software include data encryption, data anonymization, etc.
- Gamification
Game-based learning is steadily gaining popularity as a useful driver for generating emotional motivation among learners. By incorporating game-based elements like quizzes, puzzles, rewards, points, and badges, a software development company in New York can empower its eLearning software to engage and motivate online learners.
The functional requirements of eLearning software are not restricted to the ones mentioned above. Instead, these are the critical components that have to be present. To thrive in a competitive landscape, eLearning software developers must add other relevant capabilities like automated communication, learning models, assessments, etc. The more convenient the software is for the users, the better will be its usability.
How A Software Development Company Chooses eLearning Tech Stack
A tech stack is a combination of technologies that help take eLearning software development to its maturity. Hence when forming a tech stack exploring all possible advantages, peculiarities, and differences between the different technologies is mandatory.
To make an informed choice, a software development company must strategize a harmonious synergy of frontend and backend technologies. This can be achieved by:
- Tailoring tech stacks to suit eLearning project needs
Aligning the tech stack choice with the exclusive requirements of the project is a smart move. All eLearning software development projects must be initiated by analyzing the features and functionalities that need to be integrated. The complexity of the project and the user load requirements also significantly impact the tech stack choice.
The scalability of the tech stack defines the performance of the developed eLearning software in the future. Hence, this is another pivotal point that a software development company in NYC must consider.
- Crafting experiences through backend and frontend technology synergy
Complete compatibility between the frontend and backend technologies of a tech stack helps create seamless experiences. Since frontend technologies cater to user experiences, selecting those frameworks that can build user-centric, visually appealing, responsive, and interactive interfaces is a smart move. The backend frameworks selected must be capable of managing huge amounts of data. Further choosing reliable database and server technologies will empower the eLearning software with scalable data processing and storage.
A software development company can elevate e-learning software performance without compromising on its cost-effectiveness by choosing complementary frontend and backend technologies.
- Prioritizing security to prevent financial and reputational loss
Elearning platforms need to enable financial transactions. These transactions warrant providing sensitive personal information which has to be stored securely. Integrating robust security measures is not only necessary, it is non-negotiable. Hence, tech stacks with a reputation for offering strong authentication and encryption mechanisms must be favored. Further, the availability of regular security updates for all tech stack components like libraries, frameworks, and tools is another important requirement.
- Making smart choices to stay within client budget
Tech stacks differ in both cost and the resources required. While some tech stacks might be relatively more expensive, others might be more resource-intensive. Still, others might be inexpensive yet simple to use. The client’s budget, thus, plays an important role in the choice of a tech stack.
- Community support and excellent knowledge sharing
As the best software development company in the USA, it is important to select tech stack components backed by abundant online resources like active and knowledgeable community support. When faced with a complex challenge during the development of an eLearning project, this community support will help find a quick resolution. Updates and best practices for such tech stacks are also readily available.
Tech stack components used by an eLearning software development company
All eLearning projects can be classified into three sections based on their complexities, budget, development time and capabilities to be integrated. For simple projects simple tech stacks are preferable, mid-sized projects can be deployed using complex tech stacks but large-sized projects require the selection of a high-level tech stack.
Some of the technologies generally used to build an eLearning tech stack include:
- Popular programming Languages include Python, Ruby, JavaScript, PHP, and Java.
- Frontend frameworks include ReactJS, Angular, Vue.js, Ember.js
- Backend frameworks include Laravel, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, Django
- Database management systems like MySQL, MongoDB, SQL Server
- Hosting requirements are met by using the AWS or Amazon web services or Google Cloud
Conclusion
Tailoring software to meet individual, organizational, and community learning needs requires precision and planning. Building the right technological foundation for an eLearning solution is pivotal to its growth and stability. Making a wrong tech stack choice can have debilitating consequences. Hence, choosing the right tech stack wisely matters immensely for a software development company!
