What is a Learning Management System (LMS) ?
A learning management system (LMS) comes equipped with all the features and functionalities you need to run online courses — from building the course, keeping students engaged with quizzes and surveys, motivating students by awarding achievement badges and issuing a certificate upon course completion.
You can use a Content Management System (like WordPress), with a powerful membership plugin (like DAP) and a course management plugin (like WPCourseware, Learndash etc) to build a very powerful online learning platform.
Different Course Delivery Models
Evergreen Model
All lessons are released right after payment. But too much information can overwhelm the students. It might to harder to get them to take action and actually complete the course because they know that the content is always available.
Day-Based Drip Model
Module/Lessons are released to students per a fixed schedule. For e.g. Module 1 can be accessed on day 1, Module 2 becomes available after 7 days... You can decide the drip schedule based on the payment plan, complexity of each module, student feedback etc. If you want to offer your course throughout the year where students can join anytime during the year, and the drip schedule is relative to their start date, you can use this model.
Date-Based Drip Model
If you want to run your training program / online course only certain number of times in a year, you can use date-based dripping. In this delivery method, all students begin the course on the same date. This is great if you want to create urgency/scarcity and get students to decide (and take action) quickly or say you have a live training where it makes sense for all students to work toegther (classroom style) and start/finish at the same time. This will allow students to work in sync completing discussion, quizzes and homework together.
Conditional Drip Model
Students can learn at their own pace. Students can unlock the next lesson when they complete the previous lesson.
Combination Model
Say you want to drip release each module, but want to allow your students to unlock lessons within each module instantly when they get access to the module. A combination of Drip + Conditional model. But when you use this model, you'll have to clearly communicate the course release schedule with your students so there is no confusion.
DAP integration with WordPress Learning Management Plugins (WP Courseware, Learndash etc)
Currently DAP integrates with all WordPress based Learning Managed Systems (for ex - WP Courseware, Learndash etc) the exact same way.
Here's how the integration works:
- Set up your course content in the LMS of your choice.
- Protect the course content in DAP. This way only users that have purchased the course can access the course content.
Please NOTE:
When you create your course content in the LMS plugin of your choice, it's set up as a "custom" post in WordPress. The custom posts do not appear in the 'available content' area in DAP Products Page => Content Responder tab.
To protect your course content in DAP, just enter the FULL URL of the post that you want to protect in the "Protect a URL" textbox in DAP products page => Content Responder tab.
- You can sell your course using any shopping cart platform that integrates with DAP.
- Configure DAP to sync all registered users to WP.
- When the users complete a purchase, they are added to DAP first. DAP syncs the users to WordPress.
- All registered members are automatically enrolled in the course but only students that have purchased the course can access it because the course content is protected in DAP.
- When the users complete a purchase, they are added to DAP first. DAP syncs the users to WordPress.
- All registered members are automatically enrolled in the course but only students that have purchased the course can access it because the course content is protected in DAP.
- You can configure your course plugin to only allow students to proceed to the next lesson only after they have completed the previous lesson.
- You can drip your modules/lessons in DAP so the users can only get to the next module based on a set schedule. You can decide on the drip setting based on course complexity, student feedback etc.
- You can set up your course to start on a specific date for all enrolled students with everyone working together (classroom style with live training etc) or your course can be evergreen where students can enroll and start their lessons anytime, and the course content will be dripped out relative to their start date. You can setup the date or day-based drip schedule for your courses in DAP.
Which Course Models does DAP support?
DAP supports all course models.
You will have to use DAP + a Learning Management Software like WP Courseware or Learndash for Conditional or Combination delivery model.
There are so many great LMS plugins. Which LMS plugin should I use?
It really depends on your specific needs. Most of the WordPress LMS plugins like WP Courseware, Learndash, Sensei, LifterLMS etc are all great options. Pick the one that meets all or most of your needs.
As a side note, I'm launching my own course on Membership Sites in November 2016, and I plan on using WP Courseware and DAP to create , manage, protect, sell and deliver my course.
You can join my free, private Facebook group for the latest updates on my upcoming course.
Granular Control based on Membership Level
If you offer multiple courses through your membership site and want more granular control over enrollment i.e. you want to disable automatic enrollment and only enroll students into a course after they purchase that specific course/level in DAP, then it's not currently possible. However, we're hoping to update our WPCourseware and Learndash integrations to allow more granular control. More to come soon...
Custom Post Types
You'll have to copy&paste the lesson/module URLs in DAP ContentResponder tab to protect it. It won't show up in the DAP "Available Content" area automatically because course content is set up as 'custom' posts in WordPress and DAP does not list custom post types in the available content area currently.
Questions/Comments?
Are you using a learning management system currently? What LMS are you using? Have you integrated it with DAP?
We would love to hear from you :). Please leave us a comment below.