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What’s New in Group Registration for LearnDash 3.6.3: Improved Security and User Experience!

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plugin-update-announcement “Keep innovating” It’s something we believe in and something that drives us to make a change. Innovation is a process we follow to improve our offerings for your benefit. And that’s what today’s announcement is about. 🙂 The LearnDash Group Registration plugin has been creating a buzz in the e-learning space for a while now. The possibility to up the course enrollment game and make LearnDash corporate training friendly is part of what the Group Registration plugin offers. As we keep on improving the plugin, we come up with updates that pack a punch, through minimal changes. This new update is pretty big – not only because of the functionality it introduces but also because it meets the two most demanded features YOU told us about!

LearnDash Group Registration v3.6.3

The version 3.6.3 of the LearnDash Group Registration plugin includes two primary features:
  1. Password Reset
  2. Course Listing

#1 Password Reset for Improved Security

learndash-group-registration-reinvite With this new version of the plugin, we’ve introduced a very important feature – one that improves the security of your LearnDash website – the member re-invite feature. What the group member re-invite feature does, is that it provides a group leader the possibility to re-invite a member of the group, forcing the member to reset his/her password. Making sure members keep their password updated leads to a more secure experience, and is a must for corporate training setups. The admin, of course, has the possibility to activate this option for group leaders. And, only those group leaders who have this capability enabled will be able to re-invite group members. A re-invited group member receives an email containing group details, their username, and a reset-password link. The LearnDash admin can customize this email template if needed.

#2 Course Listing for Groups for Improved User Experience

learndash-group-registration-display-courses A good user experience makes every product better; and with the next feature, that’s what you get. A LearnDash Group is associated with a course or list of courses. While the list is known to people purchasing the course(s), and the students who’ve signed up for it, what was missing was a visual association of the linked courses and the group. With the latest version of the plugin, the LearnDash admin has an option to enable the course list view on the group registration page. The admin can select a particular group and then enable this option to allow users on the frontend to view the list of courses associated with the group! A simple change, but quite effective and integral to our efforts to ease user experience. learndash-group-registration

But wait! We aren’t done yet!

This update squashes some bugs related to enrolling students to a course associated with a variable product. And, this version also makes LearnDash Group Registration compatible with the latest versions of LearnDash, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, and the needed integration plugins.

Ready to Update?

This is the easy part. All you have to do is download the latest version of the LearnDash Group Registration plugin and hit update. You should see the new features and have a smooth functioning, best-in-class group management plugin for LearnDash at your disposal. And if you have any trouble or questions, we’re right here if you need us. 🙂 Looking forward to your feedback about this new update! And watch this space for more such plugin news. Until next time, adios!

Ho-hum! Front End Course Creation Gets a Shiny New Update

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front-end-course-creation-update Hello educators, learners, and other enthusiasts! We’re happy to announce the new Front End Course Creation update! We are calling it ‘the update we all needed pressingly’. The 2.1.6 update enables WooCommerce integration with Front End Course Creation! The result is we elevate above our existing limitations like payment constraints.

Up your payments game

The Front End Course Creation, before the update, processed payments through LearnDash. So, payments were possible through PayPal or Stripe only. We recognized the need for a more versatile payment support. The new update fills the vacuum through WooCommerce integration.   WooCommerce integration ensures diversified, popular payment methods. Bank cards, different wallets, and all the latest payment gateways are now accessible. A sigh of relief, right? And there’s more! Apart from adding more payment options, WooCommerce offers a wide range of functionality to sell your courses.

Sell more with WooCommerce!

We all know that WooCommerce— a plugin that powers 28% of the e-commerce sites— is the most customizable e-commerce platform to build your e-store. Basically, WooCommerce offers to sell course(s) as a product. You can even sell a LearnDash courses bundle as a single product. The product integration thus eases the selling process for you. Combined with the extensions available, it considerably enhances your business side. We can’t wait to see you enjoy this! front-end-course-creation-woocommerce-integration What’s more? Power to the course author! The new update offers frontend access of the Commissions panel to the course author or instructor. The Commissions panel comes with WooCommerce integration. Providing course authors access to the Commissions panel is true empowerment! Authors can track the orders and generate commission reports. The whole thing adds transparency to the multi-author ecosystem.  

Valuing Customisation

We’ve made it easy for you to customize Front-end Course Creation by adding action and filter hooks. Now, you don’t have to worry about losing your changes on every update. This update promises smoother translation too. We detected a few translation bugs very early. Our development team responded promptly and fixed the issue. Enjoy the new update and let us know your suggestions. If your license is on the verge of expiry, we think right now is the perfect time to renew the plugin! 🙂

Boom Shakalaka! The Most Awaited e-Learning Theme is HERE

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We’ve got news. We’ve got big news! We’ve got BIG news!……. sounds about right! 😀 We’re thrilled to announce the launch of this super-awesome product that’s got our whole team celebrating – eLumine – a sophisticated LMS theme that redefines learning technology. With its arsenal of new features, eLumine guarantees to ease learning management woes and boost student engagement. Let’s dig in!  

Shedding Light on eLumine

WisdmLabs has always had a special interest in building innovative products for the learning industry. After the success of our very first theme – Pathshala – a new theme was always on the cards; just that, at the time, we did not have much clarity on how it would be. After marathon brainstorming sessions, some key inputs from our LMS speciality team, and a few healthy UX related debates 😉 …. the idea of eLumine surfaced. eLumine was going to be a path-breaking WordPress e-learning theme that would integrate with major LMS plugins. Our focus was to create a conducive learning environment to better the training process and improve student outcomes. Once the design was decided, there was no looking back; we got working! The result? *drum rolls, please* Loaded with unique layouts, sleek interfaces, and support for major WordPress plugins to create a well-rounded education experience – lo and behold – eLumine will exceed your expectations. Here’s a peek at few of the features we’re most excited about:-  

Customized Learning Templates

Unique layouts were always going to be the differentiating factor when it came to eLumine. But ‘different’ was not our focus, learners were. The difference lies in the smaller changes – strategically placed shortcuts to improve navigation, distraction free layouts for improved readability, adjustable sidebars, and more. When coupled with LearnDash, eLumine completely redefines the plugin’s templates.

Remodeled Quiz Layout

The best part however has to be the completely remodeled LearnDash quiz layout, that’s built to make the quizzing experience engaging. As we like to call it, eLumine + LearnDash => Gamification mode ON!

Contemporary Course Purchase Layouts

With support for the leading e-commerce plugin on WordPress – WooCommerce – eLumine offers one-of-a-kind store and product page layouts. The design is uniform, to seamlessly bend the e-store with your learning website.

Social Network Integration

Collaboration, interaction with peers, discussions with instructors are all part of the learning process. Owing to this, we’ve made sure eLumine integrates with leading social networking plugins – BuddyPress and bbPress.  

Performance Optimization

Looking for better performance along with awesome UX? You got it! We’ve made sure to oil out all the squeaky wheels to ensure top operating speed. With lazy loading options and SEO support, eLumine guarantees optimal performance.  

That’s not all…..

Built with the latest Bootstrap framework and Unyson, eLumine offers a depth of features that include
  • customization options,
  • an integrated page builder,
  • one-click backup and restore options,
  • compatibility with major plugins in the e-learning ecosystem,
  • multilingual support and more…..
  You’d have to explore the entire feature list for details. It also goes without saying that eLumine is completely responsive with support for retina displays.  

Over to You

eLumine isn’t just another e-learning theme. It’s a platform to radicalize learning from the ground up. That special ingredient that could be the differentiating factor between you and your competition. This theme is a step in our masterplan to empower you with tools that positively impact the learning process. We’re eager for you try it out! News about the theme is already making rounds. Join us in spreading the word by tweeting about this with #eLumine.

5 Must-Have LearnDash Add-Ons for the New Age Tutor

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learndash-lms LearnDash is a heady mixture of features for the quintessential new age tutor; things like drag and drop page builders, points and certificates for achievements, multiple question types for quizzes, and options for micro-managing the courses make life very easy for the course manager. And if that wasn’t enough, there are the extensions for LearnDash! Ranging from payment gateways to gamification options to event planners, the dozens of third-party add-ons equip the creator with all the tools necessary to build a fantastic course. Here are five such add-ons that add dynamic functionalities to LearnDash, addressing some of the major requirements of every course creator.

The Instructor Role Add-On

You are looking to set up an e-learning website with LearnDash but plan to offload the course creation part to external course authors; however, it is neither feasible nor safe to let multiple users have back-end access to your website. Fortunately, for LearnDash, you don’t need to. The Instructor Role add-on lets you create an ‘Instructor’ user role on the website which lets external authors create, edit, and conduct their own courses independently. They can access all course-related reports at the back end, such as attendance reports, quiz papers and more, but nothing else. ld-instructor-role-overview The add-on lets you add as many authors as you want and charge a percentage commission from each, without having to worry about potential hackers damaging your core website!

Group Registration for LearnDash

Group Registration for LearnDash lets students purchase bulk licenses and enroll as a group for a course. The main purchaser then becomes the Group Leader and is the source of contact for the rest of the members in the group. From a logistical point of view, this is very convenient for tutors, as it essentially reduces the number of students you need to keep track of! ld-group-registration-bulk-purchase As for the Group Leader, he can track the performance of every group member at the front-end, without necessitating back-end access!

Quiz Reporting for LearnDash

The name says it all; the Quiz Reporting add-on for LearnDash lets the tutor export quiz responses as a CSV or Excel file. Reports can be extracted for every student’s every quiz as well as a comparative analysis of every quiz. ld-admin-view-quiz-details This helps the tutor gauge the performance of the student through all quizzes as well as in comparison with his peers!

Ratings, Reviews, and Feedback

Student feedback is an excellent way of making sure that your course is up to the mark and ratings and reviews are useful in displaying the confidence of your students in the course. learndash-ratings-reviews-feedback The best part of the Ratings, Reviews, and Feedback extension is that it restricts students from adding feedback until they have completed a specific chapter or the course. This ensures that only genuine reviews are displayed for your course.

Advanced Course Manager for LearnDash

Creating a course in LearnDash is tedious, if easy. Adding all Lessons/Topics/Quizzes independently and then assigning them to Course takes a lot of traveling back and forth to organize the courses and ends up consuming a lot of time. The Advanced Course Manager adds a Visual Course Builder that lets you see the course hierarchy being redefined in real time. advanced-course-managerIn addition, it also offers advanced options for Student-Teacher interaction, managing enrollments, and a recommendation feature along with the course summary. Each of these five add-ons adds a unique functionality to the core LearnDash plugin, thereby enhancing the tutor’s e-learning experience. But here’s a sweet deal to get you even more interested, all these amazing add-ons are available at a discounted price if you purchase the LearnDash Starter Pack! So hurry up, this deal might end soon! 🙂

7 LearnDash Add-Ons That Make Course Creation Easy

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learndash-lms When it comes to creating educational courses on WordPress, there are few LMS platforms that are as adept at the art as LearnDash. The course creation and management software is packed with a multitude of features that make course writing a breeze, even for complete greenhorns. One of the many things that works for LearnDash is the fact that is designed from a user-first point of view. This makes it easy to navigate for people who are unfamiliar with the world of codes and get intimidated hearing things like hooks, and functions, and filters (*cough* like me *cough*). 😉 The plugin offers a bundle of features that can be leveraged to create a beautiful course; the features it doesn’t manage to incorporate in its core list, it provides for with some pretty neat add-ons. Here we shall discuss the 7 best add-ons for LearnDash (in no particular order) that add a profusion of features to the core plugin and make course creation super easy!

#1 WPAchievements

Gamification has become an integral part of e-learning today, proving to be one of the most successful methods of encouraging student attendance and increasing productivity. LearnDash incorporates gamification features into its courses with the help of WPAchievements, a comprehensive plugin that adds a plethora of badges, ranks, certificates, leaderboards, and quests to the course. The WPAchievements add-on lets you, as the course creator, add a wealth of points and rewards to students based on how much and how well they interact with the course material. For instance, there can be various tiers for earning points as students attempt a quiz, watch a video, hand in assignments, and of course, complete the course. ld-wpachievements The add-on also lets you create where ranks can be assigned to students based on their performance in the course for the week. Not only does this generate satisfaction among students, but witnessing their relative performance to the top-ranked students also spurs the lagging ones to do better work. Nothing like healthy rivalry to improve student productivity, right?!

#2 Content Cloner

As a course administrator, you might have to create similar courses over and over. In such cases, drafting the same course content time and again can quickly become tedious. The Content Cloner add-on lets you duplicate the entire course, including lessons, quizzes, tasks, and more with a single click.
learndash-clone-course-option

Clone Courses in just one click!

The best part is, this functionality can be extended cloning multiple courses at once too, which means you can simply create a skeletal structure of all your course types and keep cloning and modifying them as necessary, over and over!

#3 Visual Customizer

The Visual Customizer add-on is one of the must-haves for LearnDash. Visual Customizer comes equipped with five base design templates, each with its own appeal, that can become the skin for your course. Each of these templates can be further modified, choosing from a color palette of over 20 combinations, that generates a unique feel for every single course! On a more professional note, Visual Customizer can help you more than just to create comfortable courses; it can help you develop your brand in the online education world. Creating a common thread through all your courses can become your education system’s unique identity, whether it is your color scheme, course layout, text structure, or any other feature. Visual Customizer is a Premium add-on, developed by Snap Orbital and available on the LearnDash website.

#4 Front-End Course Creation

One of your biggest concerns as the website administrator is the safety of your core website. While it is true that you implicitly trust the members you are assigning course creation user roles to, extensive user access is nevertheless a potential threat to security. Besides, what if you were approached by a Guest who wants to create a course on your website? You can hardly open your website back-end to a virtual stranger; the risk is too great. LearnDash offsets this hassle by providing the Front-End Course Creation add-on. fcc-learndash-create-course-page Like the name suggests, once this add-on is in place, you can add course creators who can access the website only at the front-end, with zero back-end access. This elegant solution lets course creators leverage all the creative tools available for managing the course, while limiting back-end access only to designated users.

#5 LearnDash Notes

The LearnDash Notes add-on takes your LearnDash course to a completely digital level. The add-on is a great help to your students as it lets them take notes on your lectures throughout the course. These notes can be exported to the student’s device for later, offline study, if necessary. This effectively does away with the pen-and-paper approach and students can focus completely on the lectures, even as they take notes. One could argue that this could be as easily done by using in-built tools like Microsoft Word or OneNote; however, switching between two different interfaces can be really distracting and ultimately affects student retention capacity. The integrated LearnDash Notes approach helps the student stay in the lecture zone, while at the same time making additional notes for individual reference.

#6 GrassBlade

Addition of tin-can courses, i.e. courses where there can be two-way student-teacher interaction in real-time, have been known to increase student attention manifold. The GrassBlade add-on lets you add your Tin-Can courses to LearnDash, or even embed specific tin-can packages into your course lessons. The add-on is available in two different versions, GrassBlade and GrassBlade PRO. The former is free, the latter premium. Integrating tin-can API into your courses can help you measure student responsiveness to the different aspects of your course, the places visited most, the lectures they spent the maximum and the shortest times on, and so forth. It is like an analytical tool for measuring the cognitive investment of your students in the course and hence can be a powerful resource for generating feedback and improving future courses.

#7 Course Grid

The Course Grid add-on is useful from the point of view of the administrator, as well as the end-user. The add-on does exactly what it says, arranges all the courses from your library into a responsive grid, anywhere on your site. Though not strictly a tool for course creation, it does help the registrant get a bird’s eye view of all the courses on your website and filter them by the category they are interested in. ld-course-grid That completes the list of our 7 most useful LearnDash add-ons for course creation. The core LearnDash plugin itself has a plethora of features (some 80 if you see the website), and the rest are provided by such add-ons. What other add-ons or ideas do you think could be useful in making course creation easy? Share them in the comments section below!

LMS.org’s Review of Pathshala Theme for LearnDash

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lms-pathshala-review-main Known as the theme that lets you design beautiful courses on LearnDash without having to dabble in the coding quagmire, Pathshala has the talk of the LMS town ever since the day it was launched. Pathshala is a simple, user-friendly, highly customizable, and aesthetically appealing theme that was designed specifically for LearnDash. LMS.org’s recent detailed review marks the addition of another feather to the cap of this exclusive theme for LearnDash. The website says that “Pathshala helps polish the [learning] experience with a theme that’s both practical and reliable” Read on for a brief glimpse of the review; or you can read the complete review here too!

Highlights of the Review

According to LMS.org,
“Pathshala takes the LearnDash WordPress plugin and makes it even better. The theme is specifically designed for LearnDash and features a simple drag and drop page builder so users can get right to work without learning code. See the pages as you build them and apply custom colors and more. Student feedback, dynamic sidebars, and a responsive design are a few of the many reasons to give Pathshala a try”
A candid and thorough assessment of the theme highlights several of its best features, such as:
  • The Drag and Drop Page Builder
  • Dynamic Layouts
  • Easy Navigation
  • Custom Colour Palette
  • Plugin Compatibility
  • The Contact Page Template
The review goes on to mention how Pathshala can beautify the Course Catalog; it creates pages and adds content using a real-time visual page builder that reflects the changes you make in the display right away. A simple, responsive, elegant theme, Pathshala successfully takes the LearnDash experience to the next level! And this is just the overview. Check out the complete, detailed review here, at the LMS.org website. You can also, alternatively, test out a demo of the theme here, on our website. Already a user? Don’t forget to add your thoughts, ratings, and feedback!

How to Create a University Website with LearnDash and Instructor Role Plugins

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students-university-featureThe fundamental requirement of a university website is to organize and manage content for its various departments and streams. Now, as each department has its own individual courses and content, it can be very difficult to manage them simultaneously.

Course creation for a university website requires a strong LMS platform which can handle different types of content, manage a large number of students, support all the peripherals like quizzes, assignments, multiple question types, provide various hierarchical course structures, control end-user access, enable drip-feed content, and provide for discussion forums for the students enrolled in the course.

Given this long list, it is no wonder that very few learning management systems can be considered here. Of these, LearnDash offers some of the best features one could ask for, for easily creating and managing courses.

LearnDash as the LMS Platform of Choice

LearnDash offers the needed functionality to setup any e-learning website. Out-of-the-box you’ve got:

  • Course Creation: LearnDash allows you to create create hierarchical course content, wherein you can divide courses into lessons and topics. To segregate courses of various departments, you have course categories and tags. With support for multimedia content, you can create varied courses
  • Content Scheduling: With support for drip-feeding content, a course start date and more, you can schedule course access for students
  • Gamification: LearnDash has an in-built quiz module which allows you to test and grade students based on their work. You also have an assignment upload option, and a certificate option upon course or quiz completion

Course Management

After the LMS has been chosen, we move on to addressing the issue of the actual management of courses. LearnDash lets you, as the site admin, create all kinds of courses and conduct them. However, none of the other, in-built user roles have a similar capability, which effectively implies that you yourself must be the one creating and marketing these courses.

This may not always be practically possible, especially considering the sheer number of courses you would have to work on, given that this is a university website, for the various departments, streams, and subjects offered.

Hence, as the admin for the website, there are two ways in which you can handle this situation without letting it get way out of hand,

  1. You offload some of your work by creating other admins who can create and conduct courses on their own.
  2. You create and assign multiple Instructor roles to professors who are to create and conduct their own courses, using the Instructor Role plugin for LearnDash.

Let us discuss both the methods in detail.

In the first method, you are essentially giving equal power to all the other people, to whom you have assigned the ‘Admin’ user role, to make changes to your website. While this can be beneficial from the point of view of dividing the work, there are some serious disadvantages. Have you spotted them yet?

Firstly, you are opening up your core website to dozens of people. Anybody of these can change the layout, add or remove plugins, edit pages, posts, even the other authors’ courses; in other words, they are free to wreak havoc as they see fit. It can result into a classic case of too many cooks, as each will have their own idea as to how the website should ideally look and be structured.

Secondly, giving access to the heart of your website to a large number of people cannot be healthy from a security point of view. Even taking into consideration the fact that you implicitly trust all of your fellow admins, there remains a strong possibility of your site being hacked or attacked by malicious users. Besides, this limits the creation of your courses, as it necessitates the development of trust between you and your author, before you can grant him access to your site.

Thirdly, the addition of multiple admins opens up all your commercial transactions on the website for everyone’s perusal. Needless to say, this can be disastrous at the very least.

Creating Multiple Instructors

To avoid this minefield, it is a better idea to opt for the latter option, i.e., the one where you simply create and assign ‘Instructor’ capabilities to all your course authors, instead of making them administrators, by using the Instructor Role plugin for LearnDash.

The plugin adds an additional user role, i.e the ‘Instructor’ user role to your roster, which can be assigned like the other roles to your professors and teachers who are to be conducting their own courses.

The biggest advantage here is that assigning the Instructor user role significantly limits the author’s capabilities towards interfering with your website. As an instructor, the author can create and manage their courses completely, including quiz creation, assignment management, gamification integration, etc., but they cannot meddle with any other part of the website, without being granted the requisite permission.

This makes redundant all the latter concerns of content and commercial security, as you are not relinquishing the core functionalities of your website to anybody else. More, it gives you the freedom of adding any number of Instructors, as well as guest authors, without having to run them through a screening test!

Another advantage is that the overall control still remains in your hands, as the website administrator, and all your Instructors are answerable for their content, unless you decide otherwise.

The Instructor Role plugin for LearnDash allows the course author to retain his/her creative freedom, without reducing your control over the university website. In addition, you can set up a percentage commission to be drawn from guest Instructors, who wish to conduct their courses on your website.

Endnote

Instructor Role and LearnDash work hand-in-hand with each other to help you create beautiful courses for your university website. As LearnDash is compatible with WordPress multisite too, this functionality can be successfully extended to create courses on multiple websites for all your departments!

Growth Hacking Your LearnDash Site

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Running a LearnDash site single-handedly is not easy!

Along with creating and publishing quality content, you also wear the hats of a course designer, the site admin, a digital marketer and/or occasionally, a salesman. (Hint: That’s several hats too many!)

multitasking

If you’re a descendant of Da Vinci who does all of the above and still has time to catch your favourite show on primetime, hats off to you (all of them). But for most mortals, creating content and managing the traffic along with strategizing growth via marketing is.. well, too much.

Best case scenario when you do it all yourself? You manage to grow your user-base until it hits an upper limit of sorts. The competition catches up to you. From there on, it can be a rough road downhill, and will most likely result in your content quality and web traffic taking a massive hit. Naturally, the same would apply to your revenue. So how do you solve this problem?!

Divide And Conquer

Redistribute the proverbial hats. Assign content creating/publishing responsibilities to your instructors while you focus on marketing strategies and growing your website. And this time around, the growth will be exponential!

Instructor role is an extension that adds the user role of an ‘Instructor’ to your LearnDash site, perfect for when you want to redistribute or outsource content creation and publishing. With an additional user role that’s custom made for Instructors, managing content on your LearnDash site will not just be easy, but also optimized for your target demographic.

ld-instructor-role-overview

How Can You Benefit From Instructor Roles?

The applications are umpteen! Here are some of the ways in which Instructor Role for LearnDash can benefit your website:

  1. Have multiple Instructors create courses for your site simultaneously. More Quality Content + More Traffic = More Revenue
  2. Use it to protect your private settings and sensitive data by limiting Instructor access.
  3. Connect with online instructors to create a Course Marketplace by letting individuals teach on your website and earn commissions.
  4. Large organizations can assign Instructors to a group of learners and create sets of self sustaining ‘batches’, with one Admin overseeing the whole process.
  5. Corporates can let department heads create their own training modules.
  6. Universities can let professors create their own subject matter.

Instructor Role has been highly acclaimed by our users, and LearnDash loves it too. We want to keep the momentum going, and have so much more to offer you in terms of features and functionality!!

Getting down to the technical bits:

  • The Instructor Role plugin works with the latest version of LearnDash and integrates well with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads to pay instructors commissions on course purchases made
  • The instructor can view detailed reports for courses they’ve created. The reports contain shows total number of students enrolled for courses created and course completion status.

Let’s stop here! Explore the product in detail, checkout the features, ask us questions- make course management simple! 🙂

Instructor Role & Group Registrations for LearnDash: Now Compatible with EDD

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It’s raining updates!

Two of our most popular plugins and leading LearnDash extensions – Instructor Role and Group Registration – have undergone major updates.

With their latest versions, the plugins provide support for course sells using Easy Digital Downloads.

LearnDash owners using Easy Digital Downloads can now seamlessly integrate the multiple instructor role or group registration functionality into their LMS.

Good Just Got Better

Out-of-the-box, LearnDash was suitably built for single course administrators.

However, several users were missing out on the multiple instructor functionality – wherein users could sign up as teachers or faculty members and add their own courses.

We built the Instructor role plugin to cater to this very audience. The plugin – although not dependant on WooCommerce – was made compatible with WooCommerce:

  • allowing instructors to set up paid courses in WooCommerce
  • and LMS admins to set instructor commissions on courses purchased through WooCommerce.

With Group Registration, we introduced the option for users to bulk purchase courses and enrol students. This plugin was built as an extension to LearnDash and WooCommerce.

While both these plugins, made life simple for LearnDash LMS owners using WooCommerce, there were several others who were missing out!

Why Easy Digital Downloads?

With over 50,000+ active users, Easy Digital Downloads is a leading e-commerce solution for businesses looking to sell digital products.

For us here at WisdmLabs, an integration with EDD for our LearnDash plugins, was always in the development pipeline. But with several pre-sale inquiries, this functionality got bumped up the list. 🙂

Instructor Role for LearnDash ver. 3.0.0

With version 3.0.0 of the Instructor Role plugin, instructors/teachers can now sell courses through EDD. Instructors commissions will be auto-calculated for courses sold through EDD as well.

Make sure you checkout the plugin’s documentation for details.

ld-instructor-role-edd

But that’s not all. We have a minor improvement for existing Instructor Roles users!

Now, all instructor communication emails to students will contain the instructor’s personal id, instead of the admin id.

Group Registration for LearnDash ver. 2.0.0

The Group Registration extension for LearnDash has been integrated with Easy Digital Downloads in version 2.0.0.

ld-group-registration-edd

Now, LearnDash admins can set up courses in EDD, which can be purchased in bulk using the Group Registration plugin. More on this is available on the plugin’s detailed documentation page.

Next Steps

Well, if you were waiting for this awesome functionality, all you’ve got to do is update the plugins to their latest versions, or purchase them right away! 😀

Spread the word!

How to Set up Live Classes in LearnDash using WizIQ Virtual Classroom

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With the advent of e-learning, there has been a massive surge in the creation and development of learning management systems (LMSs). Supporting a wide spectrum of educational courses that can be conducted online, several robust LMSs offer varied features catering to institutes big and small.

LearnDash is one such powerful, WordPress based learning management system.

An intuitive and straightforward setup with all the necessary functionality and add-ons for more, it helps you design, create and sell beautiful courses online.

Here is a quick overview of the main features of LearnDash.

LearnDash Features

learndash-lms

Course Design

LearnDash allows for the creation of multi-tiered, dynamic courses with different options for content management. Course content can be either released altogether or drip-fed to the students, i.e. the subsequent lesson is displayed only after the first is completed.

Course Management

Course management can be done from your WordPress interface. Advanced quizzing options with 8 different question and answer types can be flexibly added to any given test or assignment which gives you lots of permutations and combinations to work with.

LearnDash also lets you create flexible prerequisites for any given course depending on the kind of course you opt for.

Gamification

Gamification is addition of bonus points, rewards and other perks that make the course engaging. LearnDash lets you add badges and custom certificates for a fun learning experience.

Communication

Users can track their progress record after logging into their accounts. Moreover, LearnDash has inbuilt email features that let you send autoresponders to students to inform them about course updates, after a long absence or recommend other courses they might like.

Course Analysis

LearnDash generates comprehensive reports for student performance, quiz results and student progress. This can be enabled across multisites too.

Marketing Options

LearnDash integrates with WooCommerce to sell courses efficiently. Payment methods include one time deposits or monthly subscriptions. Multiple courses can be purchased simultaneously and LearnDash is shopping cart enabled.

The one feature that LearnDash lacks however is real-time syncing of course lessons. It supports all kinds of video tutorials, external video links and offline linking of videos but does not allow for live audio-video communication.

Recent polls show that online learners keep looking for newer and better features in learning technologies. In the light of students’ desire for more collaborative tools and social interaction on e-learning platforms, lack of live-lessons is a shortcoming in the otherwise excellent LMS.

This is where the WizIQ Virtual Classroom extension comes in.

Bringing the traditional classroom experience online, the WizIQ Virtual Classroom plugin lets you connect to your student audience in real-time with high- quality audio-video lessons, interactive chats, grouped discussions and synergistic whiteboards.

Thus introducing an element of blended learning.

Here is a look at how Virtual Classroom enriches the student learning experience.

WizIQ Virtual Classroom Features

virtual-classroom-feature

Real time audio-video communication

Virtual Classroom lets you add online sessions to your course in a variety of display sizes.

Additionally, it provides for online chats during the lecture so that there is free flow of communication between the tutor and the students. An interactive whiteboard can be used to solve problems, draw diagrams and graphs, just like in an actual classroom.

Group Discussions

Virtual Classroom lets you add students to breakout rooms where separate sub-topics or such can be discussed. You as the moderator have sole control over all conversations and can transfer students as required.

You can jump from conversation to conversation in these breakout rooms, thereby providing a more personalized e-experience.

Varied Courseware

Various types of courseware can be supported by Virtual Classroom. You can upload PDF’s, project videos, broadcast audio recordings and more. Virtual Classroom offers multilingual support in over 19 languages. This helps you get your course localization ready and hence make it more accessible to a wider audience.

Secure Recording

The live lectures conducted can also be recorded and stored for later use. These are protected by periodically expiring URL’s to ensure data safety.

Interactive Polls

Much like a real classroom, students can ask queries during the lesson and vice-versa. This can be further extended to conducting pop quizzes or surveys to gauge student understanding and involvement. Integrations

Besides these, the plugin also lets you communicate with the students via e-mail, for sending course updates, material and reminders.

The catch?

WizIQ cannot be directly integrated with the LearnDash LMS. So how do you incorporate the Virtual Classroom feature into LearnDash and sell the course?

With the LearnDash – WizIQ Virtual Classroom Integration plugin of course! 😀

The LearnDash – WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension integration allows you to manage Virtual Classroom via your LearnDash site and schedule classes for the same. As a synchronization plugin, it lets merge the best features of both these platforms to create a complete course online.

LearnDash – WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension Features

The plugin lets you control all your WizIQ classes via your LearnDash site.

learndash-virtual-classroom-feature

Class Scheduling

Courses created with LearnDash can be scheduled using the WizIQ account and marketed on WordPress. Class scheduling includes deciding the class date, duration and type.

Attendance Tracking

Apart from the regular attendance control options in LearnDash, WizIQ lets you track student attendance according to the entry time, exit time and total duration in the live lesson. It also lets you set a minimum duration to be attended in the lecture for it to be marked as successfully completed.

And so the system comes full circle.

When using the integration plugin, creating a separate WizIQ account is not necessary. It automatically generates a new user account when you first log-in to schedule a class on WizIQ. Also, if you have an existing WizIQ account, the plugin simply integrates the two, without necessitating the creation of a new account.

LearnDash and WizIQ are both paid plugins. The integration plugin is free of cost and can be downloaded here.

Endnote

Integrating two online learning platforms, the LearnDash – WizIQ Extension lets you create your courses on LearnDash, schedule it on WizIQ and display it on your course page, keeping students continuously in the loop.

There is a positive correlation between a well-organized course and student engagement.

LearnDash inherently provides gamification options to make the course engaging. Add to that the interactive real-time lesson functionality provided by WizIQ and the interest level increases exponentially.

Know any other options to come up with an effective learning plan? Let us know in the comments section below!

LearnDash & Virtual Classrooms: It’s Finally Happening!

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WizIQ-LD icon

One reason why LearnDash holds it’s own as a leading LMS extension on WordPress is because of the sheer number of awesome integrations in its kitty.

It could be anything; restricting content via a popular membership plugin like PaidMembershipsPro or scheduling and managing live events for your Course using Event Espresso, LearnDash covers a wide range of subsystems that can be used in sync with the LMS.

And now a Virtual Classroom service!

WisdmLabs is  thrilled to announce yet another kick-ass extension for LearnDash; LearnDash-WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension is now available for purchase download and lets you schedule live classes for your LearnDash Courses and set up a virtual classroom like environment for your learners.

Virtual Classroom for LearnDash Courses

WizIQ is an online education delivery platform, specializing in providing real time collaboration tools for learners in the form of audio-video communications, chat options and a whiteboarding feature, essentially setting up a virtual classroom where all members can interact with each other simultaneously.

With LearnDash-WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension, an instructor can schedule such live sessions for his/her Courses on LearnDash. The plugin also let’s you display all the Classes scheduled and updates their statuses in real time.

LD-WizIQ view-all

Schedule Classes Your Way

LearnDash-WizIQ Extension requires your WizIQ credentials to function; which can be easily generated right from your WordPress backend in case you don’t have them.

Scheduling a class comes with a large number of versatile options, letting you choose a schedule and a format that best suits your needs. Choose an appropriate Start Date, End Date, Class Duration, max no. of attendees and also a recurrence pattern, for classes that are periodic in nature.

LD-WizIQ Add-class

Classes once scheduled aren’t necessarily rigid, cancelling or editing classes can be carried out with relative ease.

And that’s not the end of it..

LearnDash-WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension is coded to send out automated emails to all the learners enrolled in a Course whenever you Add, Edit or Cancel a scheduled class so that they always stay on top of the game.

You can also track attendance of all your virtual classroom sessions with respect to parameters like entry time and exit time of the learner.

All Of This For FREE !!

You read that right! LearnDash-WizIQ Virtual Classroom Extension is available for direct download FREE of charge, take it for a spin and let us know how you like it in the comment section below.

For downloads, user guide and FAQs, click this link right here and say hello to virtual classrooms.

NEW LMS THEME: Pathshala (Designed for LearnDash)

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pathshala-screen

See that image there? That is the first ever WordPress theme designed by WisdmLabs. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

But there’s a story to this exciting development.

e-Learning on WordPress has always been one of WisdmLabs’ strongest fortes.

We handle a large number of customer queries (on a daily basis) that have us helping people with everything from setting up an LMS on their website to integrating it with various sub-systems and even developing additional plugins that extend functionality.

Many of these queries, and I mean many, have a solution that involves tweaking the existing theme so as to fit in the LMS perfectly within the website’s ecosystem. A great instance would be when, say, you need to change the template of your courses or lessons. This happens to be the case often; most online learning portals have their own personalized instructional designs for delivering courses.

But what if the theme on your website is such that it’s built ground up to maximizes the usability of an LMS on WordPress? A theme that’s built solely for the purpose of e-learning?

Pathshala is our answer to two of the most common problems of LMS management on WordPress:

  1. Not every functionality that you need to add would have you shelling out thousands of dollars just because your existing theme isn’t compatible.
  2. It makes more room for you to add even more functionality to your LMS, tens and maybe hundreds of them without your website acting like YouTube streaming on a 256Kbps connection.

Pathshala is currently optimized for LearnDash, but hey if you’d like a similar theme for your website you can just tell us!

In case you’re curious, Pathshala aptly translates to ‘school’ in Hindi.

Paathshala works with LearnDash like fire and crackers. Setting up courses, lessons, quizzes and other content for your website will be easy and can be completed within a matter of minutes. It’s all waiting in their for you.

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And of course, all of the extensions for LearnDash gel in just as well.

Introduced in Pathshala is Course Categories, a new feature for LearnDash users, which conveniently sorts all your courses into categories to improve on the accessibility.  

pathshala-categories

Pathshala is designed around the two best frameworks in the industry: Unyson and Bootstrap, two very good signs of excellent UI/UX. The list of all supported features is extensive, but here’s a quick sneak peek:

  • Built-in SEO Settings
  • One Click Backup/Restore
  • Dynamic Sidebars  
  • User Feedback
  • Responsive
  • M-learning Ready
  • Font Awesome Icons

It integrates flawlessly with BuddyPress and bbPress, so there’s that solution to all your elearner social media and gamification needs. Should you choose monetize things, WooCommerce is exceptionally compatible too!

Oh and for those who take up the layout as an art, Pathshala also provides for Visual Page Builder to tweak and fine-tune the look and the feel as you see fit.

Head to the theme page for more details, queries and the pricing. Better yet, take Pathshala for a test drive! Time to go to school folks!

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