The Top 6 Self-Hosted Learning & Teaching Softwares
Introduction
Technology plays a central role in our ability to learn and transmit knowledge. In this peculiar era where knowledge is abundant but often lacks structure, technology plays a crucial role in shaping the way we teach and process information.
As a matter of fact, the e-learning market is expected to have a sustained 9.1% yearly growth rate by 2026. Such rate will lead to a US market cap estimated at $687 Billions by 2030.
In terms of efficiency, e-learning increases the student retention rate by a stunning 60%. With such perspectives and competitive edge over traditional teaching formats, technology will keep playing an important part the way we assimilate knowledge and even more so with the rise of AI (Large Language Model). The stakes to learn efficiently are increased. A new trend to learn is likely to rise where a skillset will prevails over raw knowledges. In which case interactivity, sustained attention and adaptive exercise through technology and even AI will play a prominent role in the forming new society.
As a web hosting company, HostStage plays a foundational role in helping students, teachers and online courses businesses throughout world wide after self-hosted solutions. Also, as a general rule, we also strongly believe in the importance of an equitable access to knowledge that the technologies condone.
As a result we take a great pride to join yearly the Digital Learning Day initiative.
Throughout this article we will explore some technical possibilities you have at your disposal along with their stakes and commodities. We will make an horizon tour of what the LMS market has to offer to you and your organization or business.
A LMS, or Learning Management System, is a software application that provides the framework to handle all aspects of the learning process. It’s essentially a platform for online learning, enabling the management of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs. The system allows instructors to create and deliver content, monitor student participation, and assess student performance. It also offers students a way to receive and interact with the content, take assessments, and track their own progress.
The Benefits Of Self-Hosted LMS over SaaS
A LMS comes in two flavors – Self-Hosted or SaaS (Software as a Service). Self-Hosted means you have a virtual access to all the files of your solutions. Whereas a SaaS, the hosting and its features isn’t in your control. SaaS often rhymes with a cost control issue where an entity would hit some limits you would need to improve the learning experience but not necessarily at a price you would allocate on a launch for example.
On the other hand with a self-hosted platform, you have access to all the features and scale when the platform usage and dependences justifies it through computing power requirement which are generally cost efficient. The computing power means a web hosting package, (shared) or VPS (virtual private solutions) or dedicated servers. All 3 types come with a predictable cost.
Also, SaaS may opt for a pay per user fee which could become consequent in place of the scalable computing power a web hosting would provide.
There are many benefits to a Self-Hosted Solutions, here are some of them:
Infinite Customizations
More narrowly, we will explore below many of the self-hosted LMS solutions. These solutions come with a full panel of customizations options. Whether planned by the solution you are using or the associated community in some cases or even through plugins.
Also, according to the skillset, you or your organization may have you may also develop your own tweaks for your E Learning platform which is impossible to request out of a SAAS solutions.
Independence and Data Privacy
With a self-hosted solution, you completely own the data with a full control over it. It comes with its own set of benefits such as controlled updates, legal restrictions according to your originating country or audience, or even applying a privacy policy inherited from your own organization.
With such control, you may apply your own compliance standards, backup solutions tailored for your policies and risk tolerance.
Try and Fail for almost free
This is another huge merit of the self-hosted route and not the least. While online solutions often provide limited trial, there are certain restrictions in terms of time frame or features which could affect the trial experience.
A Self-Hosted Solutions allows you to try for as long as you need. You may even try all the introduced solutions below at once. All you need is a web hosting account. With HostStage, such account would allow you to try several hosting solutions at once which is highly beneficial to choose the one that would fit best your needs. It would also come with the ease of a few clicks to deploy them and the reassurance of a true support to assist you throughout the technical installation.
A 360 Tour Of The Self-Hosted LMS Solutions
Moodle
Moodle LMS is the go-to open-source platform for anyone looking to set up a learning environment that’s all about collaboration and making teaching and learning a breeze.
With over 2000 plugins to extend its default feature sets, it offers as a self-hosted solutions with a high level of out of the box customization. You may tweak the learning experiences as per your needs. It confers a wide flexibility in its use cases.
It has a rich documentation and an highly active community:
https://docs.moodle.org/403/en/Main_page
Chamilo
Chamilo is a great alternative to Moodle. It is a versatile and complete e learning solutions which features (not limited to) the following :
– Courses Creation and Management
– Adaptive Assessment
– Embed and Private Social Network
– Mobile Learning
– Skills Management
They have a rather active community and is also open source. You may find more details directly on their website at: https://chamilo.org/
Gibbon
Gibbon is an open-source, cost-free software solution designed with flexibility in mind, offering schools total autonomy and control. It integrates student data, providing educators with the tools to comprehend, communicate with, locate, and assist their students effectively. Gibbon streamlines considerably the educational process. It enables teachers to organize, instruct, gather, evaluate, and provide feedback on assignments through a singular, efficient workflow. Developed by educators, it targets the resolution of challenges universally faced by educational institutions with a user Friendly interface.
Here is an overview of the features it provides:
https://gibbonedu.org/features/
RosarioSIS
RosarioSIS is a free and open-source Student Information System (SIS), also referred to as a School Management System (SMS) or School ERP.
It consolidates student demographics, academic grades, class schedules, attendance records, billing, disciplinary actions, and food service management into a single web-based application. While primarily tailored for K-12 schools, RosarioSIS is versatile enough to serve any educational establishment, including colleges, universities, academies, or institutes.
Here is an exchaustive presentation of the solutions:
https://www.rosariosis.org/RosarioSIS_presentation/#/RosarioSIS
Forma LMS
Forma LMS is an italian robust, open-source LMS that operates on a web-based interface. It is specifically crafted to facilitate the management and delivery of online training courses. This platform is uniquely tailored for corporate training environments, emphasizing adaptability to meet the specific requirements and workflows of businesses. It offers seamless integration capabilities with various intranet software systems. Also, it ensures that it can easily become a part of your organization’s existing digital ecosystem.
The LMS is quite versatile through its API connectors and could meet many online tutoring needs.
You may find more information on their website: https://www.formalms.org/
Example of Chamilo LMS control settings
TCExams
TCExam is an open-source software solution for electronic exams, also known as Computer-Based Assessment (CBA), Computer-Based Testing (CBT), or e-exams. It provides educators and trainers with tools to create, schedule, administer, and analyze quizzes, tests, and exams.
The solution is straight forward and simple to use.
The project is regularly updated as per their GitHub repository:
https://github.com/tecnickcom/tcexam
It runs on minimal amount of ressources such as a Shared Web Hosting account. Also, the documentation is exhaustive.
Here is a link to the overall presentation of the solutions: https://tcexam.org/docs/presentation/
Conclusion
While there are qualitative SaaS Learning Management Systems, Self-Hosting your educational system is a widely popular approach which may suits you as well. It comes with a wide array of different solutions fitting all the e-learning needs whether you are a school, a business with training needs, or after creating your own online courses.
All the show-cased solutions of the articles are supported on our shared web hosting plans. Not only they are supported but they are installable in a single click from your web hosting control panel.
Your user experience in terms of simplicity should be second to none when it comes to run such solutions. As a matter of fact, upon querying the industry, the main mentioned friction to self-hosted solutions is the required technicality to get started. At HostStage, we are proud to assist you through the LMS installation process on a 24/7 fashion along side with the right set of tools that will make the self-hosted experience a truly desirable one.
Statistics Sources:
https://www.statista.com/topics/3115/e-learning-and-digital-education/#topicOverview
https://www.devlinpeck.com/content/online-learning-statistics
