Online learning keeps gaining popularity. While in some cases digital solutions play a supportive role in the studying process, a modern online education portal can fully replace traditional learning methods.

The revenue of the global online education market is expected to achieve the level of $185.2 billion in 2024, and it is projected that by 2028, the market volume will reach $275.7 billion. This means that the CAGR for the period from 2024 to 2028 will be around 8.6%.

It is widely believed that one of the major boosters for the growth of the eLearning market was the coronavirus pandemic. However, we must admit that other factors such as overall digitalization and mobility also greatly contribute to the expansion of this industry.

If you are considering starting an education portal development project, this article can help you make some important decisions.

What is an online learning portal?

An online education portal can be defined as a platform or a web space for educational resources and content. It unites under one roof everything that users may need for going through the learning process: lectures, texts, videos, materials, tests, chats with teachers and other students, etc. In addition to just access to learning materials, such solutions typically offer a row of convenient tools for evaluating students’ knowledge and tracking their progress.

What are the key benefits of eLearning portals?

• Flexibility of the learning process;
• Access to a wide range of materials in different formats;
• Advanced analytics;
• High personalization;
• Consistency in learning;
• Higher engagement in comparison to traditional learning methods.

Examples of online education portals

There are different types of platforms that can be included in this category, such as school web portals, university portals, platforms for professional training, web spaces for learning foreign languages, etc. Let us mention a couple of existing solutions that can be taken as examples of successfully launched products.

Coursera

Coursera is a globally known e-learning portal that can provide anyone with access to online courses and degrees from a wide range of prominent companies and universities. The total number of organizations and institutions that offer their programs via Coursera has already gone beyond 300, while the number of registered users is around 129 million. There are hundreds of free courses for learners, but the majority of them are paid. However, users can leverage the possibility of getting scholarships and financial aid.

Udemy

This is another popular online learning and teaching marketplace, with 69 million students and over 213000 courses available to them. Udemy sells content on demand. The tuition fees for different courses greatly vary as they depend on the instructor. Everyone can become a student and a tutor, meaning that if you have an idea for launching your course, your main task will be to create the content. The course hosting and promotion will be the responsibility of Udemy, but of course, your reputation as a tutor will also matter. The better reputation you have, the higher your chances to attract learners to your course will be.

Stanford University Student and Faculty Portal

This online learning portal differs from the ones mentioned above. It is not a widely available but a secured student portal. Users can submit their required data to start their association with the university and interact with the provided materials. It has the functionality required for student enrollment and financial questions, teaching and grading, academic advising, employment, and training, as well as for various administrative processes. Students can also get access to a library of course materials with real-time access, use online test and exam assessment tools, and communicate with other students, administrators, and alumni via online chats and forums.

Education portal development process

If you want to develop your own learning guide portal, we recommend you attentively plan the entire process of the project realization in advance. This will help you to better understand what resources you need to possess for that and how can you get prepared for it.

Step 1. Concept and idea

You need to define what solution you want to build and what tasks it will solve. Here, it is required to decide on the exact target audience of your online education portal. Will you offer a platform for a wide audience or students of a particular university or school? Will your courses be available for free or will users need to pay for them? For some inspiration, you can analyze the market and the already launched solutions. It will be also helpful to read the reviews written by users of these eLearning portals. Their opinions will provide you with valuable insights into their needs and expectations.

Step 2. Planning

When you have a general understanding of what you want to get, you should find specialists or a company that will be responsible for e Learning platform development. Further in this article, we will discuss how it is possible to do it. You will need to discuss your requirements with developers. Experts will help you choose the best tech stack and define the right approach to software development. You will also need to approve the budget and time frames of your project.

Step 3. Design, development, and content creation

It will be a core stage of the entire e-learning portal development process. Software developers and UI/UX designers will work on transforming all your ideas and requirements into a real product. At the same time, it will be necessary to think about creating learning content for your platform or looking for tutors, professors, companies, and institutions that will post their courses. Though the tech aspect is very important, it is impossible to achieve success without high-quality materials that should be available to students.

Step 4. Testing

A good development team will always allocate enough time and resources for testing a software product. While some tests should be conducted in parallel with software creation, some others should be executed when your product is ready. It is necessary not only to fix all the bugs but also to check that all elements and modules of your software smoothly interact with each other.

Step 5. Launch

When you are satisfied with the solution built following your requirements, you can release it. Very often companies decide to build an MVP first and then proceed to the development of a solution with an expanded set of features. A minimum viable product has only basic functionality and the main goal of its launch is to analyze whether it is worth investing in a full-scale platform.

Step 6. Support and maintenance

It is impossible to release an online education portal and then fully forget about it. Your team should continuously monitor its performance, address all the detected vulnerabilities, and introduce new features that will enhance user experience. Moreover, when it comes to eLearning portals, it is vital to regularly add new courses and materials to retain existing users and attract new ones.

You can find some other practical tips in one of the previously published articles on How to Create E-Learning Website.

Key learning platform features

While trying to make your solution as unique as possible, you shouldn’t forget about some basic functionality essential for any e-learning portal.

• Learning content management. You need to build course creation tools (and here, it will be necessary to decide on the range of users who will be provided with access to them). It is important to ensure support of content of different types, including text materials, images, audio, video, etc. Among other crucial things, we should mention a content search system and a good structure for learning material storage.
• Learning content delivery. You should think about the way to allow users to access courses and other materials. Users should have their profiles where they will indicate their personal data and will be able to view the basic information about their courses, tests, exams, etc.
• Analytics and reporting. Users should be able to consider their learning history and monitor their progress. If you add AI-based analytics tools, learners will get personalized content recommendations and tips. Moreover, you can make it possible for administrators to have access to such data as learners’ feedback, learning content usage, learners’ performance, time spent on courses, etc.
• Social learning and communication. You can allow users to create and join learning communities, forums, and chats where they can share their thoughts, impressions, and fresh ideas, as well as get some help from others. It will be a good idea to let learners interact with content via comments, likes, and shares.