CYPHER Learning Reviews

We are an NGO that includes an academic program for updating health training for health professionals, such as doctors. MATRIX LMS is the tool that helps us with this.

Additionally, we use it for employees of our organization to take compliance courses.

One of the ways that MATRIX LMS has improved our organization is through cost savings. Our organization has an academic program to train health professionals. Face-to-face training comes with an expense, whereas having courses filed in the platform allows us to reach larger numbers of people at the same time. I would estimate it has helped us save 40 percent on our costs. And with regard to training facilities or travel involved in training, it saves us 100 percent. 

Doctors and health students must have some forms available and with this platform they have them available online with no need to print them out, resulting in cost savings. In addition, all the evaluations are also archived in the platform. We have to do evaluations at the beginning and the end of each course and the system is an instrument that streamlines our activities.

Another benefit is that students have the content available whenever they need it. Because we work with health teachers, and these people need things in a certain format and they also have to know how to fill that format out, MATRIX LMS allows us to host those formats there and highlight them, along with instructions on how to use them, and the content is always available.

I am in love with MATRIX LMS. For me, it is a platform that has everything. It is very powerful and intuitive. And because it is so user-friendly, it allows anyone without any knowledge of LMS platforms to make a course, publish it, and monitor it.

One of the things that I like most is the preparation of the courses and the resources that the platform has to carry them out.

Another attractive feature is the fact that you can download reports and have them available for the many audits that are done. These reports provide an indication of the steps taken on the platform.

In terms of automation, I use reminder messages to warn participants about the time they have left to complete a course. Although the training is self-managed, we do have a time limit to take the course. If people remain inactive for weeks, a reminder message is automatically sent to them to let them know that the deadline for taking the courses is approaching. There is also automation for different learning routes, but above all, the ability to send reminders is great.

For me, it is very important that the rules system helps to personalize the content because we have different levels for different profiles within this academy. We have profiles that have average academic preparation and others that are experts, so they cannot have the same competencies. Customizing these skills will help us to have greater control over what people are learning and the content they are going to digest.

Using the platform, I can also see who has not accessed the portal and follow up with them. That is one of the advantages that I like the most about MATRIX: I can validate the progress people are making and see the number of times they have entered the portal. When it comes to enabling me to monitor and check student progress, on a scale of one to 10, I give it a 20. It's very good. Whenever I give an introduction about what MATRIX LMS is for me, I always mention that it is a platform with monitoring tools. It helps me to see an honest accounting of a student’s progress.

Something that has always caused me a little concern is in relation to the visibility of users, because MATRIX LMS identifies users only by their emails. One of the things that I would like to see improvement on is detecting duplicate users by identifying them by their names and not only by their email addresses. Many people change their email addresses but we don't know that they have. This can result in unnecessary duplication of user accounts.

I have been using MATRIX LMS by CYPHER LEARNING for two years.

So far, we have only had an issue once where we lost some accounts. Before my arrival, there were 10 administrators and many of them had left the institution but still had active accounts. I realized that many of these users had modified the archived data without consulting us. By talking with the CYPHER LEARNING support team, we were able to obtain all the information that had been lost. That was the only unusual situation that has happened to us by using the system.

In terms of scalability, I would give it a score of 100 percent. I'm not part of the MATRIX LMS publicity team, but I honestly love it. It has consistent updates and it's getting better and better.

Including students and staff, we have about 850 users, consisting of instructors, the administration team, the director, and a manager. It is being used quite a lot. In fact, usage has increased recently, as we found that we had many more active students than we thought.

The solution’s technical support is excellent. They respond super fast. You ask any question through the support page and you always receive a quick answer. The team is always attentive and gives satisfactory answers.

Positive

I wasn't part of the organization when the platform was implemented. I understand that a person was hired to do that job. When I started here, the organization had already had some time with the platform. I had knowledge of other platforms that I had worked with and that is how I began to better configure this platform. For me, it was quite simple. 

The person who was doing my job had a hard time since he had never worked with an LMS platform and did not know how to manage the MATRIX LMS functions. I contacted their support team because it was the first time I worked with the system and the support was so good that, within a month, I already understood how to use the platform. The process was simple and quite user-friendly.

We have two people for administration of the platform, the sub-administrator who is the manager of the program, and me as the administrator.

The budget required to train the number of people we train in a month, using MATRIX LMS, would take us a year to train them without the platform.

Another way we see a return on investment is the fact that we don't have to print so many materials. The time savings are also worth a lot for us. Now, we can invest our time in other activities.

I always recommend to my colleagues from other institutions that they use MATRIX LMS. The quality makes the cost worth it.

If I remember correctly, they evaluated Canvas, Moodle, and others.

MATRIX LMS is a more powerful platform and has everything that we require. It is user-friendly, and we can make our courses without the need for a third party. It has the capacity to store what we need and has many resources. It really is a very good platform.

The rules engine helps personalize content based on users’ goals and performance, although we don't work by competencies because it is a resource that we have not used in-depth on the platform. Thanks to the solution's technical support team, I have been able to better explore the platform. We are going to use the entire topic of competencies in the future. In fact, we now have a course that is going to support an organization that is an ally of ours and we are going to explore the topic of competencies for it.

CYPHER LEARNING has made many updates to the platform but I don't think I have seen any new efficiencies for our processes. What I like the most about the new features is the gamified environment. That makes achieving our goals easier.

Even though we are in a pandemic, we can continue to update people, train them, and have the materials ready for when they want to use them, through any device.

MATRIX LMS is a platform that's worth trying. It's that simple. I give it a 20 out of 10.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestro caso de uso principal?

Somos una ONG que incluye un programa académico de actualización de la formación en salud para los profesionales de la salud, como los médicos. MATRIX LMS es la herramienta que nos ayuda con esto.

Adicionalmente, lo utilizamos para que los empleados de nuestra organización tomen cursos de cumplimiento.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Una de las formas en que MATRIX LMS ha mejorado nuestra organización es mediante el ahorro de costos. Nuestra organización cuenta con un programa académico para formar profesionales de la salud. La capacitación presencial tiene un costo, mientras que tener los cursos archivados en la plataforma nos permite llegar a un mayor número de personas al mismo tiempo. Calculo que nos ha ayudado a ahorrar un 40 por ciento en nuestros costos. Y con respecto a las instalaciones de entrenamiento o los viajes involucrados en el entrenamiento, nos ahorra el 100 por ciento.

Los médicos y estudiantes de salud deben tener algunos formularios disponibles y con esta plataforma los tienen disponibles en línea sin necesidad de imprimirlos, lo que se traduce en un ahorro de costos. Además, todas las valoraciones también quedan archivadas en la plataforma. Tenemos que hacer evaluaciones al principio y al final de cada curso y el sistema es un instrumento que agiliza nuestras actividades.

Otro beneficio es que los estudiantes tienen el contenido disponible cuando lo necesitan. Debido a que trabajamos con maestros de salud, y estas personas necesitan cosas en un formato determinado y también tienen que saber cómo completar ese formato, MATRIX LMS nos permite alojar esos formatos allí y resaltarlos, junto con instrucciones sobre cómo usarlos. y el contenido siempre está disponible.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Estoy enamorado de MATRIX LMS. Para mí, es una plataforma que lo tiene todo. Es muy potente e intuitivo. Y debido a que es tan fácil de usar, permite que cualquier persona sin ningún conocimiento de las plataformas LMS pueda crear un curso, publicarlo y monitorearlo.

Una de las cosas que más me gustan es la preparación de los cursos y los recursos que tiene la plataforma para llevarlos a cabo.

Otra característica atractiva es el hecho de que puede descargar informes y tenerlos disponibles para las muchas auditorías que se realizan. Estos informes proporcionan una indicación de los pasos dados en la plataforma.

En términos de automatización, utilizo mensajes de recordatorio para advertir a los participantes sobre el tiempo que les queda para completar un curso. Aunque la formación es autogestionada, tenemos un límite de tiempo para realizar el curso. Si las personas permanecen inactivas durante semanas, se les envía automáticamente un mensaje de recordatorio para informarles que se acerca la fecha límite para tomar los cursos. También hay automatización para diferentes rutas de aprendizaje, pero sobre todo, la capacidad de enviar recordatorios es genial.

Para mí es muy importante que el sistema de reglas ayude a personalizar el contenido porque tenemos diferentes niveles para diferentes perfiles dentro de esta academia. Tenemos perfiles que tienen una preparación académica media y otros que son expertos, por lo que no pueden tener las mismas competencias. Personalizar estas habilidades nos ayudará a tener un mayor control sobre lo que las personas están aprendiendo y el contenido que van a digerir.

Usando la plataforma, también puedo ver quién no ha accedido al portal y hacer un seguimiento con ellos. Esa es una de las ventajas que más me gusta de MATRIX: puedo validar el progreso de las personas y ver la cantidad de veces que han ingresado al portal. Cuando se trata de permitirme monitorear y verificar el progreso de los estudiantes, en una escala de uno a 10, le doy un 20. Es muy bueno. Siempre que doy una introducción sobre lo que es MATRIX LMS para mí, menciono que es una plataforma con herramientas de monitoreo. Me ayuda a ver una contabilidad honesta del progreso de un estudiante.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Algo que siempre me ha causado un poco de preocupación es en relación a la visibilidad de los usuarios, ya que MATRIX LMS identifica a los usuarios solo por sus correos electrónicos. Una de las cosas en las que me gustaría ver mejoras es en la detección de usuarios duplicados, identificándolos por sus nombres y no solo por sus direcciones de correo electrónico. Muchas personas cambian sus direcciones de correo electrónico, pero no sabemos si lo han hecho. Esto puede resultar en una duplicación innecesaria de cuentas de usuario.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

He estado usando MATRIX LMS de CYPHER LEARNING durante dos años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Hasta ahora, solo hemos tenido un problema una vez en el que perdimos algunas cuentas. Antes de mi llegada había 10 administradores y muchos de ellos habían salido de la institución pero aún tenían cuentas activas. Me di cuenta de que muchos de estos usuarios habían modificado los datos archivados sin consultarnos. Al hablar con el equipo de soporte de CYPHER LEARNING, pudimos obtener toda la información que se había perdido. Esa fue la única situación inusual que nos ha pasado usando el sistema.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

En términos de escalabilidad, le daría una puntuación del 100 por ciento. No soy parte del equipo de publicidad de MATRIX LMS, pero sinceramente me encanta. Tiene actualizaciones constantes y está mejorando cada vez más.

Incluyendo estudiantes y personal, tenemos alrededor de 850 usuarios, que consisten en instructores, el equipo de administración, el director y un gerente. Se está usando bastante. De hecho, el uso ha aumentado recientemente, ya que descubrimos que teníamos muchos más estudiantes activos de lo que pensábamos.

¿Cómo son el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

El soporte técnico de la solución es excelente. Responden súper rápido. Haces cualquier pregunta a través de la página de soporte y siempre recibes una respuesta rápida. El equipo siempre está atento y da respuestas satisfactorias.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

No formaba parte de la organización cuando se implementó la plataforma. Entiendo que una persona fue contratada para hacer ese trabajo. Cuando comencé aquí, la organización ya tenía un tiempo con la plataforma. Tenía conocimiento de otras plataformas con las que había trabajado y así fue como comencé a configurar mejor esta plataforma. Para mí, fue bastante simple.

La persona que estaba haciendo mi trabajo lo pasaba mal ya que nunca había trabajado con una plataforma LMS y no sabía cómo manejar las funciones de MATRIX LMS. Me comuniqué con su equipo de soporte porque era la primera vez que trabajaba con el sistema y el soporte fue tan bueno que en un mes ya entendía cómo usar la plataforma. El proceso fue simple y bastante fácil de usar.

Tenemos dos personas para la administración de la plataforma, el subadministrador que es el administrador del programa y yo como administradora.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

El presupuesto requerido para capacitar a la cantidad de personas que capacitamos en un mes, usando MATRIX LMS, nos tomaría un año para capacitarlos sin la plataforma.

Otra forma en que vemos un retorno de la inversión es el hecho de que no tenemos que imprimir tantos materiales. El ahorro de tiempo también vale mucho para nosotros. Ahora, podemos invertir nuestro tiempo en otras actividades.

¿Cuál es mi experiencia con los precios, el costo de configuración y las licencias?

Siempre recomiendo a mis compañeros de otras instituciones que utilicen MATRIX LMS. La calidad hace que el costo valga la pena.

¿Qué otras soluciones evalué?

Si no recuerdo mal, evaluaron Canvas, Moodle y otros.

MATRIX LMS es una plataforma más poderosa y tiene todo lo que necesitamos. Es fácil de usar y podemos hacer nuestros cursos sin necesidad de un tercero. Tiene la capacidad de almacenar lo que necesitamos y tiene muchos recursos. Realmente es una muy buena plataforma.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

El motor de reglas ayuda a personalizar el contenido en función de los objetivos y el rendimiento de los usuarios, aunque no trabajamos por competencias porque es un recurso que no hemos profundizado en la plataforma. Gracias al equipo de soporte técnico de la solución he podido explorar mejor la plataforma. Vamos a utilizar todo el tema de las competencias en el futuro. De hecho, ahora tenemos un curso que va a apoyar a una organización que es aliada nuestra y vamos a explorar el tema de competencias para ello.

CYPHER LEARNING ha realizado muchas actualizaciones en la plataforma, pero no creo que haya visto nuevas eficiencias para nuestros procesos. Lo que más me gusta de las nuevas funciones es el entorno gamificado. Eso hace que alcanzar nuestros objetivos sea más fácil.

A pesar de que estamos en una pandemia, podemos seguir actualizando a las personas, capacitándolas y teniendo los materiales listos para cuando quieran usarlos, a través de cualquier dispositivo.

MATRIX LMS es una plataforma que vale la pena probar. Es así de simple. Le doy un 20 sobre 10.

We are utilizing CYPHER Learning to grant our users access to courses, along with all the tools and features available in Sharjah. Consequently, we are offering a comprehensive professional development process, which we publish on this particular learning platform. This allows users to conveniently obtain their certificates through the extended workflow. If any learning surpasses our expectations, it is treated separately and we incur a fee for the service.

The features of CYPHER Learning have been beneficial to our processes and efficiency. Our previous platform took time for us to see any benefits. With CYPHER Learning, we can easily integrate with our ticket system and track issues related to learning courses. We already have a solution that requires less of our time.

Gamification helps with certification because it assigns points, making it easy for us to assign, share, and upload badges. 

We have observed a substantial increase in enrollment on our platform, primarily attributed to the gamification feature. We can track the number of services users have enrolled in, and there has been a significant surge over the past three months.

CYPHER Learning has the ability to recommend courses or assignments to learners based on their job title or a set of competencies. One of our institutions in India utilizes CYPHER Learning, and we can readily implement other NTP governance and engineering in relation to this. This provides us with a competitive advantage in the market due to the multitude of courses we have developed and published, as well as the numerous certificates we have issued.

CYPHER Learning empowers us with a plethora of features in the program. Learners have been sharing their certificates associated with our platforms and mentioning our schools. The count of followers and enrollees has escalated. We have two stages: the first is the professional development program, and the second is the post-credit diploma. We use Citrix LMS for our professional development program, and Canvas LMS for our postgraduate diploma. Our business has increased significantly in the one year that we have been using CYPHER Learning.

We offer hybrid courses for individuals who are preparing for licensing examinations and postgraduate diplomas. The licensing examination is one of the most significant courses available on our platform and is a hybrid course.

It is important for our organization to be able to offer combined training for both business and education purposes.

The training is currently offered free of charge to everyone.

Since implementing CYPHER Learning, we have observed a decrease in our administrative workload compared to our previous platform. We now only need two dedicated individuals to handle all the tickets, whereas before, everyone was involved.

Customer service support is a valuable feature. They are quick to respond to the users.

Creating courses for our resources is one of the best features of CYPHER Learning.

The common cartridge format is not supported by the older version. On the dashboard, if we upload the common cartridge, it can be easily added, but unfortunately, it is not supported. Therefore, we have some older common cartridge files that we want to upload to the main system, but we are unable to do so. As a solution, we are creating a new common cartridge file.

The grade book is limited to only 1,000 learners. Therefore, we are unable to view any information beyond that number.

I would like to have the ability to search by certificate number in order to verify the validity of a certificate. However, at present, we do not have the capability to do so.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for just over one year.

CYPHER Learning has been around for a long time and we have not had any stability issues.

CYPHER Learning is scalable and can accommodate our changes.

The technical support is good.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. The CYPHER staff creates a session for us and ensures that all the involved parties are present to attend the session. We are provided with a clear training schedule to facilitate the deployment. The deployment took one month and required three people to complete.

CYPHER Learning is more cost-efficient for us compared to others.

I would rate CYPHER Learning seven out of ten. There are certain areas that require improvement, but those enhancements come with associated costs. For instance, during the implementation phase, we were unaware that the grade book had a limitation of 1,000 users. This compelled us to devise a workaround in order to issue certificates to the additional individuals. 

Although we do not specifically utilize CYPHER Learning for onboarding, we do provide training for our staff and faculty to assist with data privacy and professional development.

Currently, we are not charging for our services. We continue to pay for CYPHER Learning, but the most important aspect for us is the knowledge that others are gaining through the use of our services. Perhaps in the future, we may begin to require payment for the services.

CYPHER Learning is deployed in a single building and is open for enrollment to everyone.

All 70 of our employees use CYPHER Learning in addition to the 11,000 users outside of our organization.

Maintenance is necessary whenever the system begins to slow down due to the high volume of emails.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for one year and can testify that this platform has numerous benefits for us. It is easy to navigate, issue certificates, and create code. Additionally, it is a cost-effective option compared to other platforms. With its extensive range of features, CYPHER Learning does an excellent job.

I recommend CYPHER Learning.

Our organization has multiple divisions. We started with the iQ Retail division, which develops Retail ERP software solutions. Each division within our organization offers different software solutions. We train people on how to use our software through CYPHER Learning, which is available internally and externally.

CYPHER Learning is a SaaS solution.

We used to offer classroom-based courses only, but we found that travel costs and time restraints were becoming too much for our students. We were looking for a more affordable / accessible way to reach more students, and CYPHER Learning helped us do that.

CYPHER Learning's features effectively boosted our efficiency. We are now able to offer a wider range of services at a competitive cost. Being a Global company with  13 branches, being able to reach global initiatives, is a great advantage.

The timing for rolling out CYPHER Learning was very beneficial, as we relaunched one of our divisions with a new type of learning just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. This allowed our instructors to train and teach remotely.

As a corporate university, we use CYPHER Learning to provide internal training for our employees and external training for our clients / partners. This hybrid training model is vital to our ever evolving organization.

The hybrid training platform helps us attract top talent by showcasing our capabilities and providing support and knowledge to our clients in an interactive and engaging experience.

The solution can be used to assist in pre-certifying resellers online before they enter the market. 

CYPHER Learning helped us expand our training efforts. Before CYPHER Learning, we only offered classroom training, which required learners to travel to one of our training facilities. We can now offer online training, which eliminates the need for travel. This has substantially decreased the cost of training, making it more accessible to more learners.

CYPHER Learning saved us around 30 percent of our administrative work through the app that easily adapts to different markets. 

CYPHER Learning is a user-friendly platform that makes it easy for me to manage my instructors and track my learners. My instructors can provide feedback to learners on the same day. We work with a variety of clients, and we can provide them with an analysis of how their learners are performing. As an administrator, I have an overview of what our clients think of our platform.

The reporting has room for improvement. I would like more reporting options.

Screen sorting can be improved by providing more filtering options. 

I have been using CYPHER Learning for almost seven years.

CYPHER Learning is stable and we are notified well in advance of any planned downtime for upgrades or maintenance.

CYPHER Learning is scalable. We current have about 550 people signed up to use the solution.

The technical support is good and responds to our issues within two hours.

Positive

The setup is straightforward. The deployment took around two weeks and required me and two others to complete.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We have seen a return on investment through administrative time-saving and global reach.

CYPHER Learning's price is slightly higher than other solutions.

I give CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten.

We have multiple organizations. Our iQ Retail division uses CYPHER Learning extensively. A few other divisions use the solution on a much smaller scale. In total, five or six divisions use the solution.

For someone looking to grow in a growing environment, CYPHER Learning is worth checking out. CYPHER Learning provides the flexibility to grow with us, whether we have multiple platforms or need to migrate to a new system.

CYPHER Learning offers a variety of learning approaches.

We've been using it for the delivery of our learning materials as well as for assessments of our students. Similarly, if training has to be conducted for our employees, including faculty members and school staff, all the materials are readily available in our LMS.

We have saved a lot as far as courier services are concerned. In the past, before CYPHER Learning, we would burn our materials onto CDs and send them out across the country via courier. With the LMS, all our materials are uploaded and they are almost instantaneously available for access within our school.

Apart from those costs, it has saved us time. We had a procedure where our materials would be posted on OneDrive and then one person was responsible for accessing and distributing them in each of our schools. With CYPHER Learning, we have been able to cut out that step. Now, when we develop the materials in our headquarters, the faculty members are able to access them instantaneously. By removing that interim step, we have saved man-hours. Administratively, CYPHER Learning has helped us save time.

It has also definitely helped us to save costs related to the printing of materials because we no longer print our materials. Teachers and students get access to them through their devices.

We also make use of other solutions to help address higher-order thinking skills, and CYPHER Learning supports that. Activities that help our students achieve or acquire higher-order thinking are very important because that's how we make sure that we prepare our students. That's how we ascertain that we are delivering quality education to our students and that they are really achieving the intended learning outcomes of the particular program they are enrolled in.

There are several valuable features. One is the competency mapping. This helps us, as faculty members and developers of learning materials, track and monitor which competencies our students have acquired, based on the outcomes that we wanted them to have at the end of a particular module or term.

And tagging classes and assignments with competencies is user-friendly, from the feedback I get from my team. There are options for whether it is a required module or assignment. Is it something that they can do on their own? It can be tagged such that it will only be given on a particular day. All of these types of tagging features are available. You just upload your materials and tag them to be, for example, self-paced or on a particular schedule. Then you just leave it and it unhides a particular module when a student has to complete it.

The tagging and the achievement of competencies, together, are almost always seamless. When you tag a particular competency in the mapping in a module, the student really has to achieve it. The competency mapping will show if they have reached a particular level of competency, because the mapping of achievements is color-coded. Teachers know when a student is still in the red zone, orange zone, or has reached the green zone. The modules in CYPHER Learning are well thought out. This feature is user-friendly for the teacher, and the students, as the end-users of the materials, are also able to see their progress.

Also, there are different types of learning materials that we can put in the LMS. Some are web-based, meaning we can embed a URL in the system, and it automatically leads the student or the user to the online materials we're going to use.

And on the dashboards, we are able to see the progress of our students, such as whether they have been able to do their assignments or homework and submit everything that they have to submit.

In addition, the adaptive learning is a feature that I really appreciate. Especially when the pandemic happened and classes were mostly asynchronous, we populated our library of materials. If a student had not yet reached a particular grade or level to proceed to the next module, we gave them additional modules to watch, read, and practice on, to better understand things. They would not proceed to the next level or module until they were able to earn a particular score. That's how we apply adaptive learning. This feature was something that we always wanted CYPHER Learning to have, but they went full-scale with it only recently. It has really helped us make sure that everybody is on the right track in mastering, or at least acquiring, fundamental knowledge and skills before they proceed to the next module.

We also do make use of the solution's competency-based learning, which is another feature they just introduced recently. It will help bridge the gap between what industries need when our students graduate and they join the workforce, and what we teach them in the classroom. It's something that we are exploring at the moment, and it's something that we've always wanted to have. The goal is that the students, when they graduate, will be able to show a portfolio of the competencies that they needed to acquire during their time with STI.

Communication through CYPHER Learning is just like on any other multimedia platform. Anything that has to do with schoolwork or official communication has to go through the CYPHER Learning or Microsoft Office. CYPHER Learning is like their Facebook for school. This communication is very important because there are a lot of things that come from our headquarters that have to cascade to the schools. The LMS helps us eliminate the transfer of communication from one person to another. When there are announcements that have to be done network-wide, CYPHER Learning helps ease that communication between head office and the entire network. We don't have to worry about the possibility that something was never relayed to the students or faculty members.

Most of our wish list for CYPHER Learning has already been addressed. One that we are still asking them for is to include competencies from different industries, since they have industry partners. These would be the competencies that these industries need so that we can make sure that we are developing our students toward those competencies or skill sets. 

Also, because the competency mapping feature is very well thought out, our wish list also includes that when our students graduate, they are able to print, download, or access the competencies that they have achieved in the four years that they studied with us at STI. That portfolio could then be shown when they apply for a job, and employers would see that it has been mapped out according to the industry's standards.

I have been using CYPHER LEARNING since 2016.

It's scalable because when we have requests they're able to find solutions or they tell us it's something they're considering. CYPHER LEARNING is able to address the needs of its clients.

We have 91,000 users of CYPHER Learning. There are 63 campuses of STI that are using it. You can just imagine how confident we are with CYPHER Learning because 91,000 of our students are using it every single day of their lives at school.

As far as our learning materials and assessments go, we really make use of the platform and, therefore, students have to use it. Everything is there. Teachers should be giving their assignments through CYPHER Learning, but of course, sometimes they don't. But the idea is they should be using it.

CYPHER LEARNING has very good customer support. Sometimes, because of their number of customers, it takes a little bit longer for them to reply to us. Sometimes, it takes them a week to reply to us, but those are rare cases. Most of the time, when our team chats with them, they are able to get back to us pretty quickly. Very seldom do they need to ask me to escalate an issue to one of their senior staff. They're able to address our concerns.

Positive

We didn't have a previous solution.

We have seen ROI because we have been able to cut down on time, courier services, freight, and the time it takes for things to travel from one campus to another. It is really the time savings that have been very good and important for us.

CYPHER LEARNING is very flexible when it comes to pricing. They hear out their customers and see where they can help them as far as cost is concerned. They look at long-term relationships and partnerships with their clients. It's very easy to talk to them regarding the cost and tell them why we can only afford a particular price bracket. When we explain that to them, they are able to adjust. At the end of the day, they are really looking to build and keep relationships and partnerships with their clients.

We evaluated two or three other solutions. And we are still evaluating different solutions when they approach us, but CYPHER Learning still stands when it comes to modules, features, benefits, and costs.

If you're looking into a product like this, you first have to understand what you want from an LMS. There is no one-size-fits-all for a particular institution. You have to list what your non-negotiables are, and then make sure that the provider is able to give you the things on that list.

It's also very important when you are deciding on an LMS that the team presenting it to you knows what they're talking about and that they'll take care of you. Some will present a solution to you, but when you ask a question they're not confident in their answers. That's a red light for me.

As for gamification, it is something that helps students learn, but we have discovered that it's not a silver bullet. You cannot gamify everything. It is something that helps engage students in their learning, however, it cannot be the only approach. You really have to know what your objectives and outcomes are and then include gamification. Otherwise, it will just be something that the students will take advantage of, and they will no longer learn. It becomes repetitive for them.

Gamification is nice because it drives and motivates students, but you have to vary gamification modules with other types of delivery. We tried dashboards and leaderboards, but sometimes students aren't motivated by those either. You have to strike a balance. It's nice to have, but are we able to achieve the intended learning outcome?

We have to keep on exploring things because CYPHER Learning has a lot of modules that we can utilize. And I really appreciate their management. They're so easy to talk to. When we need something, they're able to discuss it with us and help us find solutions. They're very easy to talk to, as long as they understand where you're coming from.

Overall, it's a very well-thought-out solution. I am thankful to Graham [the founder] and the team at CYPHER LEARNING. They're very dynamic. They keep their ears to the ground regarding what their clients need. It's a very stable company.

We use it for asynchronous learning across our institution.

First, use of CYPHER Learning was able to save us from the effects of the pandemic. There are many schools in the Philippines that have downsized, where student enrollment became lower compared to previous years. And some schools have closed down. We actually trained other education institutions on how to deliver online and blended learning, because we had done it so much.

Even before the pandemic, 75 percent of our faculty was already using CYPHER Learning, so we just had to target the other 25 percent. We formed a committee of our experts in using CYPHER Learning to help influence that 25 percent, so that ultimately we did not have to cancel or cut our education programs. Everything continued despite the pandemic. We finished our academic calendar, as planned, but in the new modality. Without CYPHER Learning, I don't think we would have been able to do that.

Our university, De La Salle University – Dasmariñas, is the greenest campus in the Philippines and has been for many years now. One of the ways we have been able to achieve that is thanks to CYPHER Learning, through paperless transactions. For example, many teachers upload exams. And we are not required to print a syllabus. It's already uploaded online. Previously, the university would spend between 50,000 to 100,000 Philippine pesos on printing it, so we are already saving that much on the syllabus alone. When adding in not having to print out all of our exams, we are saving hundreds of thousands of pesos on printing costs.

In addition, we save a lot in terms of office costs such as electricity for air conditioning because we can work from home. A given department has three days onsite and another three days online when they are not required to go to the school. That alone saves a lot of costs related to the environment, such as greenhouse gasses resulting from transportation. We save millions of pesos on electricity alone because we're not required to be onsite as much as we used to be.

Our former director had a study done, in partnership with our environmental management center, and they were able to track how much carbon footprint and how much paper we have saved by using CYPHER Learning. Per student, we're saving a lot, financially, thanks to CYPHER Learning.

Competency-based learning is very important for our institution. There is a commission of higher education that manages and monitors all higher education modalities. We can continue delivering online learning or blended learning for as long as we're able to prove that it's effective. We need to be able to prove that the modality, whether synchronous or asynchronous, is effective, and one way to do that is to measure how well students are able to achieve the learning outcomes. So it's actually a must. It's not optional. We have an upcoming accreditation next year and we are already preparing the documents to prove that this type of modality influences learning outcomes. We have some data and we're still generating more.

The platform has helped to reduce administrative work. We can easily produce the reports required for accreditation, using the reporting features in CYPHER Learning, like the utilization and active accounts. We have also just started integrating it with our SIS (student information system). It's not yet perfect, but we're getting close to where we envisioned ourselves. That integration has also helped to reduce administrative costs a lot.

In terms of the amount of time saved on administrative work, my team is solely in charge of adding and dropping students. It would take us months to do that manually, as we have 12,000 to 14,000 students. Because of the SIS integration, it's automated. We just troubleshoot any problems that may arise. The integration is saving us 90 percent of the time it would take us for that alone. Also, only those with active Office 365 accounts can log in to our learning management system. There is a way to create the accounts in bulk, but it would take several days to complete thousands of accounts. Thanks to SSO we don't have to do that. We just let the system do its work. That also saves a lot of time.

For me, one of the most valuable features is the grade book. Before, we were using Excel to manually encode formulas. But now, we can directly export the grades from the LMS and link them to the submission to our university portal. It makes things easier and everything is automated. Aside from a tutorial, provided by CYPHER Learning, our office also organized a learning program on how to utilize the grade book efficiently.

Another feature that is great for me, but that is not adopted institutionally because it's a bit difficult, and because we're a higher education institution with varying disciplines, is the learning outcomes feature. We changed the name. In CYPHER Learning, it's called the Mastery feature. The learning outcomes feature allows us to measure whether students have achieved competency, based on the encoded learning outcomes.

Universities like ours have to prove that their modality is effective, and learning outcomes are one way to do that. Because not all our faculties are using this feature, they are still conducting manual surveys to determine whether the students have achieved learning outcomes. But for those who are already using it, it's a very easy process. Instead of rigorous research to know whether students are achieving the learning outcomes, the LMS can do it for you.

We are trying our best to mobilize this feature so that faculties will adopt it on an institutional level. However, our faculties have 18 units of workload and some of them have up to 24 units. That's a lot of teaching units.

And I have done a study on the use of CYPHER Learning's gamification feature. It's a correlation study. While there is a low correlation, but positive, between time spent in the LMS and a student's grades, there is a high correlation between gamification and a student's grades. Those who are performing well in the games in class tend to perform well in their grades as well, although we have not proven that on an institutional level. These are just some limited cases. But the data so far shows that gamification works.

Creating games for classes or learning paths is easy for me, but it depends on the type of user. We also have a learning path for teachers such that before they can teach in our institution, they need to pass level three. But gamification is actually not required at that level. It's part of level four. For those who are just starting out, creating games is quite difficult. On a scale of one to 10, where 10 is "difficult," it's a seven or eight. But once you have used gamification, you can recycle the games that you created and then it becomes a two or three on the difficulty scale.

CYPHER Learning's gamified learning environment for helping with teaching and learning is very helpful and it's a must. It's included in the syllabus that all who are teaching this subject should have a gamified class, but again, it has not been adopted across the institution.

All my classes are gamified. There are levels and badges; they get points awarded and there are certificates. We have two departments where all their e-classes are gamified. One is our religious education and the other is our civic welfare training service, which is a required subject. They realized the importance of gamifying e-class content.

In our course, we have synchronous and asynchronous classes. If we don't gamify our asynchronous sessions, there's a very low level of student engagement. Some students are not even attending lessons at all if these are not gamified. By gamifying them, they get rewards. That means they really watch the video or they really read the lesson. We have metrics to show that they're really reading the modules once the classes are gamified.

In terms of automating assignments, they should be able to measure the intended learning outcomes. We have rubrics that are connected directly to the learning outcomes, so we don't have to retype everything. We can link the learning outcomes to the assessments in the rubrics.

There's no platform, other than CYPHER Learning, that is used for assessments. It's the most used feature.

The gamification feature's automation for triggering actions for completed tasks, such as awarding badges and points to students, is one of the difficult areas, especially for teachers who are late adopters of education technology. It's a challenge because it's like you're programming the actions. The language is quite tricky. Our office does have a training unit if a teacher wants to gamify their class. We can give them a hands-on tutorial on how to do that. But some of our staff is not really used to this kind of "programming" language.

Creating competencies and then tagging them in class content and assignments, is a six or seven in terms of difficulty, where 10 is "difficult." That's on your first try. Once you've created competencies, you can just recycle them.

Also, right now, there is a problem with tagging assessments and competencies. We have reported it. Technically, you can tag each question to a certain competency but we're not doing it right now, because if we do so there's a problem. It's one of the weaknesses. I'm not sure if it has already been resolved. The issue is that if you tag your assessment question with a competency, the grade will be zero regardless of whether it's correct or incorrect. When that is resolved, it will provide a much deeper sense of, or data on, how students achieve learning outcomes. It can even count the examination or question bank in terms of the achievement of certain learning outcomes.

In addition, as an administrator of our CYPHER Learning, there are a lot of things that could be improved, but these are not seen by students or professors. One is the admin features for adding students. These features could be separated and we have requested that several times, but I think their programming team is finding it hard to do that.

In another LMS—I think it is Moodle—there is a summary overview of how many attempts students made, and whether they left the browser. You can see if the students have left the browser or stopped midway, and you can see the percentage in particular learning outcomes. Currently, in CYPHER Learning, you can only view this for individual students. There's no way to see the overall average attempt score. You have to do it individually for each student before you can see that.

We've been using CYPHER Learning as a university since 2015, but some of the faculty have been using it since as early as 2010. Personally, I started using it in 2012. I was one of the early adopters of CYPHER Learning.

It's very stable with the exception of very few, periodic downtimes for maintenance, which usually happens on a Sunday. There are usually very few students logged on Sundays. The stability is not perfect, but it's a nine out of 10.

The first time we had to scale it was during the pandemic, which started in March, because in April our activity doubles. We have examination week and 10,000 students are logged in at one time, and we did not experience any downtime during that time. CYPHER LEARNING understood the situation when the pandemic started and sensed there could be a problem. Every school, all over the world, resorted to online learning and many started using CYPHER Learning. The vendor increased its capacity and the problem was resolved in April or May of that year.

One hundred percent of our faculty, from our high school, to undergraduate, up to graduate school, including masters and PhD programs, are using CYPHER Learning. It is even used in our short courses. And when we have institutional webinars, access is via an e-class. It's also used by non-academics, such as our support programs, like wellness and guidance counseling. They have modules in our learning management system. Our library is also linked to our learning management system.

Our unit, the Center for Innovative Learning Programs, monitors the utilization of our LMS. We score them on how they use the LMS. Some are using it to the fullest extent, some just for minor uploading, but I can definitely say everyone is using it.

Right now, in our college and graduate school portal, we have 13,000 students, 1,000 professors, and 500 parents in CYPHER Learning. The senior high school has 2,300 students and 130 teachers.

Their technical support is very fast. On a scale of one to 10, it's a 10. Our team is usually the first line of technical support for our university. If we cannot handle certain things, that's when we ask CYPHER Learning. They're very quick to respond, even during the wee hours.

Positive

At our college and graduate schools, CYPHER Learning was the first and only LMS.  However, our high school used another LMS. They just finished their two-year contract with that solution and they switched to CYPHER Learning. We did a survey and everyone in our high school rated the CYPHER Learning really highly, compared to the previous LMS.

I was not involved in the initial setup but the LMS is on the cloud, while our internal systems are onsite. Because we are in the Philippines, we experience a lot of blackouts, but we're not affected by them because the servers are located in the US.

The LMS alone cannot guarantee a return on investment. If used effectively and supported by policies, with the right LMS and with the right operations, there will definitely be a return on investment. You can see a return on investment as early as after one semester.

We are adopting an e-learning maturity model. That's how we run our office. We train, we monitor, and we provide technical support. Those are the three areas that help us to be successful.

In our case, because we were the first institution to adopt CYPHER Learning in the Philippines, we may have the cheapest LMS. I don't think we're switching anytime soon, just due to that factor alone.

Our satisfaction with the pricing is a 10 out of 10. None of our administrators or anyone else is changing our LMS. Even if all other De La Salle schools are using Canvas, we're not shifting because we're deeply rooted in this LMS.

In our school, CYPHER Learning is part of our culture already. It is deeply ingrained in terms of its use by students and faculty.

I was not part of the office when our institution evaluated solutions, one of which was Moodle, but I saw the process. They looked for certain criteria and compared all the features, aside from price. Back then, CYPHER Learning had all the features, even though it did not have all the features it has now. That was the basis on which the decision was made to purchase CYPHER Learning.

We did an institutional survey about six months ago and CYPHER Learning got a very high score. Everyone loves it. Even those who have used other LMSs, like BigSky and Moodle, say that we have a superior LMS compared to what they were using. We have faculty who were also administrators at other universities and they are really impressed with the design, layout, and advanced nature of the features of CYPHER Learning. We're blessed to have CYPHER Learning.

Technology is just one component of teaching/learning. Pedagogy is another that is very important. That's why we have a unit that is solely responsible for bridging the gap between technology and pedagogy. It's very important because some teachers are very apprehensive about using a new LMS because they think it's not effective. They have no choice because we have a policy that they have to use it. So we have experts in our office in charge of convincing them that it's about tweaking pedagogy.

That means we can't just directly "translate" everything from face-to-face to online. That would not produce any learning. We have to modify it so that it suits the delivery method. That's why our office is in charge of periodically providing training and webinars for our faculty. We do targeted training, because e-learning in the context of mathematics, for example, is very different from religious education. And training staff on the use of an effective pedagogy will further solidify for them why they should use gamification, why they should use the learning outcomes feature and all other features of our LMS.

The curriculum has to be carefully modeled and translated into assessments which should achieve the learning outcomes. As for our students' career paths, based on tracer studies, we're pretty successful in that field, although we cannot attribute that entirely to CYPHER Learning.

When it comes to intervention strategies for students who need guidance, CYPHER Learning doesn't help save time because you have to configure things. But once you have done that, the easier part begins. The next time you're using the same modules, everything is going to be easy, especially with adaptive learning. When a student's score goes lower than the passing grade, they will be forced to read the lesson again before they're able to continue to the next part of the module. Automation really helps. We can even provide kind messages for passing and for achieving certain scores, giving automated feedback.

Also, we used to have a team of checkers who checked if teachers were teaching in their classrooms. Because of our learning management system, we have analytics and we can see our teachers' digital activity. We would also hire temporary workers for faculty evaluation, workers who would go to classrooms and distribute the surveys. We now use our LMS to announce the faculty evaluation, which is done online as well. We haven't had to hire a single temporary worker as a result. The LMS has made some of our staff obsolete.

I have tried four LMSs aside from CYPHER Learning. Before I became part of De La Salle, I tried several LMSs, and I'm also enrolled at another university right now taking my PhD. Nothing compares to CYPHER Learning.

We are using it for our technical training and onboarding.

Before the pandemic, almost all our training interventions occurred in physical spaces and simulation areas. Our trainees were mostly asked to report to the head office for a minimum of five days up to months (for some critical positions). Since we started to use the CYPHER Learning, we have been able to see a drastic improvement the length of our learning duration to about half of the previous number of days that we conducted these training interventions.

CYPHER Learning is instrumental in enabling Potato Corner to be at the forefront of remote learning engagement practices in the Philippines. In fact, Potato Corner is an active case study for some local companies, in terms of bringing value and cost savings - locally and abroad. 

The ability of the system to be used by our international support and store network is an advantage. For example, CYPHER Learning has the capacity to translate dialects or languages which helped us conduct a learning experience similar to how an actual hands on session is done. Just recently we had pilot runs using the translation capability of the system for new store openings in China and the Middle East China using Mandarin and Arabic as medium of discussions.

In terms of the platform availability, there is access to 24 hours, so we don't need to determine a specific time for training. We just give them a link, password, and period for them to complete, e.g., 5 days, then it is up to them. What's important is they pass the minimum requirements to pass the training like periodic exams and the certification process.

The solution has helped us not just survive, but get through the challenges of the pandemic with flying colors. Before, we were quite adamant on remote training practices, since for close to 28 years, our company did not venture into remote training practices. Only two years ago, that we took a major step to prove that remote training can actually be a part of the company's core programs to ensure an engaged and competent workforce. 

We use almost all the functionalities of the platform especially for product training videos, lectures, onboarding, assessment, and exams. We also use the gamification function to engage our employees and effectively reward them. In terms of portal usage. With these developments, we are able to automate almost all the onboarding and training requirements for both our new and existing workforce.  

The rules engine has helped us personalize content based on users’ goals and performance. For example, we are now working on further improving the training process for China, Middle East, and soon India markets. 

There is also a wide range of analytics in the platform that show level of engagement and interest - logged in hours, percentage of trainees / attendees taking exams and those actively using the platform. Since we have drastically lessened onsite training to almost none, we rely heavily on trainees' consistent use of the platform.

CYPHER Learning's competency-based learning feature is very important for helping ensure content is compliant with the goals of the course.

A case in point would be our crews that are assigned to stores. They go through the program and thereby complete and pass the required exams and related "certification processes". Getting them "certified" to man stations and shifts are enough proof of competence to be deployed. For those who do not pass the certification, we have them go through retraining until they eventually get certified. 

There is further work to be done on the translation accuracy of international languages. It is really a challenge to have a system for perfect translation, especially as there are unique dialects embedded in different languages. In the future, the platform can have an integrated application that can "precisely" translate languages. 

We have been using CYPHER Learning for around two years.

So far, we haven't had any major issues affecting business continuity. In the two years that we have been working with the solution, we have been able to maintain the continuity of the business, and this is the most important measure of success for us. 

There have been no problems with scalability even if Potato Corner has close to 700 Franchisees in the network. Before, we started to have LMS in 40 stores, then we went to a 100 stores in a matter of weeks. To date, we are now at almost 500 stores using CYPHER Learning for training and onboarding purposes. The plan for this year is to start involving more of our new international territories as we are on track to opening in more locations like India and other counties in the middle east.

Like Potato Corner, the World's Best Flavored French Fries Brand, Organizations and decision makers should seriously look at CYPHER Learning as a strategic partner in growing the business.

Overall, I would rate the solution including its customer service and support extension a 9 of 10. 

Positive

The entire platform has helped us automate all our company's learning and development practices. When we didn't have CYPHER Learning, we did everything onsite, e.g., we had physical and classroom training. All of that has been removed since we started using the CYPHER Learning platform. 

The deployment process was very straightforward. 

During the first six months of the implementation, we were deeply involved, as we worked on getting the system used by different stakeholders. The plan was to get everyone on the same page and be accustomed to using the solution and see it as a regular way to train and develop competencies. After that, the following months were more stable, as we continued to make notable improvements along the way.

To support this major change, we did a series of Town halls which we call a NetMeet! In these town halls, we communicated the need to invest in a platform that will be used for the long-term. 

After our Town halls, we conducted mini-virtual meetings where we met with key groups in operations, international, finance, human resources, and franchising and told them about the new Learning Management System. We had open dialogues on how the LMS will beneficial to the users of the system. 

For a period of 3 weeks thereafter, we chose certain pilot groups where we gave access to use and navigate the system. When there was immense buy in on the solution, we started to launch the LMS for all company-owned stores in the Philippines. Then we picked locations outside Metro Manila, such as Visayas and Mindanao. Eventually, we started implementing the LMS in Southeast Asia, Middle East, and just recently, the Asia Pacific region.

Before, the company tried to do learning and development via in-house We found this a little difficult as we had to regularly change certain functions which took time to accomplish, eventually resulting to a great deal of time spent on communicating such changes. When we came across the CYPHER Learning, it was more of a plug and play solution where there was very little customization so we started to implement changes / improvements faster. In terms of level of expertise, the vendor side showed competence and excellence. 

Over the past couple of years, we have opened several stores in new territories. Aside from the local operations, we have used CYPHER Learning in China, the Middle East, and Canada. 

Conservatively, CYPHER Learning has brought our costs down by 50% overall, which includes headcount. In the department where the LMS is currently managed, the workforce is down by 50% as well. From 4 individuals, there are only 2 people managing the entire learning and development process for our company. Aside from these, the cost of logistics and travel have been greatly reduced (by 70%). We no longer need to be in the different regions in the Philippines and our international territories for our expansions, as we can now conduct training 24/7 virtually. In terms of cost savings, we have reduced our annual costs by roughly 5 million pesos or 100,000 USD, with projected savings to be higher in the years to come. 

Because our cost went down by 50%, I would say that the pricing is competitive.

Before (and even during the pandemic), the company tried to create our own Learning Management System which we found to be quite difficult especially since there were a lot of changes affecting certain functions which had to be done quickly. It took the team a great deal of effort and time to communicate with all stakeholders and get the changes done. At the time we were looking for an outsourced solution, we came across CYPHER Learning, which we found to be more of a plug and play solution for us. There was a little customization and we could start to implement quickly. Eventually we ended up evaluating the platform's capabilities and ended up launching it for Potato Corner's domestic and international operations in barely 3-6 months of pilot testing.

We have started using CYPHER Learning's competency-based learning feature starting with a pilot batch in the Philippines and will encourage our global partners to do the same.

Businesses, whether big or small, should take a good look at CYPHER Learning in terms as it can really help improve remote training for companies. Teams should be open to exploring the functions of the product and what the solution can offer in terms of long-term plans. In our company, we wanted to ensure a good balance of physical training and remote training. I encourage decision makers to carefully assess is if a virtual / remote training environment suit their businesses. In general, before investing in any solution, decision makers should carefully weigh strategic goals, impact to operating costs / bottom line, and performance management.   

For Potato Corner, the solution came at a very opportune time, as we were able to proactively manage the ill effects of the global pandemic. 

I would rate the solution as a 9 out of 10.

We operate an online education platform that sells courses to audiences all over the world. We have a global audience, and we use CYPHER Learning as our primary learning management system. CYPHER Learning is our only LMS.

CYPHER Learning is a web-based application, so there is no need to deploy it. However, there is also an app that can be used to access the portal.

CYPHER Learning has allowed us to spend less time administering content. We no longer have to worry about whether our website is functioning or whether the content is being delivered as intended. That's what CYPHER Learning is for. They streamline the delivery of content, so we know how to set up classes, courses, assessments, and diplomas. CYPHER Learning also takes on a lot of the administrative burden from our organization, including customer support.

We use the gamification feature in relation to certification, but we are not yet taking full advantage of it. We are definitely looking into it.

CYPHER Learning has helped us reduce our training costs by approximately $2,000 per person trained.

CYPHER Learning has helped to reduce costs related to printing our materials.

We wouldn't be able to do what we do without CYPHER Learning. It's hard to quantify how much CYPHER Learning has helped increase profits, but it's essential to our business. Without CYPHER Learning, we wouldn't have a school.

The entire system is incredibly valuable, but one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning was the social interaction features, such as forums, student groups, and messaging. We hadn't seen these features in other learning management systems. The assessment management is also amazing. Overall, the system is well-designed. However, the social features were the deciding factor.

CYPHER Learning should definitely offer live video conferencing integration. We currently need to outsource this service, which means we cannot run webinars from within CYPHER Learning. This is definitely on our wish list.

The initial setup process is a bit cumbersome, but it is not impossible to complete. The company's support is excellent, so we were able to get help with any questions we had. 

The platform had a bit of a learning curve for our team, but our users, who tend to be older, were able to use it seamlessly. The average age of our users is over 50, so they are not always tech-savvy. We have had very few issues with our users being able to use the platform. Overall, the platform is user-friendly for our users, but it could be more user-friendly for administrators.

We learned some of the rules for assessments and completion the hard way. For example, if we change a role, it is not applied automatically. We have to manually update the role. We needed to verify that people had completed all the requirements to be issued a certificate. We changed the role halfway through the process because we found out that there was a gap and people were falling through the cracks. However, we had to manually correct the already-issued certificates. Therefore, the change of rules does not apply retroactively. We need to test anything that is conditional, especially completion rules.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for six years.

The solution is highly stable. In the six years we have been using CYPHER Learning, we have not experienced any downtime or crashing.

CYPHER Learning is very scalable. We are somewhere in the middle of its scalability range. This was one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning, as we were at the bottom of its scalability range at the time, and there is still room for us to grow comfortably without having to switch platforms.

The technical support is incredibly responsive, helpful, and respectful. They have their own support forum, where many questions have already been answered. However, if we need help, the support team has always been quick to respond and provide assistance.

Positive

The initial setup was a five out of ten. I had a general idea of the course structure, and I built it up one lesson at a time, exploring as I went. I didn't do a lot of forward planning, other than planning the course itself and then trying to use the platform to achieve that goal. I didn't start by looking at what the platform could do and then model the course on that.

The implementation was completed in-house with the help of technical support.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

We are not yet ready to use CYPHER Learning's ability to recommend courses or assignments to learners based on their job titles or a set of competencies. This is because we sell the courses from our website. Instead, we are currently creating pathways for learners manually. This is something we want to explore further in the future, but we have not had the capacity to do so yet.

We have eight tutors that use CYPHER Learning within our organization.

There is maintenance required for the content, such as our courses. However, the platform itself does not require any maintenance, which is a great benefit of using CYPHER Learning. All of the platform's functionalities are provided by CYPHER Learning itself.

Users should know what they want to achieve with the platform, and they should also take the time to explore all of the platform's capabilities. Once users are set up, which is our current challenge, it can be difficult to add features like gamification or competency-based learning if they were not part of the original plan. Therefore, users should have a clear idea of their goals, but they should also be flexible and willing to adapt their strategy as they learn more about the platform.

We use CHYPHER Learning to deliver all our apprenticeship programs. All of the apprentice learners are added to the platform and follow several courses. We also provide access to employers so they can monitor the learners' progress.

We find that learners are much more invested in CHYPHER Learning compared to other LMS platforms we used in the past. The people who use the platform to learn and do their assignments are the ones who benefit the most from the system. It enabled us to engage with learners more than the previous systems we used.

We do a little gamification, but the problem is that our learners start at different times throughout the year. We have rolling programs, but some gamification features aren't relevant if one person starts in October and another in February. The person who started earlier will be ahead on any leaderboards, which isn't helpful. Gamification doesn't affect our learners' progress much because we haven't used it as much as we'd like. The interface isn't too important because of the nature of our rolling programs. 

We look at how we can extend what learners do based on their job roles. If they complete particular assignments well, we introduce other topics based on what they achieve. 

I don't think it has reduced our training costs. We still primarily do face-to-face instruction. Also, our goal for CYPHER Learning isn't necessarily to save money. We use it to enhance our programs. However, it saved us money on printing materials. 

The most valuable feature is competency tracking. All apprentices follow particular programs where they have to demonstrate competencies, skills, knowledge, and behavior standards. The ability to track and measure their progress against the norm is functional. By aligning the work that our learners submit and the learning resources, we get an excellent picture of where they are in their progression.

We're judged on those people's ability to achieve those competencies. We must ensure they meet the standards because they will be independently assessed after finishing the program. 

I've got one bespoke request with CYPHER Learning, but it's not an overall product improvement. I'd like a way to set deadlines for assignments to be submitted by learners' onboarding programs based on their enrollment dates. For example, if a learner starts in October, and we want the assignment submitted 30 days after that. 

We've been using CHYPHER Learning since October 2020.

CYPHER Learning is a solid platform. I rarely have problems with it. We had a caching issue a few months back, but we've had no problems aside from that. 

Adding more students to CYPHER Learning is simple. You just need to pay more money.

I rate CYPHER Learning's support a ten out of ten. I've contacted them several times and always gotten satisfactory answers. 

Positive

I built a custom solution a while ago. It was great, but keeping it updated was painful, and people constantly asked me questions about it. We also used Moodle and Lodash in the past.

I used CYPHER Learning in its previous form when it was called EDU 2.0. After that, I built my own system, but it was too much of a hassle. Finally, in 2020, I decided I would switch to another solution. I tested out Moodle, but it wasn't very good for competency-based learning, so I adopted CYPHER Learning. 

CYPHER Learning is a SaaS platform. We subscribe to it and add learners as needed. The setup is straightforward, but there are a few advanced features that you need to get your head around if you want to extend the way the platform works. I've done lots of work with webhooks and APIs to extend the platform and integrate our data systems. It's quite simple to log in and use the platform. There is no maintenance on our end. 

We are funded by the government, so we're capped at what each program costs. Students who use CYPHER Learning give us positive feedback, and the improved experience helps increase the number of learners. Getting learners to engage with the platform is always a challenge. They go on there, do the work, and leave positive feedback. It's great. 

We're considered a business, so we don't get education discounts. However, I am funded by the government the same way that a college or a school is funded. I don't have the kind of flexibility to pay these prices. It's a little bit more than I want to pay, but I'm okay with it.

I rate CYPHER Learning a ten out of ten. Before implementing CYPHER Learning, make sure you need all of its features. A lot of it is modular, so you can pick what you want.