CYPHER Learning Reviews

For the most part, the customer support is very responsive. There were a few occasions when we weren’t getting the answers that we needed so we contacted our company rep, and he jumped right in, so the process got moving very quickly all of a sudden. Mostly, we have been able to find what we need in the knowledge base, and when we can't, we usually get a pretty good response from customer support.

The main benefit of using the solution is that we can reach a worldwide audience we couldn't before. In the past, we relied on in-person events, but with CYPHER Learning, we have people worldwide using our platform. We can reach a wider audience and constituent base than before by many multiples.

For example, we will be working with an East African organization that works with businesses across the same region, and they'll be using our platform as they are English-speaking. Previously, we could never even consider reaching such an audience. The National University of Singapore also uses our courses to teach their MBA students; the solution opened a new world for us to reach potential users. We're a non-profit organization, so we're not out to make money,
we're out to make a difference, and the platform helps us to do that.

With CYPHER Learning, we can make a tremendous difference primarily through the combination of compelling courses and a good platform. Of course, the courses need to be good, or the platform wouldn't necessarily matter.
Another benefit of using the solution is the ability to add dubbing or voiceovers to our courses.

The platform can adapt to that by having the instructions in many other languages. This opens up our audience and gives our courses a greater potential reach.

One of the most valuable features is the ability to use private external portals through which we can sell our courses. This feature is one of the primary reasons we stitched from our previous LMS, as it allows us to grow and customize the portals within CYPHER Learning for specific clients, and that's huge. 

The ability to create learning pathways is of great benefit, as is the capacity for us to provide certificates of completion at the end of a particular course or learning pathway. 

Our customer support rep has been fantastic, especially as we were up for renewal. He was very responsive and able to bring in the staff required to work on our renewal. The primary sales representative we worked with was also excellent; how they stepped up and worked with us made a big difference in our decision to renew our contract for another five years.

CYPHER Learning's features are enormously helpful to our process and efficiency; we did a comprehensive analysis before we moved from our last LMS, and the features, customization, available APIs, and support made a huge difference for us.

The search function needs to be improved; it isn't currently working correctly and has no value to us at this point, but it should be of great value. To my knowledge, CYPHER Learning is presently working on this issue.

The content player within CYPHER Learning could use some improvement, particularly in how it scales – the player is not responsive to the browser window being resized, so content is often cut off which is a big frustration. We want a fully responsive content player. That's one area where our previous solution was fantastic, so it needs to be worked on at CYPHER Learning.

We've been using CYPHER Learning for around two years.

The solution is very stable; we've never had an issue outside of a bit of downtime here and there.

For the most part, the customer support is very responsive. There were a few occasions when we weren’t getting the answers that we needed so we contacted our company rep, and he jumped right in, so the process got moving very quickly all of a sudden. Mostly, we have been able to find what we need in the knowledge base, and when we can't, we usually get a pretty good response from customer support.

Positive

We previously used Docebo LMS and switched because we found CYPHER Learning to be a more complete solution. What we didn't like about Docebo is that many features and capabilities are paid add-ons, so the cost kept increasing. The CYPHER Learning team was also fantastic in setting up a sandbox for us to play in and answering any questions we had. We felt that CYPHER Learning provided a cleaner, more navigable admin interface which made it easier to work within the LMS. We looked at many different companies, but they stood out to us by being accommodating and ensuring all our questions were answered. Docebo's customer support was another reason we switched- many of our support tickets were left unresolved for several weeks or even months and their support team seemed to lack a solid understanding of their own product.

Another reason we switched is that Docebo doesn't do a good job with external portals, and CYPHER Learning does an excellent job. We handle the sales of our CYPHER Learning courses externally through a purpose-built website, and Docebo had no option for APIs, which was frustrating. CYPHER Learning does a much better job supporting us; they have been very accommodating, and though we ran into some difficulty during the initial configuration of the API, their tech team worked with us to ensure the API worked out.

There were both straightforward and complex elements to the deployment. Moving from one platform to another that functions differently involves some complexity. Still, we were extremely pleased by how quickly the CYPHER Learning team answered our questions and how readily the solutions team assisted us. Part of our switch from Docebo to CYPHER Learning included some hours with their customer support and tech teams, many of which we didn't use as the deployment was relatively straightforward. We figured out the solution and got rapid answers from customer support for questions when they arose.

We implemented the solution in-house, with support from the CYPHER Learning tech and customer support teams. 

Our organization is a nonprofit, so we're not out to make a high ROI; we need to make enough to develop new courses, maintain ongoing ones, and so on. However, we wouldn't have signed with CYPHER Learning for five years if we didn't think we could make it work from an ROI standpoint. CYPHER Learning gives us the ROI required to sustain our organization via the solution's pricing and capabilities.

During the negotiation for our five-year contract, CYPHER Learning did an excellent job of being fair and upfront with us. We have to budget for the future and know what the solution will cost us over the next five years. That's fantastic, and the company was very accommodating and worked well with us.

Everybody always wants the price to be lower, but realistically, if the price were significantly lower, that would make us happy in the short term, but it may put CYPHER Learning out of business in the long term. In our case, the deal we came to was a win-win. 

The only issue I have with the pricing is that there's a new component called CYPHER Care, and we only use a few elements of it. So, we had to buy CYPHER Care without requiring the complete feature set, but I understand why they need to simplify the pricing. I'd rather it be simplified than the complexity that Docebo threw at us.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use the product for hybrid training; we have many blended learning courses. For example, we require users to go through four courses in the platform, after which they can enroll in a webinar where they can get involved in a discussion on the subject matter. The blended learning model is significant for us. Another example is that we have in-person seminars where we would have around 100 CEOs. Before going to the workshop, they must complete several courses as a
prerequisite, after which they can attend the two-and-a-half-day seminar. Following that, other courses open up, allowing continued learning and application of the skills.

The platform's automation for triggering actions - whether that be completion actions, enrollment actions, etc. is extremely beneficial to us- we use automation to recommend the next courses in a series, send notification emails, and provide completion certificates. We don't currently use the badges etc., as we don't consider them essential.

We don't utilize the product's capacity to recommend courses or assignments to learners based on their job titles or competencies as we design our own learning pathways. The recommended course feature isn't significant for us.

CYPHER Learning hasn't reduced our training costs, as we don't use it for that. However, it reduces training costs for our clients as they can use our courses to learn without paying to get us there.

To someone looking for an LMS but who has never heard of CYPHER Learning, we would recommend the platform to them, and we have. We may already have sent some clients in their direction, and one of the best sales tools would be to have potential clients go into our system and see how robust, powerful, and capable it is. We've recommended the solution to people before and will continue to do so. Based on our experience over the past 2 years, CYPHER Learning is a platform that we recommend.

Before purchasing the solution, I advise potential customers to understand the pricing, including what it will be moving forward, so they can build that into their long-term projections. Secondly, understanding the platform's capabilities and whether they work for you is essential. The best way to do that is to ask for a sandbox that you can play around in to see if the product does what you think it does and whether it meets your company's requirements. Tech vendor salespeople
are pretty good, but the reality tends to be not quite as rosy as the picture they paint. So, some due diligence is required regarding understanding the capabilities.

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.

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.