CYPHER Learning Reviews

I am a computer science teacher and I use it to help facilitate my class. I'm not a typical "sage on the stage" teacher, I'm more like a "guide on the side." I use CYPHER Learning to fully implement my curriculum for my students.

Automation helps save time when it comes to the assessment of assignments. I can set up some assignments so that the platform automatically grades students. I can spend more time developing content and not so much time grading. Taking the time to set it up properly helps with that automation, and the students get immediate feedback so they know exactly how well they've done. I can then look at the analytics, once they've done those assignments, and gauge who's doing well and who needs a little bit more help. It's very important and helpful.

I throw in a survey-type self-assessment for my students. I can go through each lesson and I can see how well they think they did versus how their actual grade matches up. I can identify students or classes to go back to and say, "Maybe we're going to take a little bit more time on this content." I can do that one-on-one or in a small group as well. It's essential in helping me to identify who needs help or who's ready for more advanced lessons or assignments.

CYPHER Learning is also very efficient when it comes to helping me understand how well my students understand concepts, by using the assessments, analytics, and feedback. My students can interact with me within the system to let me know if they have questions. I can engage with them as they're working and field questions or clear up anything that they may have an issue with.

Another benefit of the platform is classroom management. When my students know exactly what they need to be doing, it cuts down on the extra time that could lead to poor classroom management. It's all about them buying in at the beginning and getting my students to invest in the system. They know what they're supposed to be doing. CYPHER Learning has been very beneficial in that way.

An aspect that is also extremely important is the fact that teachers can track student progress on a competency basis through a mastery grid. As an organization, that's one of the things our administrators look for when they come into the room, the objectives and the competencies, and what teachers are doing to help students achieve competencies with their pedagogy in the classroom.

CYPHER Learning helps me to provide self-pacing for students in my class. Because the system enables me to add videos and resources such as PDFs, a lot of that content is me in the video, so they don't have to go to outside sources. I can take care of those students who are proficient by giving them those materials, and that allows them to move along at their own pace. And for those students who need extra time on things, I have that time to spend with them while others move ahead. It helps me to reach everybody.

The system also helps reduce administrative work because it offers analytics and spreadsheet downloads. If I need to see grades for students, I can see them all at once or pull grade reports for individual students. I can look at individual grades from the different classes that I've set up that cover different competencies. I can print all of that out and share it with parents. Everything is right at your fingertips.

There are cost savings because it's all digital. There's really no need for printing. I can convert documents to PDFs or do videos. It really helps because it's online. I have to be out of school tomorrow, but I don't have to make copies of things for students or the substitute teacher. I just outline what my students are doing online and the substitute and the students know exactly what they need to be doing.

The mastery grid CYPHER Learning is the most important feature. With my curriculum, in Mississippi, we are required to keep up and track as our students master specific objectives and standards. With CYPHER Learning, that process is built-in. I can customize it to my liking, and I have all of that data right at my fingertips. It's amazing.

Similarly, the competency-based learning is also extremely important because, with my curriculum, in the state of Mississippi, funding is a key factor. We have to keep up with how well our students are doing on specific competencies and standards. I've got all of the data and the system backs it up. It's very critical.

Tagging assignments with competencies goes along with the mastery feature. When I'm looking at that mastery list, I can see assignments, lessons, a group of lessons, or a specific quiz I have tagged and I can immediately see which assessments match specific competencies and determine if I need to change things up or develop something a little bit more.

Gamification is another feature that I've recently really gotten into and I have found that my students really enjoy getting points and badges. That reinforcement is critical. One of the things that my school stresses is positive reinforcement for our students. With gamification, my students get that instant gratification. They get specific scores when they do specific tasks within CYPHER Learning and it lets them know. It's a really big motivator for my students.

The gamification aspect is extremely easy to use, as long as you have an idea of what you want to do. The system is very intuitive and you just create your game and your points. Another thing I like about it is that you can retroactively add points for something. You might think, "Hey, I want to give points for a specific task that has already been done." You can go back, create that point system or badge, and it will retroactively award the student who's already done that assignment as well as capture those who have yet to begin.

It's also very easy for students to use gamified learning materials. They just do the work; what they would already be doing. It doesn't take any extra effort for them to be involved in it because it's built into the assignments or the lessons. As long as they're doing their work and engaging with the system, they are rewarded for their participation.

And the reward automation is a time-saver for me. It's a set-it-and-forget-it feature. The system continues working after you set it up and you know that the students will be rewarded. The system is going to make sure that the students are aware that they are participating in it.

The platform is also really good in terms of integrations with other technologies. I use and integrate a lot of video content, with SCORM features, to create automated assignments. There are other websites out there, but CYPHER Learning makes it possible to have everything in-house for me and my students. It's a one-stop shop.

I'm able to manage all of my needs for all of my students on my own. From year-to-year, as I create content, I am able to tweak things or reuse assignments, which cuts down on the amount of time I have to spend on preparing.

While the number of apps available for integration with CYPHER Learning has increased over the years, I would love to see this number continue to grow. I believe this would help solidify its position amongst other learning management systems as a viable option for educators and schools.

I've been using CYPHER LEARNING since 2010 or 2011.

I'm extremely impressed, from year to year, with the things that they are doing as far as keeping up with how the platform should look and what it should offer. It's always ahead of where other LMSs are.

They have been very responsive to my needs. There is an online support system that you go to if you're having an issue.

Positive

The initial setup was completely straightforward. When I began using CYPHER Learning it was as simple as getting the URL and sharing it with my students. I don't think it could get any simpler than that. Because I'm in a computer lab, I have my students save that web address in a bookmark.

There is minimal maintenance. For any issues that are encountered, CYPHER LEARNING is very responsive.

I have absolutely seen a return on investment. It shows students their percentage of completion and I'm getting more students to do more work. They see what they have to do. They'll say, "I'm at this percentage of completion, and this is my mastery so far." The buy-in is worth it to get that from students.

Some of the previous solutions I used were free, but I feel that it's worth it to pay for CYPHER Learning and get that autonomy and creativity and personalization. I feel that students want and need something that is not just the status quo. They want to be able to engage with something that speaks to them, so they're not just trying to check a box on an objective. It actually gets them involved in the process of learning. It gets a student to say, "Ok, this is something I have to do, but I'm really enjoying what I have to do. I get to interact with my teacher and with other students." That was something that some of the other platforms were lacking.

The pricing is worth the peace of mind that it gives teachers, due to the ability to create an experience for their students. It's not just about the assignments they have to do. Teachers can create a narrative and a direction for their students and have them immersed in that environment. Learning is something that all students have to do, but why not make it fun? Why not be able to offer an experience that is engaging and that allows them to participate and add to that narrative?

I had worked with several different LMSs because, in the state of Mississippi, when you're going to teach my specific subject, you go through training on different LMS platforms. I found that a lot was lacking in those platforms and that CYPHER Learning gives me more autonomy, creativity, and personalization in my class compared to Blackboard, Google Classroom, or Moodle. Now, the state of Mississippi uses Canvas, but I still prefer to use CYPHER Learning.

One of the main things that I really loved when I initially started out with CYPHER Learning was that it was different from everything else out there. They keep up the user interface and it's like an encompassing community for my students. That way, they're not having to go to a lot of different websites for much of what they're doing. I can set it up to minimize distractions and the need to go to different websites to do assignments.

Also, CYPHER Learning serves as an extension of myself, my teaching philosophy, and the experiences that I want to give to my students. When they're working through a lesson, in a sense, they're sitting down and working with me personally, and that's something that I strive to do ahead of time. It may take a few extra minutes, and maybe hours, upfront, to capture that opportunity for my students to be working with me, but it's worth it. So the platform is just an extension of me and I'm able to get all the creativity out there and encourage my students to be as creative in how they interact and engage. I can promote the joy of learning.

Another factor was ease of use. A lot of the other platforms that I used didn't have the intuitiveness that I have with CYPHER Learning. It made me want to explore and use as many features as possible to get the most out of it for my students.

I feel that CYPHER Learning is always ahead of the curve when it comes to educational technology. It's really helpful that they have a roadmap of things that they are looking to implement. They're keeping up with the trends in education. And we are also able to provide feedback directly to them. They're constantly working to improve the platform. I couldn't ask for anything more specific because I feel they're already on top of it. But if there were something that they needed to add, they're always open to suggestions.

My advice would be to look into the ability that CYPHER Learning offers for teachers to create their own paths for their students; the autonomy, creativity, and personalization provided by CYPHER Learning. Also, consider the automation and being able to create content or assessments that work for you and don't add to your time. There are only so many hours in the day for educators, administrators, or people in the industry. It's a platform that works with you to see you through to the goals that you envision.

CYPHER Learning houses everything I need to function, day-to-day, in my classroom.

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 utilize it for the Music ConstructED Business, a department within West Music, which collaborates with elementary music teachers and their professional development in that career field. We offer various courses and resources for purchase. The primary focus is professional development for elementary music teachers.

One of the significant advantages is that they offer a help center and ticket support. Especially in the beginning, I was submitting tickets every week to ask how to accomplish various tasks. It was incredibly helpful to have someone there to guide us. We received around ten hours of onboarding training, which helped us understand the best practices for using the platform. If we hadn’t received that training, we would have had to backtrack to fix things according to those best practices.

CYPHER Learning helps align skills with course materials, but a significant part of this process depends on how we design the courses. We have not utilized their AI feature for course creation because our topics are very specific. Instead, we gather information directly from various presenters who develop the courses for us. Our process is largely manual since the presenters provide the content, and we simply input it into the system. Given the specificity of the topic, it requires a human touch, especially since we are in the classroom with the students. Therefore, we choose not to use the AI feature.

We build our courses ourselves and can customize them. We enjoy how easy it is to create a course based on our needs. They have a wide variety of customization options, which we can use to make it work for our customers and our presenters.

CYPHER Learning has significantly reduced our course creation time. Previously, we used a WordPress plugin that required us to manually input every single course. We created courses for specific seasons and couldn’t copy existing ones, meaning we had to recreate them each time. On top of that, we were responsible for manually issuing certificates and sending out grades, which made the entire process very labor-intensive. Every aspect required manual effort—we had to create, edit, and upload courses ourselves, and if any errors occurred, we had to fix them manually. With CYPHER Learning, that workload has been reduced by more than half. I hardly need to log into the platform to maintain it since most updates happen automatically. Now, our questions have shifted from troubleshooting access issues to inquiries about course details from potential buyers. This change has represented a significant improvement over our previous system.

Gamification and certification are the most frequently used automation in our courses. Some courses contain messages, but overall, our offerings are quite diverse. I manually build a portion of the courses using a template, which significantly reduces the time required for setup since I don’t have to input all the settings individually or in a specific order. We have a Sync feature available, but not all courses can utilize it due to their unique nature. However, for our higher education courses that are repeated each semester, I can simply duplicate the template to create new courses or sync the course from that template if there are any necessary edits. This process makes it much easier than manually editing each course individually. Currently, we have about 70 courses on the platform. Occasionally, I encounter a setting that I believe complicates the student experience. Instead of revisiting every single course, I can edit the template directly, which then applies the changes across all relevant courses. Having this ability to make adjustments at the template level has been extremely helpful.

CYPHER Learning has significantly improved our onboarding processes and users' learning curves. With our previous platform, accessing and purchasing courses was quite difficult. Now, the process is much more automated. We offer a wide variety of courses, and users can easily search through them. It's also easier for us to generate profit since users can quickly enter the platform, purchase courses, and choose from many different options. Navigating to the professional development site has become much more straightforward as well. Instead of having to follow a complicated path on our website and click specific buttons, the site now appears seamlessly. Overall, the improvements have made it much easier for our users to utilize our platform, which is fantastic.

For learners, training time has significantly decreased. They are now automatically enrolled in an onboarding course. We have utilized the platform more effectively by creating a course that helps them understand where to make purchases and reminds them that they can place purchase orders through us, as we work with schools and school districts. This course provides all the necessary answers and directs learners to the appropriate contact person. We have only received a handful of troubleshooting inquiries regarding the courses, which were typically due to incorrect settings but were easy to resolve. Previously, we would get weekly emails from users reporting issues or asking how to do something. With CYPHER Learning, the process has become much easier; we no longer deal with those types of inquiries, allowing users to reach their destinations more quickly. 

On the building side, I have been responsible for developing everything on the Learning Management System (LMS), which required me to learn many new skills. Overall, the process was quite enjoyable. We currently don’t have anyone else who has built courses on the site. I found the learning curve to be manageable, especially thanks to the training I received from the spokesperson for CYPHER. This training enabled me to navigate the system effectively. There have been a few occasions when I had to demonstrate my work to others, as we were considering having them build a course. CYPHER's flexibility is both a benefit and a challenge. While its customizability is advantageous, our additional modifications on top of their existing features have made the system somewhat complex. I have taken the time to document my processes and showcase my work. The templates provided make the tasks much easier, but there is still a lot to understand.

We collaborate with school districts to enhance skill learning. Often, we receive substantial orders from these districts that spend thousands of dollars on professional development courses. In response, we create dedicated portals within our platform specifically for training their teachers, which has proven to be very effective. Initially, we partnered with three school districts, but that number has now grown to seven. We're also seeing more school districts approaching us for professional training for their educators, indicating a positive impact. I take pride in the professional development courses we offer.

CYPHER has significantly saved us time by streamlining the troubleshooting process. Previously, we relied on a third party to help us resolve issues, which required us to transfer information back and forth. This often led to chaos, as we had to communicate the same issues multiple times. Now, with CYPHER, all the troubleshooting is handled in-house, and all necessary customizations and automation are in place. It has made everything much easier. We no longer spend valuable time each week on certifications, automation, messaging, and troubleshooting—it's truly been a game-changer for us.

We have implemented as much automation as possible. I have set up the templates, so I only need to input the content. As we progress, we have made adjustments, and our presenters are now providing content in more effective ways, which simplifies the input process since we understand the system's capabilities. On our end, we have also improved efficiency by refining what we collect from the presenters to create the courses and by outlining the course structure from the beginning.

I have found gamification and automation features very useful. The automation is particularly beneficial because it allows us to send certifications and messages automatically when purchases occur or when users log in. When a user creates an account, they are automatically enrolled in an onboarding class, which reduces the number of questions and troubleshooting.

The primary area for improvement is the reporting between courses and eCommerce, which currently use two separate reporting styles. Information can be accessed within the courses themselves, as well as through eCommerce orders; however, these reports are separate, causing difficulties in our analysis. We need to ascertain not only the title of the course and the total revenue generated but also the timing of purchases and the identities of the purchasers. Additionally, we require the SKU associated with each course and the corresponding purchase reports. Integration between these systems would be highly beneficial since we utilize both.

Regarding integration, we have implemented the Zoom integration; however, it does not connect with our eCommerce and accounting systems. The platform appears to be more tailored for HR training or school district purchases rather than individual consumer transactions. eCommerce integration is crucial for our needs, as we use NAV and Perfion within West Music Company. Unfortunately, it does not connect to these systems, although it does integrate with the Stripe platform. Moreover, it does not connect to HubSpot, our CRM platform, which requires us to enter data manually due to its compatibility with a different type of business than what CYPHER typically accommodates. CYPHER is usually designed for schools. 

We launched it in June last year after starting to explore it in November of that year. It has been over a year since then.

I cannot recall any stability-related issues. In our previous system, we encountered many issues, but I do not remember experiencing lagging or similar problems with CYPHER Learning.

They respond quickly, usually within 24 hours, and provide solutions within 36 hours. Overall, their responsiveness is commendable. Since our platform is different from what they're used to, some clarification was necessary. However, they offered a solution or an alternative path for our needs about ninety percent of the time.

I would rate their service a nine out of ten. The only reason it's not a perfect score is that there were some limitations on the platform regarding the specific tasks we were trying to accomplish. Aside from that, they effectively resolved nearly everything for us.

Positive

Previously, we used a WordPress plugin and had to manually input each course and its duplicates for different seasons. Certificates, grades, and courses required manual input and editing. CYPHER automated much of this, reducing the need for troubleshooting and enhancing our efficiency significantly.

The setup process was mixed for me. I found it relatively easy because I started from the beginning and spent several hours learning the platform. I went through the process of adding sample courses and ensured we set everything up correctly on the first try. Thanks to the time I invested in learning, troubleshooting various issues, and submitting numerous support tickets, the entire experience has been smooth. I now find it easy to understand how to create courses.

CYPHER is highly customizable, which means there are many options to explore. Initially, it was a bit overwhelming to navigate through everything they offer. I am very hands-on and can learn quickly when I can physically engage with the material. However, for someone new to the platform, there is a lot to grasp in order to fully understand how it works. I make an effort to document my processes to explain what I am doing, but for anyone unfamiliar with my work, it could still be quite complex despite my documentation.

CYPHER handles all maintenance, including any updates related to content. The system itself is fully managed by them, which is great because it relieves us of that responsibility. Whenever I encounter an error that I don’t understand, I simply submit a ticket, and they take care of it, which is fantastic.

We had a trainer named Helen who guided us in the beginning. Afterwards, we had support from Jeremy, who assisted us when we needed help from a specific person. Most of the time, I would start by submitting a ticket to see if someone could assist me. If I didn't get the help I needed, we would reach out to either Helen or Jeremy. Occasionally, they would inform us that they were already working on an update and would need a couple of months to complete it. Overall, they have a strong development team.

I did not negotiate the pricing, but from what I gathered, it was a significant purchase for us at West Music. We recognize its value and potential for growth, making it worthwhile. 

I would rate CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten, primarily due to integration issues. If it were more seamlessly integrated with our eCommerce and accounting systems, it would be perfect. Currently, we have to manually input each order into our system, which is not ideal. Aside from that, it is a great platform. It is highly customizable and easy to work with.

We develop 3D design software for engineers. Our product portfolio is a complex ecosystem and, therefore, we support our software sales with training services to enable our customers to get the most out of our products. CYPHER Learning is the heart of our global online training platform.

Before implementing CYPHER Learning, our training activity followed the traditional setup with classroom-based training. With an online training platform, we can reach our end-users directly and with CYPHER Learning we can track both learner and trainer activities. This helps a lot in staff resource planning and in scheduling content development and release. With the help of CYPHER Learning, we can make data-driven decisions, while previously we did not have this level of insight. At the same time, the platform is still capable of supporting traditional classroom-based training activities, so switching to an online platform was a significant change as it opened up a lot of new opportunities.

It has also helped to reduce our costs. Previously, we had to invest in training facilities, equip the rooms with computers, and hire and train the instructors. Now, our training landscape is more diverse: self-paced training is available everywhere, including in countries where we do not have local representatives. We can reach them easily at a very low cost. In certain markets, where the learners are scattered throughout a huge territory, it is more economical to deliver online training. We don't have to invest in classrooms and equipment. Certainly, we had to set up a studio where we can record training sessions with good-quality cameras, microphones, and studio lights. That required some investment. But it is just a single studio compared to dozens of fully equipped classrooms around the world.

In our business, the lack of knowledge on the customer side can be a barrier to sales. If you don't know how to use the software, you simply won't buy it. With online training, the entry barrier of training is really low: you don't have to travel to a training facility or to a different city. You can just sit in front of your own computer and access all the training materials. Using CYPHER Learning made it possible to eliminate the knowledge barrier.

It is really important that our end-users can choose the way they learn, online or offline, self-paced or trainer-led. Whatever format the learners prefer, they will get instant feedback about their progress and performance. We did research when we kickstarted online training back in 2020 and found that with gamification we can inspire people to progress and learn more. Learners can collect points, earn badges, and get certified. In the online world, people prefer to learn in small chunks, and if you give a small award for each chunk as a kind of instant and positive feedback, it drives learners to continue learning. Overall, it helps us to have more active learners and generate a healthy buzz around our site.

CYPHER Learning enables us to configure various automation rules and then the system automatically reacts to certain end-user actions. Having a lot of active learners on the front end means a lot of administrative tasks on the back end. But with rules we can automate most of these repetitive processes, so we try to automate as many things as possible.

On the back end, the most important feature is the built-in reporting, which makes it possible to track all of the user activities: what kind of courses the learners enroll in, how they are progressing, and when they complete a course. We have full insight, and we can analyze the captured data, see the trends, and predict the future to a certain extent. Also, with the API connections, we built an ecosystem around CYPHER Learning that automates financial reporting and a custom log-in solution.

There is also an exchange format called SCORM and you can migrate training materials made on other platforms with the help of that data exchange format. This feature can be very important for those companies that already use a learning management system and want to switch to CYPHER Learning.

We manage a huge number of registered users and also offer a large number of courses on our platform, and our courses are offered via a large number of organizations. It's a very complex setup, but CYPHER LEARNING did an excellent job of fixing the initial speed issues we had.

We are also considering how we can improve the user experience. There are some customization options in CYPHER Learning that we haven’t utilized yet, but with the help of these we want to make our site more attractive to paying customers.

Finally, we are very excited about the improved and flexible access that is already in CYPHER LEARNING’s development pipeline.

We have been using it since March 2020.

If I remember correctly, they warrant a 99.999 percent uptime, which is exceptional. We have never faced any major breakdowns or issues since we started using CYPHER Learning.

Scalability has a lot of aspects. One of them is pricing, and CYPHER LEARNING offers scalable pricing plans for small, medium, and large institutes and businesses as well. Technically speaking, in CYPHER Learning you can set up multiple organizations within your platform and you can also link multiple platforms into a network and use common resources.

We have a global training business and multiple teams are using CYPHER Learning around the world. Our learners come from nearly 200 countries, covering every continent. We have established multiple organizations that provide courses in many languages, while the user interface of CYPHER Learning is translated into more than 50 languages.

Cypher Learning’s technical support is excellent. We are very satisfied with the experienced response rate and speed. They have a support forum where we can ask questions or raise concerns and, in most cases, they answer within minutes.

Positive

We used Moodle for specific purposes, but we managed only a couple of courses on that platform. Moodle is free and may be a great solution for non-profit education institutes, but it completely lacks e-commerce features and, according to our standards, it is not scalable. After implementing CYPHER Learning, we migrated the courses and phased out Moodle.

We launched the site during the outbreak of the pandemic and the release was a relatively smooth process. We did not face any major difficulties. Although we wanted to integrate the platform with other company systems right at the beginning, which proved to be a more complex task and required some planning and in-house development, we managed to go live within six weeks: two to three staff members were involved in setting up the platform, while a bigger number was working on producing the digital version of our existing training materials.

If I look at the big picture—overall company sales, not just training—which is more important for us, we definitely have seen return on our investment and the result is the same if we look at training as a standalone business.

Overall, the pricing of CYPHER Learning is okay. There are cheaper solutions that offer way fewer features and there are more expensive and more capable solutions, but they might be overkill for many companies that are not big enough. It's about balance. CYPHER Learning is in the middle; not very expensive, not very cheap.

You can start out small, at a relatively cheap price. Within two years, we have grown significantly. They are really flexible regarding the pricing and they can manage companies of all sizes with their pricing and policies. There are different price levels for X number of users and Y number of users and they offer a lot of options. That was an important factor.

We evaluated Adobe Captivate. It's a capable tool but it comes with a hefty price tag, which is not a surprise if you consider that it was made primarily for large global companies. The entry barrier is very high for that solution. We also evaluated some other products, but most of those were either tailored to certain business types or developed mainly for internal training and lacked scalability and flexibility.

Start small and grow as you go. Build a scalable solution. You can set up multiple organizations within your platform, and you can link multiple CYPHER Learning instances together into a network as you grow your business. The good news is that CYPHER Learning fully supports this approach with its gradual pricing.

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 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.

We used to have a traditional education system before the pandemic, but because of the pandemic, we had to reach students in a different way. That was when we engaged CYPHER Learning as a platform to help us continue our teaching and learning processes. Thanks to this platform, the students continued their education.

With CYPHER Learning's automation, students are aware of what they are going to do. They see the assignments and their achievements and they know their own grades. In other words, they regulate their learning pace by themselves.

For us as teachers, the adaptive learning has allowed us to make decisions regarding the progress of students, including their achievements and skills. This helps regulate the progress of the semester.

The solution’s competency-based learning helps us understand what percentage of the activities the student has exploited among those that the teacher has uploaded to the platform. This information allows us to understand a lot about the interaction that teachers have with students.

Lately, we are focusing on formative evaluation, which is an evaluation of the process through which the student acquires the skills and we receive feedback regarding the student’s situation. The ability to tag classes and assignments with competencies is very good because in our country we work under a system based on competencies and formative evaluation. The fact that teachers can attach competencies and qualification scales to the activities that they program in their rubrics, helps indicate development and reinforce our teaching style.

And thanks to the formative evaluation that CYPHER Learning has provided us with, students now know why they have been qualified in certain criteria. The data is in front of them.

Each teacher who designs a course takes into account the skills and recommendations that students have to meet. Each activity is designed based on the competencies record. The student must be aware of what he is going to learn, so this tool is very important.

It helps students develop their independence. Little by little, the teachers are learning that the students want autonomy and independence in each activity.
It is a sequence that all teachers manage. And the students already understand that the platform has the instructions they need and helps them regulate autonomy and time management.

The platform has given us a space to manage things in an organized manner with consistent dynamics. If it were not for CYPHER Learning, everyone would look for their own learning platform.

And when it comes to intervention strategies for students, it helps save time because tools such as direct messaging enable providing feedback to students who are having difficulties. Teachers can redirect the activity or their explanations and that helps facilitate the learning process. Not all students quickly understand the message. The way CYPHER Learning messages work facilitates interaction between the teacher and the student.

When it comes to administrative and bureaucratic work, a teacher makes his class and uploads it to CYPHER Learning. The advisor supervises the class and gives feedback on his behalf, which makes the process easier. We are still learning about CYPHER Learning's dynamic environment, but we have saved about 70 percent in time on administrative work.

Another advantage of CYPHER Learning, because it supports a good amount of data, is that we can avoid the use of physical textbooks. Before we implemented CYPHER Learning, school accessories cost parents 1,500 soles. Now, the cost is 500 or 800 soles because there is no need to buy books.

Other benefits include the fact that the communication with students is through a single platform. All students are aware of the importance of the use of CYPHER Learning for hybrid and face-to-face classes. And through the supervision and monitoring of teachers through the platform, the advisor in each area can investigate what the teacher's work is like. 

It has definitely helped our school a lot. It is a very powerful LMS.

This platform not only allows you to transmit the content in an agile and interactive way, but you can also interact with the students and keep them up to date. It is a platform that provides communication with the student, not only academically but also personally.

It's very easy for educators to communicate with students. It's part of the school's "DNA." CYPHER Learning is our only platform for contact with students. We have another platform but it is more for announcements and institutional issues. CYPHER Learning is the meeting space between teachers and students. It’s the main provider of content, evaluations, structure, and design of classes.

The tool that we use the most is personalizing the content with the students and doing inverted learning. As a teacher, I upload my material to the platform with all the detailed activities, links, and feedback. I use it more than anything to plan my classes, and so that the students know the objective of the class and achieve it.

And the solution's automation for helping show or hide specific class sections or assignments is very good. It is a very transparent and intuitive platform with various tools to help students.

Also, the ability of teachers to track student progress on a competency basis through a mastery grid is very important. All teachers have to manage and take advantage of the information they receive from CYPHER Learning. The more automated CYPHER Learning is in terms of achievements, the more the information will be useful for the teacher when continuing to design classes, giving feedback to the students, and continuing with formative assessment.

It is also important that CYPHER Learning has a link with other platforms such as Zoom, AMCO, et cetera. The ability that it has to connect with other tools that help enrich the teaching and learning process is great. Many teachers use various gamified processes to teach their classes, such as video, a song, or a canvas.

Perhaps there could be advances in artificial intelligence with more precise and immediate automated reports so that teachers have reports at hand. That would make things easier and would speed up processes.

We are a private school in Lima and we have been using CYPHER Learning since 2021.

The stability of this solution is excellent. It has enabled virtual, blended, hybrid, and face-to-face education, in an optimal way. In our almost three years of use, there have only been two or three network drops. That is not an alarming amount, and with CYPHER Learning we get immediate feedback and support.

We do not know 100 percent of CYPHER Learning yet. We continue training teachers in its use and exploitation, but we see that CYPHER Learning is evolving even more to provide us with more tools. Our goal at the moment is that CYPHER Learning will meet a national standard and become an official system of evaluation, according to the Peruvian rating system. We have high expectations that CYPHER Learning will continue to respond to all our needs.

We are empowering teachers more and more in the use of the platform. Students receive all content through CYPHER Learning. Our goal is to reach the parents of the students more and involve them more in the platform. We have plans to increase the use of CYPHER Learning with the families of students. They still don't understand exactly what CYPHER Learning is.

And as a network of various Franciscan schools, we also want our other schools to be able to access this platform.

We have approximately 140 users: teachers, assistants, advisory teachers who are the monitors, and our deputy directors. It has allowed us to increase staff. Student and parent users add many more to that count.

The technical support is quite agile. The school's systems team has constant communication with CYPHER Learning. In fact, at first, we didn't use their support that much, but CYPHER LEARNING has opened the channels of communication between the school and its technical support team and that has been very beneficial for us.

Their support is getting better and better. We are only now beginning to get to know the representatives.

Positive

There is a Peruvian platform called SieWeb that we used to communicate with students, but it did not have the CYPHER Learning's agility to interact with students. 

We learned about CYPHER Learning due to the pandemic. It is an LMS platform and SieWeb is not. It has completely different capabilities in terms of uploading content, design, interaction, training, work, et cetera.

It did not take us long. We looked at other institutions that already had the platform and we quickly became familiar with it. The platform is very intuitive, and our objective is to learn and exploit it much more.

Setting up the design and the user interface took us a month. The pandemic began on March 12 and, two weeks later, we returned to classes. At the beginning of the pandemic, each one of us went for various virtual spaces, but it was quickly decided to implement CYPHER Learning. The part that took the longest was the uploading of data.

At first, we trained the teachers, students, and their families too. We created tutorials and guidelines for teachers on how to use the platform so that all the teachers could handle things in the same way.

We hired a consultant who had experience with CYPHER Learning at another institution. The system engineers (tech team) helped in the development of tutorials and explained how to access the platform and use it. We had a good experience with the consultant. He arrived at the time we needed him most.

He presented us with different proposals on how to design our LMS environment and we adapted it to our objectives.

In terms of staff involved in addition to the consultant, there were the three systems engineers and a quality coordinator.

The return on investment is in CYPHER Learning's ability to adapt to different educational service modalities, save paper costs, enable student interaction with other virtual environments, monitor the work of teachers on the platform, and much more.

We thought about Google Classroom as, in the beginning, several teachers opted for that platform, but it seemed to us that CYPHER Learning would be a unifying space. It has the versatility to link to other tools. And its evaluation system, rubrics, feedback features, and instant messaging are things that CYPHER Learning handles really well.

We have been using this platform for almost three years and we are exploring it a bit more every day. We still haven't mastered all of the tools it has to offer. Students usually say that use of the platform is very practical and functional.

We did a survey in the school and a large percentage of our teachers access CYPHER Learning daily, between two and three times, which means that the use of CYPHER Learning is very beneficial and helps us save a great deal of time. We have also evaluated it with families through surveys and the satisfaction is high.

CYPHER Learning has all the functionality to keep students at the same level, but it is the teacher's duty to make the most of those features. Logically, not all students are at the same level, but if the teacher uses 100 percent of CYPHER Learning's functionalities, students can achieve a very balanced learning pace.

If you want a space that allows you to work on skills, formative evaluation, the interaction between teachers and students, and that gives you the ability to reinforce learning, CYPHER Learning is a very good tool. It can be customized according to the needs of your organization.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestro caso de uso principal?

Solíamos tener un sistema de educación tradicional antes de la pandemia, pero debido a la pandemia, tuvimos que llegar a los estudiantes de una manera diferente. Fue entonces cuando contratamos a CYPHER Learning como plataforma para ayudarnos a continuar con nuestros procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Gracias a esta plataforma, los estudiantes continuaron su educación.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Con la automatización de CYPHER Learning, los alumnos son conscientes de lo que van a hacer. Ven las tareas y sus logros y saben sus propias calificaciones. En otras palabras, ellos mismos regulan su ritmo de aprendizaje.

Para nosotros como docentes, el aprendizaje adaptativo nos ha permitido tomar decisiones respecto al progreso de los estudiantes, incluyendo sus logros y habilidades. Esto ayuda a regular el progreso del semestre.

El aprendizaje basado en competencias de la solución nos ayuda a entender qué porcentaje de las actividades ha explotado el alumno entre las que ha subido el profesor a la plataforma. Esta información nos permite entender mucho sobre la interacción que tienen los docentes con los estudiantes.

Últimamente nos estamos enfocando en la evaluación formativa, que es una evaluación del proceso a través del cual el estudiante adquiere las habilidades y recibimos retroalimentación sobre la situación del estudiante. La posibilidad de etiquetar clases y trabajos con competencias es muy buena porque en nuestro país trabajamos bajo un sistema basado en competencias y evaluación formativa. El hecho de que los docentes puedan adjuntar escalas de competencias y calificaciones a las actividades que programan en sus rúbricas, ayuda a indicar el desarrollo y reforzar nuestro estilo de enseñanza.

Y gracias a la evaluación formativa que nos ha proporcionado CYPHER Learning, los alumnos ahora saben por qué han sido calificados en determinados criterios. Los datos están frente a ellos.

Cada profesor que diseña un curso tiene en cuenta las habilidades y recomendaciones que los alumnos tienen que cumplir. Cada actividad se diseña en base al registro de competencias. El alumno debe ser consciente de lo que va a aprender, por lo que esta herramienta es muy importante.

Ayuda a los estudiantes a desarrollar su independencia. Poco a poco los profesores van aprendiendo que los alumnos quieren autonomía e independencia en cada actividad.

Es una secuencia que manejan todos los profesores. Y los alumnos ya entienden que la plataforma tiene las instrucciones que necesitan y les ayuda a regular la autonomía y la gestión del tiempo.

La plataforma nos ha dado un espacio para gestionar las cosas de manera organizada con una dinámica consistente. Si no fuera por CYPHER Learning, cada uno buscaría su propia plataforma de aprendizaje.

Y cuando se trata de estrategias de intervención para los estudiantes, ayuda a ahorrar tiempo porque herramientas como la mensajería directa permiten brindar retroalimentación a los estudiantes que tienen dificultades. Los profesores pueden redirigir la actividad o sus explicaciones y eso ayuda a facilitar el proceso de aprendizaje. No todos los estudiantes entienden rápidamente el mensaje. CYPHER Learning facilita el funcionamiento de los mensajes y la interacción entre el profesor y el alumno.

Cuando se trata de trabajo administrativo y burocrático, un docente hace su clase y la sube a CYPHER Learning. El asesor supervisa la clase y da retroalimentación en su nombre, lo que facilita el proceso. Todavía estamos aprendiendo sobre el entorno dinámico de CYPHER Learning, pero hemos ahorrado alrededor del 70 por ciento de tiempo en trabajo administrativo.

Otra de las ventajas de CYPHER Learning, ya que soporta una buena cantidad de datos, es que podemos evitar el uso de libros de texto físicos. Antes de implementar CYPHER Learning, los accesorios escolares costaban a los padres 1.500 soles. Ahora el costo es de 500 u 800 soles porque no hay necesidad de comprar libros.

Otros beneficios incluyen el hecho de que la comunicación con los estudiantes es a través de una única plataforma. Todos los alumnos son conscientes de la importancia del uso de CYPHER Learning para las clases híbridas y presenciales. Y a través de la supervisión y seguimiento de los docentes a través de la plataforma, el asesor de cada área puede investigar cómo es el trabajo del docente.

Definitivamente ha ayudado mucho a nuestra escuela. Es un LMS muy potente.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Esta plataforma no solo te permite transmitir el contenido de forma ágil e interactiva, sino que también puedes interactuar con los alumnos y mantenerlos actualizados. Es una plataforma que facilita la comunicación con el alumno, no solo a nivel académico sino también personal.

Es muy fácil para los educadores comunicarse con los estudiantes. Es parte del "ADN" de la escuela. CYPHER Learning es nuestra única plataforma de contacto con los estudiantes. Tenemos otra plataforma pero es más para anuncios y temas institucionales. CYPHER Learning es el espacio de encuentro entre profesores y alumnos. Es el principal proveedor de contenidos, evaluaciones, estructura y diseño de clases.

La herramienta que más utilizamos es personalizar el contenido con los alumnos y hacer un aprendizaje invertido. Como docente, subo mi material a la plataforma con todas las actividades detalladas, enlaces y comentarios. Lo uso más que nada para planificar mis clases, y para que los alumnos conozcan el objetivo de la clase y lo consigan.

Y la automatización de la solución para ayudar a mostrar u ocultar secciones o tareas específicas de la clase es muy buena. Es una plataforma muy transparente e intuitiva con varias herramientas para ayudar a los estudiantes.

Además, la capacidad de los maestros para realizar un seguimiento del progreso de los estudiantes en función de las competencias a través de una tabla de dominio es muy importante. Todos los docentes tienen que gestionar y aprovechar la información que reciben de CYPHER Learning. Cuanto más automatizado esté CYPHER Learning en cuanto a logros, más útil será la información para el profesor a la hora de seguir diseñando clases, retroalimentando a los alumnos y continuando con la evaluación formativa.

También es importante que CYPHER Learning tenga enlace con otras plataformas como Zoom, AMCO, etcétera. La capacidad que tiene para conectarse con otras herramientas que ayudan a enriquecer el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje es muy buena. Muchos profesores utilizan varios procesos gamificados para impartir sus clases, como un vídeo, una canción o un canva.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Quizás podría haber avances en inteligencia artificial con informes automatizados más precisos e inmediatos para que los docentes tengan informes a mano. Eso facilitaría las cosas y aceleraría los procesos.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

Somos una escuela privada en Lima y usamos CYPHER Learning desde 2021.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

La estabilidad de esta solución es excelente. Ha posibilitado la educación virtual, semipresencial, híbrida y presencial, de manera óptima. En nuestros casi tres años de uso, solo ha habido dos o tres caídas de red. Esa no es una cantidad alarmante, y con CYPHER Learning recibimos respuestas y apoyo inmediatos.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Todavía no conocemos el 100 por ciento de CYPHER Learning. Seguimos capacitando a los docentes en su uso y explotación, pero vemos que CYPHER Learning evoluciona aún más para brindarnos más herramientas. Nuestro objetivo en este momento es que CYPHER Learning cumpla con un estándar nacional y se convierta en un sistema oficial de evaluación, según el sistema de calificación peruano. Tenemos altas expectativas de que CYPHER Learning seguirá respondiendo a todas nuestras necesidades.

Estamos empoderando cada vez más a los docentes en el uso de la plataforma. Los estudiantes reciben todo el contenido a través de CYPHER Learning. Nuestro objetivo es llegar más a los padres de los alumnos e involucrarlos más en la plataforma. Tenemos planes para aumentar el uso de CYPHER Learning con las familias de los estudiantes. Todavía no entienden exactamente qué es CYPHER Learning.

Y como red de varios colegios franciscanos, también queremos que nuestros otros colegios puedan acceder a esta plataforma.

Contamos con aproximadamente 140 usuarios: docentes, auxiliares, docentes asesores que son los monitores y nuestros subdirectores. Nos ha permitido aumentar más en cuanto a personal. Los usuarios estudiantes y padres agregan muchos más a ese conteo.

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

El soporte técnico es bastante ágil. El equipo de sistemas de la escuela tiene comunicación constante con CYPHER Learning. De hecho, al principio no usamos mucho su apoyo, pero CYPHER LEARNING ha abierto los canales de comunicación entre la escuela y su equipo de soporte técnico y eso ha sido muy beneficioso para nosotros.

Su apoyo es cada vez mejor. Recientemente estamos empezando a conocer a los representantes.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Hay una plataforma peruana llamada SieWeb que usábamos para comunicarnos con los estudiantes, pero no tenía la agilidad de CYPHER Learning para interactuar con los estudiantes.

Nos enteramos de CYPHER Learning debido a la pandemia. Es una plataforma LMS y SieWeb no lo es. Tiene capacidades completamente diferentes en cuanto a carga de contenido, diseño, interacción, capacitación, trabajo, etcétera.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

No nos tomó mucho tiempo. Miramos a otras instituciones que ya tenían la plataforma y rápidamente nos familiarizamos con ella. La plataforma es muy intuitiva, y nuestro objetivo es aprender y explotarla mucho más.

Configurar el diseño y la interfaz de usuario nos llevó un mes. La pandemia empezó el 12 de marzo y, dos semanas después, volvimos a clases. Al comienzo de la pandemia, cada uno de nosotros optó por varios espacios virtuales, pero rápidamente se decidió implementar CYPHER Learning. La parte que tomó más tiempo fue la carga de datos.

Al principio, capacitamos a los maestros, estudiantes y también a sus familias. Creamos tutoriales y pautas para profesores sobre cómo usar la plataforma para que todos los profesores pudieran manejar las cosas de la misma manera.

¿Y el equipo de implementación?

Contratamos a un consultor que tenía experiencia con CYPHER Learning en otra institución. Los ingenieros de sistemas (equipo técnico) ayudaron en el desarrollo de tutoriales y explicaron cómo acceder a la plataforma y usarla. Tuvimos una buena experiencia con el consultor. Llegó en el momento que más lo necesitábamos.

Nos presentó diferentes propuestas de cómo diseñar nuestro entorno LMS y lo adaptamos a nuestros objetivos.

En cuanto al personal involucrado, además del consultor, estaban los tres ingenieros de sistemas y un coordinador de calidad.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

El retorno de la inversión está en la capacidad de CYPHER Learning para adaptarse a diferentes modalidades de servicios educativos, ahorrar costos de papel, permitir la interacción de los estudiantes con otros entornos virtuales, monitorear el trabajo de los docentes en la plataforma y mucho más.

¿Qué otras soluciones evalué?

Pensamos en Google Classroom ya que, en un principio, varios docentes optaron por esa plataforma, pero nos pareció que CYPHER Learning sería un espacio unificador. Tiene la versatilidad de vincularse a otras herramientas. Y su sistema de evaluación, rúbricas, funciones de retroalimentación y mensajería instantánea son cosas que CYPHER Learning maneja muy bien.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Llevamos casi tres años usando esta plataforma y cada día la exploramos un poco más. Todavía no hemos dominado todas las herramientas que tiene para ofrecer. Los estudiantes suelen decir que el uso de la plataforma es muy práctico y funcional.

Hicimos una encuesta en la escuela y un gran porcentaje de nuestros profesores acceden a CYPHER Learning diariamente, entre dos y tres veces, lo que significa que el uso de CYPHER Learning es muy beneficioso y nos ayuda a ahorrar mucho tiempo. También lo hemos evaluado con las familias a través de encuestas y la satisfacción es alta.

CYPHER Learning tiene todas las funcionalidades para mantener a los estudiantes al mismo nivel, pero es deber del docente aprovechar al máximo esas características. Lógicamente, no todos los alumnos están al mismo nivel, pero si el profesor utiliza el 100 por cien de las funcionalidades de CYPHER Learning, los alumnos pueden conseguir un ritmo de aprendizaje muy equilibrado.

Si quieres un espacio que te permita trabajar las competencias, la evaluación formativa, la interacción entre profesores y alumnos, y que te dé la capacidad de reforzar el aprendizaje, CYPHER Learning es una muy buena herramienta. Se puede personalizar de acuerdo a las necesidades de su organización.

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.