CYPHER Learning Reviews

We offer transformative health programs. We offer self-paced and cohort-based learning experiences online for health and wellness.

We are using its latest version.

CYPHER Learning is extraordinarily intuitive. It allows us to customize the design and the look-and-feel of all of our pages inside of a course. 

It also allows us to direct students automatically from one task to the next, including creating their own reflections and personal goals. So, it really does support student agency, as we call it, as well as student success in completing tasks on their own.

We are able to see who has not accessed the portal and follow up with those people. It is important for us because retention is one of the factors in evaluating the efficacy of a course.

It enables us to monitor and check student progress. We don't use the mastery tool so much, but we do use the gamification tool where they get a set of scores or points once they complete something, and that badging system helps us track the completion. We've steered away from the grading tool and stuck with more of what I always call the rewards.

We love a couple of things. We love the group feature allowing students to have peer-to-peer learning experiences. In our case, it is for students, but this feature could also be useful for a business to provide peer-to-peer learning experiences for employees. The group tool provides an opportunity for students to connect with their peers inside of their own digital space. One of the aspects that we love about the group tool is that it allows students to leave the course but engage in a digital space where they access materials that are personalized to their group.

We also like gamification. It allowed us to give our users scores and have a friendly competition to motivate their learning success.

Another great feature is that it allows you to change the naming conventions of the tools. I've never seen an LMS that allows you to do that. All organizations have their own vocabulary, and this is just an extraordinary feature that gives you so much freedom to customize the platform to align with your organization's look-and-feel and vocabulary. 

Their Support Forum was exemplary. I got answers within 25 minutes of my questions, and they were personalized to me, which made the Support Forum highly valuable. I love the fact other people could see the question and the answer I got, and I could see theirs.

I'm an instructional designer, so from a designer standpoint, it is important to have a user-friendly resource folder that allows us to organize our artifacts for easy access to pull into multiple pages and modules. The second feature that I need is an easier capacity to edit pages with images and customizable headings. 

I started in November of 2019.

It is highly stable.

It is absolutely scalable. Currently, we have 10 courses, and we could easily go way more.

In terms of its users, we have a curriculum director who oversees content quality, and then we have course builders. Sometimes, the curriculum director takes on the course builder role, which means aligning the content into a cohesive format in CYPHER Learning. We have an admissions director who looks at the analytics to help us look at retention and other continuity needs.

In terms of its usage, we're currently in a little bit of a holding pattern. We've done an initial launch, and we're now assessing and bringing on more content experts. So, we're back in what we call build mode with a plan to launch in the fall another set of courses.

Their Support Forum is fantastic. The initial onboarding was easy with great technical support and relationship building with Alexia. I got a chance to get to know her really well because she's a designer. If I didn't get what I needed at the Support Forum, I could reach out to her directly. I would rate their support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

I am an instructional designer. So, I work with lots of learning management systems, but in particular, for this project, I didn't work with any other solution.

It was straightforward. The company provided us with excellent onboarding training.

The build took a long time, but that was not because of CYPHER Learning. I could probably build a full course in a week if I had all the content with me. 

We implemented it on our own. In terms of maintenance, the curriculum director and the course builder both tag team to support the technical ends. They also need to communicate with the content experts of the courses to manage student expectations and technical needs. We had to set up a Google email account to make sure students had a place to get help.

We absolutely will see an ROI when we launch.

Their plans are based on enrollment numbers. We're at the silver level with 100 active learners. So, you're really beholden to how many learners you're going to accommodate. There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

I evaluated Thinkific, but it was nowhere near the level of features and customization that we needed.

Maybe I'm being biased, but you definitely want to hire or have a course designer with the skills of course design and the understanding of how to leverage all the features that are available in an an LMS. The other piece of advice is to be very thoughtful and intentional about your initial setup by asking how it aligns with your goals and outcomes.  For example, we needed to think about the naming conventions of each feature to match our organization. So, instead of calling them courses, we called them journeys. Instead of calling them groups, we called them communities.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is to collaborate and work as a team to build the platform, and iterate, iterate, iterate.

We connect it to HubSpot, which is for our tracking of marketing, but in CYPHER Learning, we haven't done a lot of automation. We also haven't used the competency-based learning feature. We're very new, and we do intend to use it, but we aren't there yet. We do use gamification and badging. 

I would rate CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have been using CYPHER Learning for six years.

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

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

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

Positive

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

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

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have been using CYPHER LEARNING since 2016.

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

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

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

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

Positive

We didn't have a previous solution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I run an e-learning business providing training to accounting firms, and I use it as a platform for managing the learner experience for all of the learning courses. They're all self-paced courses.

We've been doing training for about 15 years, and the transition to a self-paced platform has been fantastic. It's actually given us better results with our learners than the live sessions that we were previously running. It has also allowed us to leverage and scale our business effectively and has been critically important for the growth of our business.

There are so many valuable features: The

• structure of the platform is fantastic 
• learner experience is very good
• process for the assessment of tasks works very well and that is an important part of what we do, to make sure learners get good feedback and that they can act on that feedback.
• feedback process is good as well. I get feedback from all my learners on how they're doing and they generally find the platform pretty easy to work through.

I use rules for a particular action when a particular task is completed. Gamification is a good example within that part of the platform. When learners reach a certain stage, or there's a certain outcome, they either get a certificate or a badge or the like. And when learners haven't accessed their course for a period of time, they get an automatic email asking them how things are going. Those are some basic actions or reactions around particular things that learners might do.

I am able to see who has not accessed the portal, using CYPHER Learning, and follow up with those people. This ability is very important and I have a person working full-time on it. It's our goal to make sure that learners complete their courses and we use the reporting and the platform to keep an eye on all of our learners. It doesn't lead directly to new registrations, but the learner experience is the most important thing for me. I'm keen to ensure that we give our learners all the support they can get to complete their courses.

Overall, for monitoring and checking student progress it's fantastic. It has everything that I need. I can print out reports showing me where learners are at, what their scores are, and how long it has been since they last accessed the platform. All that information is available.

The platform is fine. Most of the room for improvement is around my course design, the video content, and the structure of my courses so that they're more engaging and interactive. Whether the platform can help me deliver those outcomes, I'm not sure, but that will probably be my core focus over the next 12 months.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for three or four years.

There has been no problem with the stability. I have never had any issues.

The scalability is up to me. The intention of getting a platform like this was to scale up my business, and that's something I'm working on at the moment. I can keep doing that, it's highly leverageable.

I have 1,500 learners, of which 500 would be engaged over the course of a month. Sometimes people go off a course for a period of time and come back to it.

The responsiveness of their help desk is absolutely fantastic. If I have a question, I'll usually get a response within five minutes. That's very important to me because I've probably got over 500 learners at any one time and there are always little things that need to be addressed. They respond very quickly. 

And I'm continually improving our system with feedback from the people at CYPHER LEARNING.

Positive

CYPHER Learning was my first experience with an online e-learning platform. I did spend six months starting to develop my own platform and then stopped very quickly when I realized that there were platforms available.

I can't tell you how I came across the solution, probably just through an online search. They were very easy to engage with and that's probably why I'm with them.

The implementation was very easy. It was easy to convert some of my live content into self-paced online courses. The initial deployment was done within a month, to have it set up properly, make sure it was all working, and understand how the platform worked.

My implementation strategy involved making sure that the live content I had was transferable to a self-paced learning environment, and getting some learner feedback on how the course was operating.

Deployment of a new course, getting it set up on CYPHER Learning, takes about a day. There is very little maintenance. Once it's set up, there are only little fine-tuning things to do. I've got about 25 to 30 courses online now and I know how to set up new courses. Most of the effort is the background work, creating the content.

I only used the CYPHER LEARNING people to help with the training. In the very early days, I even had the international CEO, Graham Glass, speak to me for an hour and give me some feedback. He went through it all with me. That was quite incredible actually.

The revenue that I generate is about 50 times the cost at the moment.

For each course, it has helped to significantly reduce administrative work, but now that we've been able to scale up, obviously, we spend more time on admin in general. But we don't spend so much time on the things that we were doing in the past to manage the learner experience. Our administrative time has gone into other things that add more value.

It has also absolutely saved us money on training facilities and travel, costs that used to be involved in training. It's all online now. We have learners throughout Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, and the UK. It's scalable and people can access content anywhere.

The pricing is good. It's scalable, meaning you can start off at a cost level that is easy for a startup and then build on it from there. I've built up from nothing to a Platinum subscription. You can scale up as you need. It's pretty flexible and it works well.

If consultants or training are required, in the contract they have the ability to charge for a scope of work, but they've never charged me for anything that they've done. And they have spent significant time on some of my stuff.

I had a quick look around, but back then there weren't too many options available. 

Find out how other organizations are using it. Get as much feedback on best practices as you can. And that's not just for this platform, but for other e-learning platforms. Get feedback on how to get the most value from them. Training and understanding of e-learning platforms, and the psychology of e-learning, are particularly important so that the courses are set up correctly. Ask as many questions as you have. They're pretty responsive.

I'm just working at the moment on gamification and getting that up and running, so I can't give a lot of feedback about that, but that's developing. I'm also putting another key element of the platform into place, mastery, which is developing core competencies around course content. Similarly, I have been implementing competency-based learning over the last month or so. CYPHER Learning have given me a fair amount of detail, training, and follow-up on that. Again, I can't give a lot of feedback, but it all works fairly well.

We're also in the process of implementing two-factor authentication for security. That has been up and running over the last month and we are getting our learners through that process at the moment, so that data and information are secure. That is a key project that we're working on, apart from gamification and competencies.

I don't have any complaints about the platform. At this stage, it's meeting my needs. My challenge is more in making sure that I'm using it to its full capabilities. For that reason, I'm in pretty regular contact with the people at CYPHER Learning to review where I'm at and identify what I could be doing better. I'm focusing on continual improvement.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using the platform is the need to keep refining and developing. There are always things that you don't know. There are always features of a platform like this that you're not aware of. It's important to always be looking for ways to improve and asking whether the platform can deliver those outcomes. The platform has a pretty healthy pipeline, and they'll generally listen to any suggestions.

I use CYPHER Learning to upload school information, publish the annual program, and upload the sections of classes, divided weekly. We also use this platform in a didactic and playful way so that students have a more striking way of learning. We also do exams through CYPHER Learning.

CYPHER Learning has helped our institution a lot, especially in terms of evaluations. It provides substantial help for the teacher. For example, I can create an exam and CYPHER Learning already corrects it. That level of automation has helped me a lot. I'd rather spend an extra hour in CYPHER Learning creating one more test for another section than spend three hours grading tests.

CYPHER Learning helps me by giving me the results of exams. With the percentages that I receive from the platform I save a lot of time in the administrative sense.

I have 150 students in my charge. Whereas before, I had to correct the exam of each one of the 150 students, now I can simply access CYPHER Learning and see the results. The time that I used to correct exams I now use to create classes with more fun content or more games. I feel calmer in that sense. It has given me peace of mind.

It also helps in getting students to become more engaged and develop thinking skills. There is an option within the system that enables me to insert games from third-party platforms via links. The flexibility of being able to insert audio or links helps to challenge students to demonstrate their entrepreneurship and their level of thinking.

Our school is in a process of transformation where more emphasis is being given to inverted education. In that model, new content is initially introduced through online videos and readings before the class takes place. We have already achieved four stars in the EFQM model. Part of the process of reaching five stars is to be up to date with the new methodologies of education worldwide, such as the flipped classroom, where the focus of attention is inverted from the teacher to the students. In that model, students take more responsibility in the learning process. CYPHER Learning allows us to introduce subjects and inform students about the topics and give them a "warm-up" for what is going to happen in class.

Through the system, I also have an idea of how a student is doing since I can see the grades and scores they have received. That can help in part with intervention for students who need help. I can send them a link with content so they can practice the subject more, or I can talk to them through the chat to discuss what they need. In these ways, it helps me track students with difficulties and intervene.

Another benefit is that we no longer use so much paper or the school printing press, saving us a lot on costs. In addition, since there is not as much printing anymore, we no longer need as many staff in the printing part of the school.

I can use a template to replicate class content so that I can use the same content in the three sections where I teach. That way, I don't have to continuously edit my classes. It's very useful.

The platform helps me organize basic sections. I share videos, presentations,  and games like Kahoot, and this helps me facilitate learning management. There are students who are interested in this, and there are others who are not part of these activities. For me, it is very useful to send links to students with informative content before class so that they are more prepared. That has been very beneficial for me.

The platform also gives you an idea of the percentages when it comes to students' performance.

And when it comes to exams, if I want to assign one exam to specific students, the platform makes it easy for me to share the exam in that way. The platform makes it easy for me to communicate with students. I simply use the inbox, select the classroom and the student, and then send the exam that I want that student to send him. That's it. For me, this is a very important feature.

CYPHER Learning is also quite user-friendly. It is not complicated to use. Students know how to manage it, upload their homework, and take exams. The students can see their results as well. The exam files can be changed and it has many settings that allow for flexibility in giving exams.

If there is something that the platform could improve on, it would be in showing the number of words in a document that a student uploads. When I have to review essays I cannot see the number of words in them. The platform should count the words.

Another issue is in the area of exams. They could be more personalized and specific. For example, if I want to create a text with several gaps where the students have to fill in the correct words, it is very difficult to do through CYPHER Learning.

We have not necessarily saved money on textbooks since English learners have a printed book that is not in CYPHER Learning. If CYPHER Learning had an English reading platform it would be fantastic. If they could add a platform like Black Cat to their services it would be beneficial. CYPHER Learning doesn't include games either. I usually have to go to third-party sites, like Kahoot and Bamboo. I think you can add games through SCORM but I don't think it's that good. Because it does not include fun games like the ones I use, I have to buy them, and they are not cheap.

I have been using CYPHER LEARNING for three to four years.

It is quite stable and also provides services during hours when we do not have classes.

CYPHER Learning is the backbone of the school. It is used continuously. It gives us structure for the functioning of our learning sessions, and enough functionality to work in those sessions and on everything else. It gives us structure and unity.

For example, if I have an exam that I create in English for high school and a colleague of mine from another grade wants to use that exam, he can use it. I have the ability to share materials such as exams with other teachers.

We have 250 to 300 users, teachers and administrators, not counting the students.

The solution’s technical support is good. I mostly turn to the systems administrator team at our school when I have problems with CYPHER Learning. I know that the vendor has support for the platform but I prefer to talk to a person by phone or in person. From what I understand about CYPHER LEARNING's support, it is a chat with a robot. In some cases it helps but in some cases it doesn't.

I don't have a phone number of a CYPHER Learning manager to turn to. If they had a helpline it might be better.

Neutral

I used Canvas LMS, although I couldn't create exams in it. It is a very good platform, but CYPHER Learning is better for creating exams for school.

In the beginning, it was complicated. We all did not understand what the system was. Some teachers were more skilled than others in finding the features. Some teachers, even to this day, don't know how to make an exam in CYPHER Learning. They haven't figured it out.

There was a training process but there was a lot of information so it took us time to decipher. Our deployment took two to three months. There was a lot of publicity and information about CYPHER Learning at our school, in meetings and through training. They gave us links to tutorials as well. It was a whole implementation process.

I would like us to receive more tutorials on the SCORM format. I found it very useful and that there are many things that can be done with it. We also learned that with the Lumen program you have a massive number of formats for games that can be inserted into CYPHER Learning via SCORM.

Our school has three different levels: initial, elementary, and high school. Our department of system administrators, consisting of three or four, is in charge of CYPHER Learning.

We have an intermediary between CYPHER LEARNING and our school, a company that helped our school with the implementation. They just gave a talk about the use of SCORM a few days ago which I wish had been a little longer.

The cost of CYPHER Learning was necessary to handle the situation that occurred during the pandemic. Since then, CYPHER Learning has continued to justify its cost since it makes it possible for a teacher to take charge of more sections. Teachers can handle more exams and more students because more things are automated. If a teacher used to handle four sections, he now has five because he does not have to correct so many exams. This has led to reducing staff.

This automation is priceless. Now, teachers can focus on other aspects with the additional time saved on reviewing exams.

In addition, I can share content with other people. All of this is a benefit for the school.

My advice is to make sure you have a lot of training. Your school should create many training sessions to help people know how to use it, with practical examples of how exams and sections are created. That way, teachers will become familiar with the platform. We had teachers who were very afraid to use the platform at first. With enjoyable training sessions, you can break the ice.

During the pandemic, we felt isolated since we did not have the ability to ask our colleagues for help.

In terms of face-to-face education, a suggestion for CYPHER LEARNING is that it give more presence to CYPHER Learning as an entity in the school by teaching more about how to exploit the tools: how to create games, and more about the use of SCORM. In our case, each teacher has discovered many things on their own. There is a need for more of a company presence.

Learn to trust yourself. Technology is your friend, so do not be afraid of it. It can help you in your processes. There is a saying that "employability is a journey, not a destination." Many things can be learned on this journey. Your job as a teacher does not have to be a final destination. We need to accept that we are on a journey in which everything can change and that we need to adapt. CYPHER Learning has taught me to adapt.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestro caso de uso principal?

Uso CYPHER Learning para subir información de la escuela, publicar el programa anual y subir las secciones de clases, divididas semanalmente. También utilizamos esta plataforma de forma didáctica y lúdica para que los alumnos tengan una forma más llamativa de aprender. También hacemos exámenes a través de CYPHER Learning.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

CYPHER Learning ha ayudado mucho a nuestra institución, especialmente en términos de evaluaciones. Proporciona una ayuda sustancial para el profesor. Por ejemplo, puedo crear un examen y CYPHER Learning ya lo corrige. Ese nivel de automatización me ha ayudado mucho. Prefiero pasar una hora extra en CYPHER Learning creando una prueba más para otra sección que pasar tres horas calificando pruebas.

CYPHER Learning me ayuda dándome los resultados de los exámenes. Con los porcentajes que recibo de la plataforma ahorro mucho tiempo en el sentido administrativo.

Tengo 150 estudiantes a mi cargo. Mientras que antes tenía que corregir el examen de cada uno de los 150 alumnos, ahora simplemente puedo acceder a CYPHER Learning y ver los resultados. El tiempo que solía corregir exámenes ahora lo uso para crear clases con contenido más divertido o más juegos. Me siento más tranquila en ese sentido. Me ha dado tranquilidad.

También ayuda a que los estudiantes se involucren más y desarrollen habilidades de pensamiento. Hay una opción dentro del sistema que me permite insertar juegos de plataformas de terceros a través de enlaces. La flexibilidad de poder insertar audio o enlaces ayuda a desafiar a los estudiantes a demostrar su emprendimiento y su nivel de pensamiento.

Nuestro colegio se encuentra en un proceso de transformación donde se le está dando más énfasis a la educación invertida. En ese modelo, el nuevo contenido se introduce inicialmente a través de videos y lecturas en línea antes de que se lleve a cabo la clase. Ya hemos conseguido cuatro estrellas en el modelo EFQM. Parte del proceso de llegar a cinco estrellas es estar al día con las nuevas metodologías de educación a nivel mundial, como el aula invertida, donde el foco de atención se invierte del docente a los alumnos. En ese modelo, los estudiantes asumen más responsabilidad en el proceso de aprendizaje. CYPHER Learning nos permite introducir temas e informar a los estudiantes sobre los temas y darles una pequeña "revelación" de lo que sucederá en clase.

A través del sistema, también tengo una idea de cómo le está yendo a un estudiante, ya que puedo ver las calificaciones y puntajes que ha recibido. Eso puede ayudar en parte con la intervención para los estudiantes que necesitan ayuda. Puedo enviarles un enlace con contenido para que practiquen más el tema, o puedo hablar con ellos a través del chat para discutir lo que necesitan. De esta manera, me ayuda a rastrear a los estudiantes con dificultades e intervenir.

Otro beneficio es que ya no usamos tanto papel ni la imprenta escolar, ahorrándonos mucho en costos. Además, dado que ya no hay tanta impresión, ya no necesitamos tanto personal en la parte de impresión de la escuela.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Puedo usar una plantilla para replicar el contenido de la clase para poder usar el mismo contenido en las tres secciones donde enseño. De esa manera, no tengo que editar continuamente mis clases. Es muy útil.

La plataforma me ayuda a organizar secciones básicas. Comparto videos, presentaciones y juegos como Kahoot, y esto me ayuda a facilitar la gestión del aprendizaje. Hay estudiantes que están interesados en esto, y hay otros que no son parte de estas actividades. Para mí es muy útil enviar enlaces a los alumnos con contenido informativo antes de la clase para que estén más preparados. Eso ha sido muy beneficioso para mí.

La plataforma también te da una idea de los porcentajes en lo que respecta al rendimiento de los estudiantes.

Y cuando se trata de exámenes, si quiero asignar un examen a estudiantes específicos, la plataforma me facilita compartir el examen de esa manera. La plataforma me facilita la comunicación con los estudiantes. Simplemente uso la bandeja de entrada, selecciono el aula y el alumno, y luego envío el examen que quiero que ese alumno haga. Para mí, esta es una característica muy importante.

CYPHER Learning también es bastante fácil de usar. Los estudiantes saben cómo administrarlo, subir sus tareas y realizar exámenes. Los estudiantes también pueden ver sus resultados. Los archivos de examen se pueden cambiar y tiene muchas configuraciones que permiten flexibilidad al realizar exámenes.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Si hay algo en lo que podría mejorar la plataforma sería en mostrar la cantidad de palabras en un documento que sube un estudiante. Cuando tengo que revisar ensayos no puedo ver el número de palabras en ellos. La plataforma debe contar las palabras.

Otro tema es en el área de los exámenes. Podrían ser más personalizados y específicos. Por ejemplo, si quiero crear un texto con varios espacios en blanco donde los alumnos deben completar las palabras correctas, es muy difícil hacerlo a través de CYPHER Learning.

No necesariamente hemos ahorrado dinero en libros de texto ya que los estudiantes de inglés tienen un libro impreso que no está en CYPHER Learning. Si CYPHER Learning tuviera una plataforma de lectura en inglés sería fantástico. Si pudieran agregar una plataforma como Black Cat a sus servicios, sería beneficioso. CYPHER Learningtampoco incluye juegos. Por lo general, tengo que ir a sitios de terceros, como Kahoot y Bamboo. Creo que puedes agregar juegos a través de SCORM, pero no creo que sea tan bueno. Como no incluye juegos divertidos como los que yo uso, los tengo que comprar, y no son baratos.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

He estado usando CYPHER LEARNING durante tres o cuatro años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución

Es bastante estable y también brinda servicios en horas en las que no tenemos clases.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

CYPHER Learning es la columna vertebral de la escuela. Se usa continuamente. Nos da estructura para el funcionamiento de nuestras sesiones de aprendizaje y suficiente funcionalidad para trabajar en esas sesiones y en todo lo demás. Nos da estructura y unidad.

Por ejemplo, si tengo un examen que creo en inglés para la escuela secundaria y un colega mío de otro grado quiere usar ese examen, puede usarlo. Tengo la capacidad de compartir materiales como exámenes con otros profesores.

Tenemos de 250 a 300 usuarios, profesores y administradores, sin contar los alumnos.

¿Y el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

El soporte técnico de la solución es bueno. Principalmente recurro al equipo de administración de sistemas de nuestra escuela cuando tengo problemas con CYPHER Learning. Sé que el proveedor tiene soporte para la plataforma pero prefiero hablar con una persona por teléfono o en persona. Por lo que entiendo sobre el soporte de CYPHER LEARNING, es un chat con un robot. En algunos casos ayuda, pero en otros no.

No tengo un número de teléfono de un administrador de CYPHER Learning al que acudir. Si tuvieran una línea de ayuda sería mejor.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Neutral

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Usé Canvas LMS, aunque no pude crear exámenes en él. Es una plataforma muy buena, pero CYPHER Learning es mejor para crear exámenes para la escuela.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

Al principio fue complicado. Todos no entendíamos lo que era el sistema. Algunos maestros eran más hábiles que otros para encontrar las características. Algunos profesores, hasta el día de hoy, no saben cómo hacer un examen en CYPHER Learning.

Hubo un proceso de entrenamiento pero había mucha información por lo que nos tomó tiempo descifrar. Nuestro despliegue tomó de dos a tres meses. Hubo mucha publicidad e información sobre CYPHER Learning en nuestra escuela, en reuniones y en capacitaciones. También nos dieron enlaces a tutoriales. Fue todo un proceso de implementación.

Me gustaría que recibiéramos más tutoriales sobre el formato SCORM. Me pareció muy útil y que hay muchas cosas que se pueden hacer con él. También aprendimos que con el programa Lumen tienes una gran cantidad de formatos para juegos que se pueden insertar en CYPHER Learning a través de SCORM.

¿Y el equipo de implementación?

Nuestra escuela tiene tres niveles diferentes: inicial, primaria y secundaria. Nuestro departamento de administradores de sistemas, formado por tres o cuatro miembros, está a cargo de CYPHER Learning.

Tenemos un intermediario entre CYPHER LEARNING y nuestra escuela, una empresa que ayudó a nuestra escuela con la implementación. Hace unos días dieron una charla sobre el uso de SCORM que me hubiera gustado que fuera un poco más larga.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

El costo de CYPHER Learning fue necesario para manejar la situación que se presentó durante la pandemia. Desde entonces, CYPHER Learning ha seguido justificando su coste ya que permite que un profesor se haga cargo de más secciones. Los maestros pueden manejar más exámenes y más estudiantes porque más cosas están automatizadas. Si antes un profesor manejaba cuatro secciones, ahora tiene cinco porque no tiene que corregir tantos exámenes. Esto ha llevado a la reducción de personal necesario.

Esta automatización no tiene precio. Ahora, los profesores pueden concentrarse en otros aspectos con el tiempo adicional ahorrado en la revisión de exámenes.
Además, puedo compartir contenido con otras personas. Todo esto es un beneficio para la escuela.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Mi consejo es que te asegures de tener mucho entrenamiento. Tu escuela debería crear muchas sesiones de capacitación para ayudar a las personas a saber cómo usarlo, con ejemplos prácticos de cómo se crean los exámenes y las secciones. De esa manera, los profesores se familiarizarán con la plataforma. Tuvimos profesores que al principio tenían mucho miedo de usar la plataforma. Con sesiones de entrenamiento agradables, puedes romper el hielo.

Durante la pandemia nos sentimos aislados ya que no teníamos la capacidad de pedir ayuda a nuestros compañeros.

En cuanto a la educación presencial, una sugerencia para CYPHER LEARNING es que le dé más presencia a CYPHER Learning como entidad en la escuela enseñando más sobre cómo explotar las herramientas: cómo crear juegos y más sobre el uso de SCORM. En nuestro caso, cada profesor ha descubierto muchas cosas por su cuenta. Hay una necesidad de una mayor presencia de la empresa.

Aprende a confiar en ti mismo. La tecnología es tu amiga, así que no le tengas miedo. Te puede ayudar en tus procesos. Hay un dicho que dice que "la empleabilidad es un viaje, no un destino". Muchas cosas se pueden aprender en este viaje. Tu trabajo como docente no tiene por qué ser un destino final. Necesitamos aceptar que estamos en un viaje en el que todo puede cambiar y que debemos adaptarnos. CYPHER Learning me ha enseñado a adaptarme.

We use it in a few ways. When we started 18 months ago, we had a website that offered short, continuous education courses in things like sales development. We moved that website into CYPHER Learning. We also gradually migrated our RTO courses into CYPHER Learning, starting about a year ago.

We also develop LMS portals for our business partners as sub-organizations within our LMS. We have a handful of those running at the moment.

The system we initially used for RTO did not provide the best look and feel. It was like a huge ship with very complicated and sophisticated features. "Moving" it was a task. CYPHER Learning, by comparison, is a super-yacht. It's very agile, modern, very quick to respond, and it looks great.

Although we rarely use it for our internal staff's education, our partners use it for their own team members. Our team members, who are admins or instructors in the platform, have an additional account to use when they're doing their personal continuous development. In that way, it's like there are two separate systems from the viewpoint of the end-user, and it works well for us.

Another benefit is that some of the automations and syncing features have reduced admin hours by a lot for us. It has been a great help. It saves us a couple of hours per week.

Initially, I was very excited about the automations. But when we started using the actual courses, I found that the ability to sync content and settings from parent courses to child courses is what I value the most. But both the automations and syncing are at the top of the list.

Also, the automation for triggering actions for completed tasks, such as awarding badges and points to students, works very well. We use Credly badges, and when we first moved the continuous improvement side of the business to CYPHER Learning we had more than 50 courses, which meant we had more than 50 badges. However, we found there was a limit on the number of badges. We reached out to CYPHER Learning and they fixed it quickly for us. We were then able to add more than 50 badges.

One thing I find annoying is that the system is quite limited when it comes to roles. I was used to our old system where I could create custom roles to cater to specific users and that's not available in CYPHER Learning.

Another issue is the customization of the gradebook. I'm used to a highly customizable gradebook, but that's also not available in CYPHER Learning.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for around 18 months.

It is a stable product and that's one of the features that was on my list. It's also very fast, so we don't have any worries about access.

There has rarely been any downtime and, when it has happened once or twice, it has happened during late hours, so we haven't had to worry about it.

It's scalable. We have deployed a few portals for our partners, and that was super easy. It just worked.

We have about 100 internal users of the platform.

They're really good, very responsive, and knowledgeable. They respond within an hour, maximum.

Positive

The previous system we used for our continuous education courses was clunky and old. We had moved to it from an even older system, being the most reliable product that we could move to quickly. It was WordPress-based and it had a very limited LMS called LearnDash. We needed something bigger, more expandable, and that looked more modern, and that's what we found in CYPHER Learning.

The setup was very easy. They helped a lot in setting up the look and feel, from the beginning, using our branding colors. But I set up the portals for our partners and it was very easy to do. Things like setting up the roles that we wanted and selecting what roles to add in were very straightforward.

Our strategy was determined by our need to move our continuous improvement website, and that was the major portion of it. We needed to move completion data and courses, and migrate our live students as well, and that had to be carefully planned.

Once it's set up, it's good to go. In terms of maintenance, there are updates and improvements that need to be communicated to staff.

We have seen ROI because we have a lot of courses that require a lot of storage space, and we don't have to worry about that with CYPHER Learning. With the other LMSs that we used, storage was a big issue, especially because we have to keep records for 30 years due to government requirements. It is worth our while to use CYPHER Learning.

The pricing is somewhere in the middle. It's not too expensive and, for what it is, it's very reasonable.

I wasn't involved in evaluating other solutions. Someone else did that for us and they looked at multiple systems. We had a spreadsheet with our requirements and CYPHER Learning ticked most of the boxes. That's why we went with it.

There are a lot of learning management systems out there and they are oranges and apples. You have to choose what meets your targets. All the systems are good for the end-users. If you want something where you don't have to worry much about maintenance or uptime, a system that is very modern looking and easy to use, and something you can get up and running fairly quickly, CYPHER Learning is a good choice.

Overall, I rate the solution at eight out of 10. I wouldn't rate it higher because of the rigidity of the roles and gradebooks. Also, there are simpler things like quiz-question types that are not as varied as in other LMSs. But the overall experience is just fantastic.

We use CYPHER Learning to train our employees and the public.

CYPHER Learning is hosted on our users' website. Our users can access it by logging in.

Several of our internal teams have joined the program, and they create training modules, which we then upload to CYPHER Learning and make available to everyone. CYPHER Learning has now put us in the position to provide better internal training than ever before, thanks to this tool that makes it easier. Since we have employees in multiple locations, we are now able to train our entire team more efficiently.

We have seen a small reduction in printing costs, but I foresee more savings as we ramp up our training.

I like that CYPHER Learning can accommodate all types of media, including video and audio. It is also easy to use. 

I really like that we can add third-party apps to make CYPHER Learning more useful. 

The assessment tools are one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning, so we could provide instructional feedback for incorrect assessment answers.

The customization is very good because it allows us to completely brand the product so that it is our brand.

I really appreciate the ability to provide feedback for assessments. However, the user interface for this feature is not very user-friendly. I think it could be improved by making it easier to understand.

CYPHER Learning has a lot of resources for finding answers. They have a search tool that allows us to search for answers on our own. However, I think it would be helpful if the resources were more structured in a how-to format. This would allow us to find the information we need without having to talk to a trainer or tech support. I think the current feature is good, but there could be more self-learning opportunities for how to use the product.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for almost eight months.

CYPHER Learning is stable. We have not had any issues.

CYPHER Learning is highly scalable. We are not using all the seats available yet.

The technical support is quick. I usually receive a response within just a few hours. If the support is not quite able to answer my question, they are very quick to respond to my follow-up questions. Once, a junior analyst answered my question, and then I think a senior analyst came in and added to the explanation to make it clearer. I'm not sure if it was to correct the junior analyst or to provide additional assistance, but it was impressive.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. However, it is a very full-featured system, so it has taken a lot of training to learn how to use it effectively. CYPHER Learning has provided excellent training materials, and our IT department has been very helpful in setting up the system and connecting it to our other systems. Overall, I think the setup process has been fairly straightforward.

We had several meetings with our IT and project management teams. It took some time to convince them of the benefits of using CYPHER Learning. I am on the education team, and our job is to train both internal and external users. We held several meetings and demos to explain what we wanted to use CYPHER Learning for and why we chose it. Once we had their buy-in, it was just a matter of getting the paperwork and approvals in order. Now we are in the process of creating half a dozen courses. We are still in the early stages of implementing CYPHER Learning, but we are excited about the possibilities.

Three people were involved in the deployment: two from the education team and one from IT.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We are still in the development phase. At this time, we are not seriously considering generating revenue through courses. Instead, we will be relying mostly on savings, travel expenses for training, and other expenses. As a result, I cannot say that we have seen a return on investment yet. CYPHER Learning is still in the investment phase.

We were happy with the pricing for CYPHER Learning. As a nonprofit, we received a discount. They were also able to work with us on some other questions we had. This was one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning. The price was fair for all the features we received.

We evaluated dozens of solutions and considered all of their features, prices, and reviews. In addition to CYPHER Learning, we narrowed down our choices to Moodle and Tovuti LMS. 

We selected CYPHER Learning primarily because of positive customer reviews and a competitive price. Customer reviews praised its ease of use, and the price was fair for the features we received. Additionally, CYPHER Learning appeared to have plenty of room for us to grow into. The features were robust enough that we would likely not use them all at first, but we would learn to use them as we needed them. CYPHER Learning seemed like it would challenge us, and it has. 

I give CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten. There are a few tweakable areas but I have no regrets about selecting CYPHER Learning.

We currently do not use the competency-based learning features of CYPHER Learning. However, one reason we chose CYPHER Learning is because it has the capacity to support our future growth in this area. Therefore, it is something we may use in the future, but not yet. 

We do have some audit automation as far as emails, reminders, and things like that, but not specifically gamification.

Since CYPHER Learning is a new system in our organization, we have not yet seen a reduction in our training costs. However, we anticipate a reduction in training costs as we begin to train employees remotely and no longer have to fly trainers to different locations.

We currently have 50 users, and we expect to have many more as we increase our training volume.

CYPHER Learning has not required any maintenance as of yet.

CYPHER Learning is a very powerful tool with many features. However, this also means that it has a steep learning curve. If we don't have a lot of time or are not comfortable with technology, CYPHER Learning may not be the best solution for us. However, if we are looking for a scalable and powerful tool that can grow with our needs, CYPHER Learning is a great option. Just be aware that it will take some time to learn how to use it effectively.

We use it for employee training.

It has helped us in moving to digital training sessions from in-person training sessions and that has reduced our costs. We used to spend around $15,000 to $20,000 annually on training.

And indirectly, it has helped increase profits by improving the efficiency of our employees. That benefits our business.

The most valuable feature is the gamification of the training courses. Learners can compete with their colleagues and access the leaderboard, and this enhances our efficiency and our learners' creativity. The employees can also compete with their colleagues and they get awards and badges, which motivates them.

We also like the automation features because it makes the training interesting and interactive.

And the competency-based learning helps teams acquire the desired skills. It displays the available skills and puts an emphasis on progressing on what the employee lacks. The competency-based learning systems that we have created are very important. Before, we were using Talent Elements and the reason we shifted to CYPHER Learning was because of this feature. They are the reason for buying this product. Competency-based learning helps us certify the skills of learners and make decisions about promotions and redundancy.

CYPHER Learning's ability to recommend courses to learners based on their job title or set of competencies is great and helps the employees a lot. It's like a non-financial reward for them to keep them motivated.

The mobile app has quite a lot of bugs and it has many fewer integration options.

I've been using CYPHER Learning for two years.

The platform is very reliable.

It's scalable as well.

The support team is great but it takes them some time to answer queries. Also, because the support chat box is integrated into the website, we actually can't open two different tabs, one for customer support and another for the product. We have to open the customer chat box inside the solution and it can be quite confusing. It would be better if we could get email or phone support.

Positive

Previously, we used Talent Elements. In addition to the lack of competency-based learning, in which there were only a few ways to track learner progress, there were relatively few gamification features.

Our return on investment is in the improvement of our efficiency and productivity.

It's affordable, but they have doubled the pricing at random times. That's a problem. They have to change that for forecasting purposes.

I strongly suggest changing your training solution to CYPHER Learning. If you are doing it on your campus right now, this will help you save costs.