CYPHER Learning Reviews

We use it for internal staff training. We're a large retail hospitality company. We have over 1,000 locations in Australia and we are also a Registered Training Organisation (RTO). That means we deliver nationally recognized qualifications. We use CYPHER Learning to deliver our qualifications to employees who sign up to complete one of those qualifications. 

We also use it for our management training. Anyone who becomes a manager within our system goes through a training program that is administered through CYPHER Learning.

We have locations across Australia, with offices in every major city where our trainers are based. One of the best benefits we've seen with CYPHER Learning is that it has allowed us to act more consistently on a national basis in how we approach the delivery of our training. Our trainers and assessors can now train and assess anyone in the country, as opposed to just where they're physically located.

When we were paper-based, the trainees would send in their coursework to their local training facility. Having a cloud-based solution has allowed us to better use our trainer resources across the country.

The transition from paper to digital has also been beneficial. As an organization, we were spending over significant money each year on printing and positing our training materials. We've seen huge cost savings in completely converting to an online digital learning system. 

And when it comes to administration, another really great feature in CYPHER Learning is the flexibility in marking. We can choose which activities are auto marked and which have to be marked by a trainer, and that really allows us to save a lot of time. We know when something is a very simple yes/no answer, we can set that to be auto-marked. That way we can spend our trainer resources on marking the more complex responses, such as those that are essay-based.

The ability to build and customize our own courses is one of the most valuable features. When we launched with CYPHER LEARNING, their team helped us build our courses. They took our paper-based coursework and developed a really engaging digital solution on the platform. The best part, for us, is being able to continue to customize and edit it. We have been able to add and explore new features as we've grown with it.

We use the system's rules engine to help automate our training. For example, as a student completes one piece of training, the rules engine unlocks the next part automatically. We also send pre-written notifications at the end of courses or at certain touch points within courses. All of that is really useful as well.

Another good functionality is that we have full visibility into when students last accessed courses, because CYPHER Learning shows us when they last accessed the portal. That helps our trainers to follow up with people who might be falling behind or who need help. And another great, related feature is that we can see how long trainees have spent on certain activities. With digital learning, it can be easy to just click-click-click and skip through things. Seeing how long students have spent on the material helps trainers have good conversations with their trainees and test their knowledge, just to make sure that they really are grasping the concepts.

There is good reporting functionality and there are good insights into trainee progress. That certainly helps our trainers to know where to target their efforts and who to follow up on. If we are looking at individual trainees, we get very good insights as to how they're tracking, what section they're up to, and how long they're taking on particular activities.

If there is one area that I would like to see more improvement in, it would be around detailed reporting. There are some little things that they could add that would give us more insights and we'd like to access those things through the reporting.

There's a lot of reporting functionality, but we've found it a bit challenging integrating it with our different organizations and getting some of the information that we need out of it. We'd like to see the kind of information that we get about individual trainees, but as a whole, across the organization. That's where we'd like to see improvement.

We've been using the solution as an organization for almost three years. I've been using it for about 12 months.

We have had no issues whatsoever. It seems to be very stable.

With CYPHER Learning, there is a lot of untapped potential for us as an organization. I look at all the available features and the add-ons and the apps that are available, and I've got lots of different ideas about how we could start to incorporate different ways of delivering our learning. I am also thinking about other learning that we're not currently doing in CYPHER Learning, and moving it to this platform. There certainly is scalability there.

We definitely have plans to increase our usage by migrating other learning courses to CYPHER Learning and that will increase our active users quite significantly. We're three years in and, now that we're comfortable and happy with the platform, we've got plans to put more courses on it.

And from a coursework perspective, there's definitely scalability. We feel comfortable that, as we start to put more learners in the system, it will scale.

We already have a large cohort of learners in the system. We have over 100,000 employees with access to the platform and there are about 10,000 people actively learning each month, but we have no concerns about scaling it. We've been in discussion with CYPHER LEARNING and we have plans that we can put in place to get more people onto CYPHER Learning.

The users are predominantly restaurant crew and managers. There are also restaurant supervisors who are responsible for coaching people through the platform, and there are the trainers and assessors within our corporate office who administer the learning.

The technical support is very good. There's a support forum, which we utilize quite regularly and the responses come in quite fast. We usually get a same-day response or even within a couple of hours to any support tickets, which is quite good. You can choose whether your query is public or private. Unless it's company-specific, you can mark it as a public ticket and then other users of the platform get to learn from the answers as well.

Positive

I've used other learning management systems before, and in my current company our previous system was a proprietary, home-grown solution. The benefit of going with CYPHER Learning was that we got their expertise in digital learning, which is probably something that we were lacking. Our platform did its job for a period of time, but as technology advanced, and the ways trainees can learn online advanced, we needed to keep up with our competitors, and CYPHER Learning has really helped us to do that.

The initial setup was complex because it was quite a complex integration. We have 100,000 employees, so setting up data feeds to give users access, and revoking access when people are terminated, and those kinds of administrative tasks, can't be done manually. Setting up the API requests to handle those things took a little bit of time, until we got things right. 

CYPHER LEARNING were very good to deal with and they assigned people to us. I wasn't part of the initial setup, but from what I understand they worked very well with our organization.

From my perspective, having come in and managed the platform for the last 12 months, with CYPHER Learning we get notably less contact through our support desk around the system, compared to our other digital platforms. That's a really good thing; people aren't complaining about it. That's obviously a good sign that it's working as intended.

As for our implementation strategy, we did a pilot group first. We picked one region of learners and one particular course and that allowed us to make sure that we were capturing feedback, customizing the platform to our needs, and ironing out any problems before we launched it on a larger scale. 

Once we were happy with that particular region and that particular course, we rolled it out for all courses in that state. We continued to capture more feedback and worked with CYPHER Learning to make any adjustments. We then rolled it out state by state.

There has been a clear return on investment for us. Even taking into consideration the additional implementation costs and the costs for building custom courses, we're still seeing that it's cheaper to run CYPHER Learning compared to the paper-based learning that we used to do.

Our pricing is based on active participants. We have a large employee base, but we made sure that we went with a pricing model that only charged us for active users, as opposed to all employees. We only enroll an employee into a course if they need to complete that course. That just helps us keep our costs down. While we have over 100,000 employees, because we have fewer than 10,000 people actively participating in a course per month, we have a plan where we pay for 10,000 users per month.

Understanding how many active users you will have, compared to total users who may access the platform, is something to consider.

In addition to the standard licensing fees, we had some setup costs to build our custom courses. With CYPHER Learning you can either build your courses from scratch yourself or you can utilize their team to assist you in doing that. We've done half and half. We paid for CYPHER LEARNING to build some initial courses and, since then, we've actually built some of our own as well.

The biggest lesson we've learned from using CYPHER Learning has been to be open to new ideas. The CYPHER LEARNING team has experts in marketing and the creation of digital learning. We had courses that worked for us and that we wanted to do in a certain way, but they suggested new ideas and different ways of approaching them. Being open to those has allowed us to innovate the way that we deliver our training, which has been good for us. Being open to innovation and new ways of delivering our training has been a worthwhile lesson for us.

I use the platform to upload classes, provide a space for students so that they can also upload their projects, to comment on the work they deliver, and to give feedback while they progress in their assignments.

I am a first-grade teacher and there are certain parts of the solution that I still cannot use because of the young age of the students. My use is more basic.

Thanks to the folders that we upload to CYPHER Learning, the children can review the classes before coming to them and parents have the opportunity to access the resources being provided. 

With tools for students to upload their work, and for teachers to calculate their achievement of skills, teachers can provide feedback to the parents so that they understand in which subjects their children need reinforcement. The platform also enables parents to witness their child's development in class. It gives us better communication with parents. More than anything, it has helped me save on communication.

The system also helps save administrative time because I can provide information directly to the parents, getting them more involved in the content that's being sent to students. Before CYPHER Learning, I had to explain things to each parent who had any questions. Now I can upload the data to the platform and it reaches all the parents in an equivalent way. That has helped reduce administrative work by 25 percent.

My favorite tools include

• those that enable students to send in files or assignments
• the comments section
• the organization of folders for uploading classes
• the option of attaching files and links, especially when uploading a lot of content information. CYPHER Learning allows you to upload heavy documents.

We are working on establishing an order of topics on the platform to help us manage an adequate path for students to achieve skills. With class folders in place, it is possible to follow up on the children. I know when students have seen the material that has been uploaded to the platform and, thus, understand if they are following the classes. It is important that students have an order to follow and something that creates a habit of reviewing the material that they receive through the platform.

More than anything, it has helped students with the organization part. The folders have links, activities, or videos that help the learning process. That's the way we can reinforce first graders through CYPHER Learning, by linking to outside resources or features.

Tracking student progress on a competency basis is very important as it helps us to do reinforcement and follow-up. It helps us know that the children are progressing according to our objectives, and we can follow up, with the help of the parents, and provide feedback.

There could be improvements in the dynamic and accessibility tools for the youngest students. For example, I create or attach links from other pages, and I use activities and games, such as roulettes, that encourage student participation.

I started using CYPHER LEARNING three years ago.

When the classes were only virtual, there were network drops. This year we have seen fewer issues as we returned to face-to-face classes. These were not continuous problems but, if they happened, we had to inform the parents that the platform was not working.

There were also bugs. For example, when we attached links, for some reason it was not possible to access them.

We have three levels: initial, primary, and secondary and among them, we have 100 users. It is used by teachers, students, advisors, and system administrators.

The technical support is okay. When the network has gone down, it has been possible to resolve things without much inconvenience.

Positive

This is our first virtual environment.

Our three system administrators did all the implementation work. They simply installed CYPHER Learning for us, uploaded all the necessary data, and gave us training.

I believe the return on investment is imminent. It has helped teachers, students, and parents with better organization to follow the progress of the children and their achievement of skills.

Perhaps there was an evaluation, but it was not up to us teachers. But by choosing CYPHER Learning, they understood that it was perfect for what we needed.

In first grade, we do work according to competencies, but we do not use CYPHER Learning as a means of tracking achievement of those standards. Still, in general, it is a tool that helps students a lot in demonstrating the skills they have and helps educators understand a student's level of understanding.

There is no gamification because we are talking about first graders. There isn't any functionality that helps in the dynamic or playful sense. Any additional material I include comes from other pages. Being able to attach content saves time, but that content itself is not from the platform.

Although the system has communication tools, in the case of my first-grade students, it is not easy to communicate using them because they are still learning to write. As a means of communication, it is more to send the work to parents. The parents then download the content and hand it to the students. Slowly, the students are also learning to use the platform more independently.

The biggest lesson I have learned from using the solution is that there is a better way to give feedback to students. Also, even first-grade students can become independent within a totally new platform for everyone. I now understand that younger students can undertake an unknown platform in an optimal way.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

Utilizo la plataforma para subir clases, brindar un espacio para que los estudiantes también puedan subir sus proyectos, para comentar sobre los trabajos que entregan y para dar retroalimentación mientras avanzan en sus tareas.

Soy maestra de primer grado y hay ciertas partes de la solución que todavía no puedo usar debido a la corta edad de los estudiantes. Mi uso es más básico.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Gracias a las carpetas que subimos a CYPHER Learning, los niños pueden revisar las clases antes de acudir a ellas y los padres tienen la oportunidad de acceder a los recursos que se les brindan.

Con herramientas para que los estudiantes carguen su trabajo y para que los maestros calculen el logro de sus habilidades, los maestros pueden brindar una retroalimentación a los padres para que comprendan en qué materias sus hijos necesitan refuerzo. La plataforma también permite a los padres presenciar el desarrollo de sus hijos en clase. Nos da una mejor comunicación con los padres. Más que nada, me ha ayudado a ahorrar en términos de comunicación.

El sistema también ayuda a ahorrar tiempo administrativo porque puedo proporcionar información directamente a los padres, lo que los involucra más en el contenido que se envía a los estudiantes. Antes de CYPHER Learning, tenía que explicar las cosas a cada padre que tenía alguna pregunta. Ahora puedo subir los datos a la plataforma y llega a todos los padres de manera equivalente. Eso ha ayudado a reducir el trabajo administrativo en un 25 por ciento.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Mis herramientas favoritas incluyen..

• aquellos que permiten a los estudiantes enviar archivos o tareas
• la sección de comentarios
• la organización de carpetas para subir clases
• La opción de adjuntar archivos y enlaces, especialmente cuando se sube mucha información de contenido. CYPHER Learning te permite subir documentos pesados.

Estamos trabajando en establecer un orden de temas en la plataforma que nos ayude a gestionar un camino adecuado para que los estudiantes adquieran habilidades. Con las carpetas de clase es posible hacer un seguimiento de los niños. Sé cuando los alumnos han visto el material que se ha subido a la plataforma y así saber si están siguiendo las clases. Es importante que los alumnos tengan un orden a seguir y algo que les genere el hábito de revisar el material que reciben a través de la plataforma.

Más que nada ha ayudado a los alumnos en la parte de organización. Las carpetas tienen enlaces, actividades o videos que ayudan al proceso de aprendizaje. Esa es la forma en que podemos reforzar a los alumnos de primer grado a través de CYPHER Learning, vinculándolos a recursos o funciones externas.

El seguimiento del progreso de los estudiantes por competencias es muy importante ya que nos ayuda a reforzar y hacer un seguimiento. Nos ayuda a saber que los niños van progresando de acuerdo a nuestros objetivos, podemos hacer un seguimiento, con la ayuda de los padres y de esta forma dar retroalimentación.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Podría haber mejoras en las herramientas de dinámica y accesibilidad para los más pequeños. Por ejemplo, yo creo o adjunto enlaces de otras páginas y uso actividades y juegos, como ruletas, que fomentan la participación de los estudiantes.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

Empecé a usar CYPHER LEARNING hace tres años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Cuando las clases eran solo virtuales, había caídas de red. Este año hemos visto menos problemas ya que volvimos a las clases presenciales. Estos no eran problemas continuos pero, si ocurrían, teníamos que informar a los padres que la plataforma no estaba funcionando.

También hubo errores de accesibilidad. Por ejemplo, cuando adjuntamos enlaces, por alguna razón no era posible acceder a ellos.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Tenemos tres niveles: inicial, primario y secundario y entre ellos tenemos 100 usuarios. Es utilizado por profesores, estudiantes, asesores y administradores de sistemas.

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

El soporte técnico está bien. Cuando la red se ha caído, se han podido solucionar las cosas sin mayores inconvenientes.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Este es nuestro primer entorno virtual.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

Nuestros tres administradores de sistemas hicieron todo el trabajo de implementación. Simplemente instalaron CYPHER Learning para nosotros, cargaron todos los datos necesarios y nos dieron capacitación.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

Creo que el retorno de la inversión es inminente. Ha ayudado a maestros, estudiantes y padres con una mejor organización para seguir el progreso de los niños y el logro de sus habilidades.

¿Qué otras soluciones evalué?

Tal vez hubo una evaluación, pero no nos correspondía a los docentes. Pero al elegir CYPHER Learning entendieron que era perfecto para lo que necesitábamos.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

En primer grado, trabajamos de acuerdo con las competencias, pero no usamos CYPHER Learning como un medio para rastrear el logro de esos estándares. Aún así, en general, es una herramienta que ayuda mucho a los estudiantes a demostrar las habilidades que tienen y ayuda a los educadores a comprender el nivel de comprensión de un estudiante.

No hay gamificación porque estamos hablando de niños de primer grado. No hay ninguna funcionalidad que ayude en el sentido dinámico o lúdico. Cualquier material adicional que adjunto proviene de otras páginas. Poder adjuntar contenido ahorra tiempo, pero ese contenido en sí no es de la plataforma.

Si bien el sistema cuenta con herramientas de comunicación, en el caso de mis alumnos de primer grado no es fácil comunicarse utilizándolas porque aún están aprendiendo a escribir. Como medio de comunicación, es más para enviar el trabajo a los padres. Luego, los padres descargan el contenido y se lo entregan a los estudiantes. Lentamente, los estudiantes también están aprendiendo a usar la plataforma de manera más independiente.

La lección más grande que aprendí al usar la solución es que hay una mejor manera de dar retroalimentación a los estudiantes. Además, incluso los estudiantes de primer grado pueden independizarse dentro de una plataforma totalmente nueva para todos. Ahora entiendo que los estudiantes más jóvenes pueden emprender una plataforma desconocida de manera óptima.

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.

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.

It is the LMS that we use at our university. Personally, I am in the language department and am an English teacher. For the courses that I give, I use CYPHER Learning for practically everything. Everything is in it: the material, the tasks. It is a platform that helps us a lot in organizing our classes.

If I tell students that they have to do an essay, I create an evaluation rubric. They can see the rubric and understand exactly what they have to do in the essay. That makes it much clearer for students to see precisely what needs to be done. With rubrics, they can see progress transparently.

The system also helps when it comes to intervention strategies for students because, in the first weeks, you realize who is interacting in CYPHER Learning and who is not. You can see who is doing the units and who isn’t working and that gives you a chance to ask a student why they aren't doing their homework. In this way, you can develop strategies to help them. For example, you can try to change the content or advise the student to manage their time differently. These could be factors that influence how the student is interacting on the platform.

Compared to traditional ways of teaching, I would estimate CYPHER Learning saves 40 percent of my time.

The solution’s ability to bridge the learning gap for students is not bad, although each student is different so not everyone will go at the same pace. CYPHER Learning helps me in identifying each student’s mastery of the subject. I can deepen my work with students who are excelling as well as with students who are struggling. For those who are struggling, I can give them a little more time to complete the assignment. I don't think everyone progresses in the same way and CYPHER Learning gives me the tools to help students individually.

Another benefit is the time saved due to the reduction in administrative work. You can download marks to an Excel document and everything is already organized. In addition, I manage the language department and I can ask the teachers to send me Excels of their students' progress. That enables me to observe what the teachers are doing and see who has not worked much through CYPHER Learning. I can quickly talk to the teacher and solve any problems. The decrease in administration saves about 30 percent of my time.

It also helps save significant time at the end of the month. If a student has a complaint, we can see everything in the system. The evidence is always there.

And saving on paper is important to me, both as an individual and as a teacher. We are trying as a university not to use paper. Because all the tasks are in CYPHER Learning, everything is digital and online and I do not need to deliver so many paper reports.

Last year I participated in a contest in which we had to submit a video about something that I like a lot in CYPHER Learning. I sent in a video about the discussion board. I like it because you can upload any topic, video, reading, or quote, and the students can give their opinions and interact. That helps to deepen the discussion.

I also like the discussion board a lot because students can give their opinions there and interact with each other. For me, as an English teacher, it is also important because they practice writing in a real context. It helps them to have a voice and to know what they think about a certain topic.

Another valuable feature is that it makes it easy to see the progress of the students, and students themselves can follow their own progress.

In terms of automation, you can create your own units and place the necessary information in each unit. Although we in the language department use another platform where all our content is uploaded, with CYPHER Learning we can see if students are learning according to the tasks they are given. We can ask for videos and recordings and, in that way, it's automated. The process is more agile than the traditional process. The automation is good.

I also like the variety of options. An assignment can be just a simple essay, a paragraph, or the videos or recordings I mentioned. These options give students the opportunity to be creative.

Sometimes we do exercises that do not have a grade associated with them and that helps students to receive positive feedback without feeling evaluated. Students understand that it is not only about receiving a good grade but that it's also about self-improvement and they develop motivation as a result.

Also, the fact that they can see their grades through CYPHER Learning lets them know what they have to work on, according to their score. It is very organized.

And communicating with students is easy because we can send individual and group messages. This past semester, we sent several such messages. It's a feature that works very well. As an English teacher, I write everything in English and this provides my students with an additional way to learn the language. Sometimes, I ask them to send me an email in English in a more formal way, as well. For those reasons, communicating through the platform has helped me a lot.

Communication is very important, especially because of the pandemic. Sometimes, students have doubts, questions, or problems, but with the system’s communication tools, I can reply to them more easily. It saves us time and we can focus on more important things when we are in class.

Perhaps there is room for improvement in the gamification part. I have used it but it has not been very clear to me. It may be my responsibility for not asking about it in the training sessions, but the way you use it is not so clear. I know that there are tutorials, but I would like something more user-friendly that would explain how to use this feature.

They should also send out more questionnaires to receive feedback.

I have been using CYPHER Learning since the second semester of 2020.

It seems to me that there were some problems with the internet in 2020, but they were our problems. This year, I have not seen any problems.

The fact that our university decided to buy this LMS is very instructive because not many universities in La Paz have something like this. With each semester, every student and teacher becomes more and more familiar with CYPHER Learning. Most other universities use Google Classroom.

In the language department, we have 10 teachers and each semester we manage approximately 600 students.

The solution is being used throughout the entire university.

The university acquired CYPHER Learning due to the pandemic.

We have a platform that has English content specifically for our department. It is 70 percent similar to CYPHER Learning but we use it more for uploaded content than anything else. So for us, the changes and getting familiar with CYPHER Learning were not as strange and complex as they were for other departments. We continue to use other platforms, but everything is concentrated in CYPHER Learning.

The first part was a bit complex. We received training from the university. The systems center also had a person in charge of everything, but the beginning was complex because there were many settings. Once the systems center took charge of that, it was much easier to use. Like any tool, at first, it will be complex until you practice using it. It's normal to face some difficulties.

We started the CYPHER Learning training in June and by August we were done. We already have a department that is in charge of providing orientation, follow-up, and courses and, if a teacher does not understand something, they receive the necessary support. If I have a question, I can write to them and they answer me quickly. For example, if I want to understand more about gamification, I can talk to the department to receive help.

Our deployment strategy was that the university put a person in charge of each department and CYPHER Learning trained those people. In our department, a colleague took on that position for everything related to CYPHER Learning tutorials. We had information regarding the schedule of the training sessions and which tutorials we had to watch, and we were also able to consult with that colleague. In each department, the leader provided that information. There was also a support team for students from the computer department. Now, we have a support department that focuses on CYPHER Learning.

Our systems center supports login or connection problems for both students and teachers. We also have a pedagogical monitoring team. There are probably 10 people involved on our side, but only one or two work directly with CYPHER Learning. In each department there is a coordinator who helps new teachers with questions and training.

CYPHER Learning is a good option for a large organization because it makes it easier to organize massive amounts of content, including data, files, and exams, as well as assign and review tasks. It makes things clearer for students. You can create In general, it is a good product.

It has taught me about the importance of adaptation. At first, I was a little worried that the students might not be able to adapt, but in the end, all the teachers and the students handled it well. It has taught me to adapt and set an example as a role model by using the platform.

Foreign Language: (Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

Es el LMS que usamos en nuestra universidad. Personalmente, estoy en el departamento de idiomas y soy profesora de inglés. Para los cursos que doy uso CYPHER Learning para prácticamente todo. Todo está en él: el material, las tareas. Es una plataforma que nos ayuda mucho a la hora de organizar nuestras clases.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Si les digo a los alumnos que tienen que hacer un ensayo, creo una rúbrica de evaluación. Pueden ver la rúbrica y entender exactamente lo que tienen que hacer en el ensayo. Eso hace que sea mucho más claro para los estudiantes ver con precisión lo que se debe hacer. Con las rúbricas, pueden ver el progreso de forma transparente.

El sistema también ayuda cuando se trata de estrategias de intervención para los estudiantes porque, en las primeras semanas, te das cuenta de quién está interactuando en CYPHER Learning y quién no. Puedes ver quién está haciendo las unidades y quién no está trabajando y eso te da la oportunidad de preguntarle a un estudiante por qué no está haciendo su tarea. De esta manera, puedes desarrollar estrategias para ayudarlos. Por ejemplo, puedes intentar cambiar el contenido o aconsejar al estudiante que administre su tiempo de manera diferente. Estos podrían ser factores que influyen en la forma en que el estudiante interactúa en la plataforma.

En comparación con las formas tradicionales de enseñanza, estimaría que CYPHER Learning LMS ahorra el 40 por ciento de mi tiempo.

La capacidad de la solución para cerrar las diferencias de conocimiento entre los estudiantes no es mala, aunque cada estudiante es diferente, por lo que no todos irán al mismo ritmo. CYPHER Learning me ayuda a identificar el dominio de la materia por parte de cada alumno. Puedo profundizar mi trabajo con estudiantes que sobresalen, así como con estudiantes que tienen dificultades. Para aquellos que tienen dificultades, puedo darles un poco más de tiempo para completar la tarea. No creo que todos progresen de la misma manera y CYPHER Learning me da las herramientas para ayudar a los alumnos individualmente.

Otro beneficio es el ahorro de tiempo debido a la reducción del trabajo administrativo. Puedes descargar todas las notas a un documento de Excel y todo ya está organizado. Además, gestiono el departamento de idiomas y puedo pedir a los profesores que me envíen Excels del progreso de sus alumnos. Eso me permite observar lo que están haciendo los profesores y ver quién no ha trabajado mucho a través de CYPHER Learning. Puedo hablar rápidamente con el maestro y resolver cualquier problema. La disminución en la administración ahorra alrededor del 30 por ciento de mi tiempo.

También ayuda a ahorrar mucho tiempo al final del mes. Si un estudiante tiene una queja, podemos ver todo en el sistema. La evidencia siempre está ahí.

Y ahorrar en papel es importante para mí, tanto como persona y como docente. Estamos tratando como universidad de no usar papel. Porque todas las tareas están en CYPHER Learning, todo es digital y online y no necesito entregar tantos informes en papel.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

El año pasado participé en un concurso en el que teníamos que enviar un video sobre algo que me gusta mucho en CYPHER Learning. Envié un video sobre el foro de discusión. Me gusta porque puedes subir cualquier tema, video, lectura o cita, y los alumnos pueden opinar e interactuar. Eso ayuda a profundizar la discusión.

También me gusta mucho el foro de discusión porque los estudiantes pueden dar sus opiniones allí e interactuar entre ellos. Para mí, como profesora de inglés, también es importante porque practican la escritura en un contexto real. Les ayuda a tener voz y saber lo que piensan sobre un tema determinado.

Otra característica valiosa es que facilita ver el progreso de los estudiantes, y los propios estudiantes pueden seguir su propio progreso.

En términos de automatización, puede crear sus propias unidades y colocar la información necesaria en cada unidad. Aunque en el departamento de idiomas usamos otra plataforma donde se sube todo nuestro contenido, con CYPHER Learning podemos ver si los estudiantes están aprendiendo de acuerdo con las tareas que se les asignan. Podemos pedir videos y grabaciones y, de esa forma, está automatizado. El proceso es más ágil que el proceso tradicional. La automatización es buena.

También me gusta la variedad de opciones. Una tarea puede ser simplemente un ensayo simple, un párrafo o los videos o grabaciones que mencioné. Estas opciones dan a los estudiantes la oportunidad de ser creativos.

A veces hacemos ejercicios que no tienen asociada una nota y eso ayuda a que los alumnos reciban feedback positivo sin sentirse evaluados. Los estudiantes entienden que no se trata solo de obtener una buena calificación, sino que también se trata de superación personal y, como resultado, desarrollan motivación.

Además, el hecho de que puedan ver sus calificaciones a través de CYPHER Learning les permite saber en qué tienen que trabajar, según su puntaje. Es muy organizado.

Y comunicarse con los alumnos es fácil porque podemos enviar mensajes individuales y grupales. El semestre pasado, enviamos varios mensajes de este tipo. Es una característica que funciona muy bien. Como profesora de inglés, escribo todo en inglés y esto brinda a mis alumnos una forma adicional de aprender el idioma. A veces, también les pido que me envíen un correo electrónico en inglés de una manera más formal. Por eso me ha ayudado mucho comunicarme a través de la plataforma.

La comunicación es muy importante, sobre todo por la pandemia. A veces los alumnos tienen dudas, preguntas o problemas, pero con las herramientas de comunicación del sistema puedo responderles más fácilmente. Nos ahorra tiempo y podemos centrarnos en cosas más importantes cuando estamos en clase.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Quizás en la parte de la gamificación. Lo he usado pero no me ha quedado muy claro. Puede ser mi responsabilidad por no preguntarlo en las capacitaciones, pero la forma en que se usa no es tan clara. Sé que hay tutoriales, pero me gustaría algo más fácil que explicara cómo usar esta función.

También deberían enviar más cuestionarios para recibir comentarios.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la plataforma?

He estado usando CYPHER Learning desde el segundo semestre de 2020.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Me parece que hubo algunos problemas con la conexión al internet en el 2020, pero fueron nuestros problemas. Este año no he visto ningún problema.

¿Qué opino sobre la escalabilidad de la plataforma?

El hecho de que nuestra universidad decidiera comprar este LMS es muy instructivo porque no muchas universidades en La Paz tienen algo así. Con cada semestre, cada estudiante y maestro se familiariza cada vez más con CYPHER Learning. La mayoría de las otras universidades usan Google Classroom.

En el departamento de idiomas contamos con 10 profesores y cada semestre manejamos aproximadamente 600 alumnos.

La solución se está utilizando en toda la universidad.

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

La universidad adquirió a CYPHER Learning debido a la pandemia.

Contamos con una plataforma que tiene contenido en inglés específicamente para nuestro departamento. Es un 70 por ciento similar a CYPHER Learning, pero lo usamos más para cargar contenido que para cualquier otra cosa. Entonces, para nosotros, los cambios y familiarizarnos con CYPHER Learning no fueron tan extraños y complejos como lo fueron para otros departamentos. Seguimos usando otras plataformas, pero todo se concentra en CYPHER Learning.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

La primera parte fue un poco compleja, recibimos capacitación de la universidad y el centro de sistemas también tenía una persona a cargo de todo, pero el comienzo fue complejo porque habían muchos ajustes. Una vez que el centro de sistemas se hizo cargo de eso, fue mucho más fácil de usar. Como cualquier herramienta, al principio será compleja hasta que practiques su uso. Es normal enfrentar algunas dificultades.

Comenzamos el entrenamiento CYPHER Learning en junio y en agosto habíamos terminado. Ya contamos con un departamento que se encarga de brindar orientación, seguimiento y cursos y, si un docente no entiende algo, recibe el apoyo necesario y si tengo alguna duda les puedo escribir y me contestan rápido. Por ejemplo, si quiero entender más sobre la gamificación, puedo hablar con el departamento para recibir ayuda.

Nuestra estrategia de despliegue fue que la universidad pusiera a una persona a cargo de cada departamento y CYPHER Learning capacitó a esas personas. En nuestro departamento un compañero asumió ese cargo para todo lo relacionado con los tutoriales de CYPHER Learning. Teníamos información sobre el horario de los entrenamientos y qué tutoriales teníamos que ver y también pudimos consultar con ese colega. En cada departamento, el encargado proporcionaba ese tipo de información. También se contó con un equipo de apoyo a los alumnos del departamento de informática. Hoy en día, tenemos un departamento de soporte que se enfoca en CYPHER Learning.

Nuestro centro de sistemas se encarga de solucionar problemas de inicio de sesión o conexión tanto para estudiantes como para profesores. También contamos con un equipo de seguimiento pedagógico. Probablemente hay 10 personas involucradas de nuestro lado, pero solo una o dos trabajan directamente con CYPHER Learning. En cada departamento hay un coordinador que ayuda a los nuevos maestros con preguntas y capacitación.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

CYPHER Learning es una buena opción para una organización grande porque facilita la organización de grandes cantidades de contenido, incluidos datos, archivos y exámenes, así como tareas de asignación y revisión. Hace las cosas más claras para los estudiantes. En general, es un buen producto.

Me ha enseñado sobre la importancia de la adaptación. Al principio, estaba un poco preocupada de que los estudiantes no pudieran adaptarse, pero al final, todos los maestros y los estudiantes lo manejaron bien. Me ha enseñado a adaptarme y dar ejemplo como modelo a seguir usando la plataforma.

It is a tool that the university bought as the main platform to provide tools, call lists, upload content, and tasks as well as for synchronous and asynchronous teaching tools, e.g., forums and debates.

We created our own program to help us gather information based on skills and commitments. CYPHER Learning helps us to synchronize all the data.

We have had meetings in addition to our training. This way, the university knows if the purchase of the platform has been beneficial for teachers and students. The vast majority have evaluated the use of the platform as excellent and very positively. There were some older people who said that they had difficulty because of their low digital skills, which it forced them to update. In the graduate and postgraduate courses where there are older people, they are also forced to study and learn the platform.

CYPHER Learning has helped by providing a variety of activities to help students get engaged, developing their independence and higher-order thinking skills. The solution feeds these qualities. If students do not know how to upload a file, or they have doubts, then they can manage to learn on their own. This makes them continue being curious to discover the platform.

With CYPHER Learning, we have been able to save costs. Everything is digital so we have no need for printed materials. CYPHER Learning allows us to use links or codes where we can access PDF books, YouTube, or our own library, which makes it easier and saves a lot.

I find it very valuable. When a young person cannot participate in a postgraduate course because he needs to work in order to earn money and cannot go to face-to-face classes, they can instead upload their material which others did in person. A folder is opened for them where they can upload the presentation content. Not everyone can always be in face-to-face classes, so instead they have the opportunity to upload the materials to the platform.

During the pandemic, virtual learning was the only way. At the same time, it forced us to train ourselves in automation, which makes any tool simple, including CYPHER Learning. Now, there is a democratization of information and students have access to everything that a teacher can give them.

CYPHER Learning's adaptive learning is excellent for helping provide students personalized content based on their goals and performance. All the content that I offer as a teacher is available to students, e.g., welcome messages, units created, and different sections. Due to the university's requirements, it has to be attractive, creative, and original so a young student will have the opportunity to learn my subject in a pleasant, professional way. CYPHER Learning requires professionalism from a creator of creative, updated content. This way, young people can explore and enjoy a subject.

CYPHER Learning is the main way to communicate with students. In CYPHER Learning, everything is recorded, including messages about tasks. I like that the messages are registered in the system. This way, I can keep track of students' efforts. We have a WhatsApp group and students also have my email, but I ask them to communicate through CYPHER Learning. The university administrators review teachers' data through CYPHER Learning. So, in case of any complaints, everything is registered there.

There is a section where you can create games and tools. I don't know if it is because I didn't have the training, but I couldn't use the gamification tools. I would like them to create a link with a tutorial explaining how to do this from the platform.

It seems like there is now more personnel in charge of training teachers. There are now people who are playing the role of instructors, so there are even more personnel working on the platform than before.

I have been using it since 2020.

It is a very well-made, stable tool. It is constantly updated and allows you to follow your work.

We are using it for postgraduate studies about any subject. It is being used for practically everything. It is a tool for evaluations, content, and work.

We also have training days all the time. People constantly support us regarding the platform. We have phone numbers if we need to call support. 

I have never used CYPHER Learning technical support. I always go to the university trainers who always seem to know how to help. I would rate the technical support as 8.5 out of 10.

Positive

Since the pandemic started, we have always used CYPHER Learning. Before acquiring it, we only used Zoom or Google Meeting. However, CYPHER Learning was very much needed for information and qualification purposes.

We received training. It was not difficult because they explained it to us step-by-step. They even told us to open CYPHER Learning and try everything to find out what we least understood. The trainers that the university hired have helped us a lot. We can always call them and ask for support.

It didn't take me long to order my material in the system.

The university hired trainers who taught us all the basics, then divided us into small groups. That is how they implemented the platform in our institution.

There is a main instructor and five other people who constantly send us messages asking us if we are having difficulties or notifying us about a training meeting in the pedagogical area.

This same instructor also made very good video tutorials.

CYPHER Learning has helped us save time on intervention strategies for students, especially those who need guidance. The way that the solution is programmed means that we have our own library with contents. This allows us to be sure that all the work is well-organized, which saves us a lot of time.

We have seen savings in that administrative work when preparing content, qualifications, and basically everything related to teaching. CYPHER Learning allows us to store all our content, helping us be able to grade tasks and assignments. Reaching out for assistance is also much easier.

I don't know any other platforms, so I can't compare them, but practically CYPHER Learning is a very good platform.

It is a good, clear platform that allows you to use teaching tools. In general, CYPHER Learning is an excellent tool for both teachers and students.

Digitally, CYPHER Learning offers you various ways of learning. I have used videos or movie links in a forum so students can debate or have a discussion including their opinions. They enjoy the idea of a debate. Sometimes, students find creative ways to communicate, e.g., uploading their homework with a video that they made on their own. However, I haven't managed to create a game on CYPHER Learning yet.

The most important thing that CYPHER Learning taught me was to be schematic and ordered, increasing my logic skills. It also taught me to be creative and that you never stop learning and exploring.

I would rate the solution as 10 out of 10.

Foreign Language: (Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

Es una herramienta que la universidad compró como plataforma principal para proporcionar herramientas, listas de llamadas, cargar contenido y tareas, así como herramientas de enseñanza sincrónica y asincrónica, por ejemplo, foros y debates.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Creamos nuestro propio programa para ayudarnos a recopilar información basada en habilidades y compromisos. CYPHER Learning nos ayuda a sincronizar todos los datos.

Hemos tenido reuniones además de nuestra capacitación. De esta forma, la universidad sabe si la compra de la plataforma ha sido beneficiosa para profesores y alumnos. La gran mayoría ha valorado el uso de la plataforma como excelente y muy positivo. Hubo algunas personas mayores de edad que dijeron que tenían dificultad por su bajo nivel digital esto los obligó a actualizarse. En los cursos de grado y posgrado donde hay estudiantes mayores de edad también se ven obligados a estudiar y aprender la plataforma.

CYPHER Learning ha ayudado al proporcionar una variedad de actividades que ayudan a los estudiantes a participar, desarrollar su independencia y habilidades de pensamiento de orden superior, La solución alimenta estas cualidades. Si los estudiantes no saben cómo cargar un archivo, o tienen dudas, entonces pueden optar por intentar y aprender de manera independiente. Esto hace que sigan teniendo curiosidad por descubrir la plataforma.

Con CYPHER Learning hemos podido ahorrar costes. Todo es digital, por lo que no necesitamos materiales impresos. CYPHER Learning nos permite usar enlaces o códigos donde podemos acceder a libros en PDF, YouTube o nuestra propia biblioteca, lo que facilita y ahorra mucho.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

En mi opinión la plataforma ayuda mucho a los alumnos de bajos recursos, Cuando un joven no puede participar en un posgrado porque necesita trabajar para ganar dinero y no puede ir a clases presenciales, puede subir su material que otros hicieron en persona. Simplemente se les abre una carpeta donde pueden cargar el contenido de la presentación. No todos pueden estar siempre en clases presenciales, por lo que tienen la oportunidad de subir los materiales a la plataforma, esto es muy valioso para mi.

Durante la pandemia, el aprendizaje virtual era la única forma. Al mismo tiempo, nos obligó a formarnos en la automatización, lo que hace que cualquier herramienta sea sencilla, incluida CYPHER Learning. Ahora, hay una democratización de la información y los estudiantes tienen acceso a todo lo que el docente les puede dar.

El aprendizaje adaptativo de CYPHER Learning es excelente para ayudar a proporcionar a los estudiantes contenido personalizado en función de sus objetivos y rendimiento. Todo el contenido que ofrezco como docente está disponible para los estudiantes, por ejemplo, mensajes de bienvenida, unidades creadas y diferentes secciones. Debido a los requisitos de la universidad el contenido tiene que ser atractivo, creativo y original para que el estudiante tenga la oportunidad de aprender mi materia de una manera amena y profesional. CYPHER Learning requiere profesionalidad de parte del docente, nos da la oportunidad de ser creadores de contenido creativo y actualizado. De esta manera, los estudiantes pueden explorar y disfrutar del tema en clase.

CYPHER Learning es la principal forma de comunicarse con los estudiantes. En CYPHER Learning, todo queda registrado, incluidos los mensajes sobre las tareas. Me gusta que los mensajes siempre están registrados en el sistema. De esta manera, puedo realizar un seguimiento de los rendimientos de los estudiantes. Tenemos un grupo de WhatsApp y los alumnos también tienen mi correo, pero les pido que se comuniquen por CYPHER Learning. Los administradores de la universidad revisan los datos de los profesores a través de CYPHER Learning. Entonces, en caso de cualquier queja, todo queda registrado allí.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Hay una sección donde puedes crear juegos y herramientas. No sé si es porque no tuve la formación, pero no pude usar las herramientas de gamificación. Me gustaría que crearan un enlace con un tutorial explicando cómo hacer esto desde la plataforma.

Parece que ahora hay más personal a cargo de capacitar a los maestros. Ahora hay personas que están desempeñando el papel de instructores, por lo que hay incluso más personal trabajando en la plataforma que antes.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

Lo uso desde 2020.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Es una herramienta muy bien hecha y estable. Se actualiza constantemente y te permite seguir tu trabajo de manera profesional.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Lo estamos utilizando para estudios de posgrado sobre cualquier materia. Se está utilizando para prácticamente todo. Es una herramienta de evaluación, contenido y trabajo.

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

Tenemos días de capacitación constantemente. Nuestro equipo tecnico nos apoya seguidamente con respecto a la plataforma. Tenemos números de teléfono si necesitamos llamar al soporte.

Nunca he utilizado el soporte técnico de CYPHER Learning. Siempre acudo a los formadores universitarios que siempre parecen saber cómo ayudar. Calificaría el soporte técnico como 8.5 de 10.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Qué plataforma usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Desde que comenzó la pandemia, siempre hemos usado CYPHER Learning. Antes de adquirirlo, solo usábamos Zoom o Google Meeting. Sin embargo, CYPHER Learning era muy necesario para fines de información y calificación.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

Recibimos capacitación. No fue difícil porque nos lo explicaron paso a paso. Incluso nos dijeron que abriéramos CYPHER Learning y que abrieramos todas las pestañas para descubrir qué era lo que menos entendíamos. Los formadores que contrató la universidad nos han ayudado mucho. Siempre podemos llamarlos y pedir apoyo.

No tardé mucho en ordenar mi material en el sistema.

¿Y el equipo de implementación?

La universidad contrató entrenadores que nos enseñaron todos los conceptos básicos y luego nos dividieron en pequeños grupos. Fue así como implementaron la plataforma en nuestra institución.

Hay un instructor principal y otras cinco personas que constantemente nos envían mensajes preguntándonos si tenemos dificultades o avisándonos de una reunión de capacitación en el área pedagógica.

Este mismo instructor también hizo muy buenos videos tutoriales.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

CYPHER Learning nos ha ayudado a ahorrar tiempo en estrategias de intervención para estudiantes, especialmente para aquellos que necesitan orientación. La forma en que está programada la plataforma hace que tengamos nuestra propia biblioteca con contenidos. Esto nos permite estar seguros de que todo el trabajo está bien organizado, lo que nos ahorra mucho tiempo.

Hemos visto ahorros en el trabajo administrativo a la hora de preparar contenidos, titulaciones y básicamente todo lo relacionado con la docencia. CYPHER Learning nos permite almacenar todo nuestro contenido, ayudándonos a poder calificar tareas y asignaciones. Solicitar ayuda también es mucho más fácil.

¿Qué otras plataformas evalué?

No conozco ninguna otra plataforma, así que no puedo compararlas, pero prácticamente CYPHER Learning es una muy buena plataforma.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Es una plataforma buena y clara que te permite usar herramientas de enseñanza. En general, CYPHER Learning es una excelente herramienta tanto para profesores como para estudiantes.

Digitalmente, CYPHER Learning te ofrece diversas formas de aprender. He usado videos o enlaces de películas en un foro para que los estudiantes puedan debatir o tener una discusión incluyendo sus opiniones. Les gusta la idea de los debates. A veces, los estudiantes encuentran formas creativas de comunicarse, por ejemplo, cargando su tarea con un video que hicieron ellos mismos. Sin embargo, aún no he logrado crear un juego en CYPHER Learning.

Lo más importante que me enseñó CYPHER Learning fue a ser esquemática y ordenada, aumentando mis habilidades lógicas. También me enseñó a ser creativa ya que nunca dejas de aprender y explorar.

Calificaría la solución con un 10 sobre 10.

Spaces are created for our subjects and courses and each teacher manages things according to their needs. I try to make content and sources of activities and actions that can be carried out by linking with other applications and I configure the grading aspect as well.

It has helped to make the relationship between the teacher and the student transparent in different ways. First of all, it allows the student and the teacher to know what progress the student has made. Second, in addition to the grading system, there are charts that both teachers and students can see, indicating the student's performance and their grades.

Transparency is one of the valuable aspects of the platform. I can be very transparent with students, both in terms of advancement in the subject and the production of knowledge. That is especially true in the areas of evaluations, qualifications, the possibilities for feedback and for corrections. That seems very important to me. CYPHER Learning gives me that ability and, in some cases, it motivates me to do extra work. Take, for example, a relatively mechanical quiz. Because there is an opportunity to give feedback, it makes it less mechanical and lets the students know where they were wrong and what the teacher's impression is. That seems important to me.

It has also allowed the incorporation of new tools linked to the platform. It is a day-to-day tool for me. Each step I take in the subject, whether it is virtual or face-to-face, has a corresponding feature in CYPHER Learning.

We're going through the pandemic and, with the confinement and quarantines, and even when there is a local outbreak, CYPHER Learning allows us to quickly turn to virtual education. We're embracing a type of hybrid education, and that has been fundamental during the pandemic.

It also allows me to have a source of reference for what is happening during the semester. It gives us a single record of face-to-face and virtual interactions, making it a more solid reference.

Another benefit is that it has helped save time on intervention strategies for students, especially those who need guidance. It has made that quite easy for me in particular cases. The fact that I can retrieve material from a library and upload it adaptively has saved me a lot of time and allows me to adapt to the situation.

The fact that the students have a point of reference on the platform means that classes are not fragmented. The platform allows the teacher to unify activities by focusing their students on instructions or content or activities. It creates pretty solid points of reference about the students.

It's also great that you don't have to print things. CYPHER Learning is not the only solution with this ability, as other applications allow you to do so. But we can link them with CYPHER Learning and that’s also good. The university has also included access to the international libraries and this means that students are not looking just anywhere for information but, instead, use these libraries. As a result, there have indeed been many cost savings. I prefer that students do work virtually instead of printing it.

Compared to other platforms, it is very user-friendly and intuitive, and both teachers and students can easily find what they need and use the functions without extensive training. Obviously, you need a minimum introduction to the system. 

There are a lot of built-in functionalities and many more functions than we use, things that we would need to know in detail.

In terms of automation, I have dedicated myself to doing tests or qualifications in a more automated way, but I have not delved into other things.

CYPHER Learning provides a variety of activities to help with student engagement. There are some students who are very limited when it comes to what the teacher offers them from the platform, but there are other students who exploit the resources of the platform quite well. Due to the lack of skills of some students in my country, there is no possibility of exploiting everything.

It allows the integration of different pedagogical approaches. While it is true that we cannot speak of a completely virtual scenario yet, what has been done instead is an adaptation from face-to-face to virtual. Many teachers have tried to recreate their face-to-face format, mediated by virtuality, and CYPHER Learning has been a source of material and of recorded and published classes. 

Some teachers have used other approaches, such as using the collaborative aspects that CYPHER Learning makes possible. That way, learning is not only via a shared class with explanations, but also includes activities that enable building and learning via collaboration. This is a leap that virtual education allows us. From my point of view, CYPHER Learning has both participatory and collaborative tools and this seems like a very good combination to me. It does not have everything, and it is true that there could be more applications adapted and included.

I wanted to use it as a source of communication with students, but that didn't work out very well. It is easy for educators to communicate with students, but CYPHER Learning is constituted as a formal communication tool. It shows what students and teachers say to each other, but for non-formal, practical notices, dialogues, and questions about what people did not understand, they use WhatsApp or Telegram a lot more. 

At the level of daily communications, CYPHER Learning is not the tool they use. It is only used for things like requesting permission or communicating with the whole class. The type of communication we have is quite horizontal in general, so there is a lot of non-formal communication, and that personal communication between the students and teachers is normally via WhatsApp or Telegram.

I would like to see an improvement in peer-bonding and the possibility for students to share knowledge among themselves regarding the work that they do. That would greatly help in that it wouldn’t be a one-to-many communication format. 

Another possibility would be incorporating additional applications to expand the functionalities of the platform. I don't know if they exist or not because I don't have administrator privileges, but that could be interesting.

Also, teachers do not have privileges compared to other platforms. We cannot connect applications that allow us to tune LMS or enhance it much.

Another point is that there are some jobs or tasks that cannot be seen by everybody. If someone submits jobs, I can see them but students do not have that possibility, or at least I have not discovered it.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for a year and a half to two years.

I have never had any problem with its availability. I know that there are students who have experienced problems that were linked to their browsers or to the internet access they had. But no problem has ever arisen with the platform itself. It has always worked quite well.

As an institution, we haven't tested the scalability extensively. We are a university with headquarters in four cities and the distance between them is 400 kilometers. CYPHER Learning has given us the opportunity to have a single subject with a single teacher who works in a given location and that has been a form of scalability that did not exist before. We call it "inter-branching."

We have about 20,000 students and about 2,000 teachers as well as another 500 people who are linked to other services who are probably using it. I don't know exactly how many users we have.

The university offers us this platform and all teachers and students are linked to it. Each one takes advantage of it in a different way. In certain cases and specific situations, other platforms are still used and they are not always linked to CYPHER Learning. There are teachers who prefer using other platforms for certain things.

I have never used the technical support but it is done via the platform, either face-to-face, in a phone call, or through a WhatsApp chat. From what I understand, they usually respond very quickly.

Positive

I have worked with other platforms, so when I saw CYPHER Learning it was very intuitive for me and I had no problems. It is necessary to invest a little time to understand certain modalities, but it is simple and friendly, once you know the environment.

It took me a couple of weeks to configure the essential things, while the more complex things took months.

As part of our implementation strategy, our university did three things. First, it called a local expert who was not from the institution or from CYPHER Learning, and he did the initial training. There was another training round for the teachers that went a little deeper, helping them to investigate and use the tool, especially in the field of evaluation. Finally, there was a course organized by an Argentine university that uses CYPHER Learning for pedagogical strategies.

We used an integrator at the beginning and a consultant later. Some of the training was more technical, about use of the platform itself and how it works. Other sessions were more about how to exploit it pedagogically. They were two different aspects but both were very helpful.

The consultant was a representative of the Catholic University of Salta in Argentina who gave us the more pedagogical aspects related to CYPHER Learning.

If we compare CYPHER Learning with Modul, the latter is free but the problem is that the amount of time one must dedicate to the configuration of its tools is considerable. When you translate that time into money, it has economic weight. With CYPHER Learning, everything is ready, making it simple to use without having too many deep configurations or requirements for knowledge of languages or programming.

I don't know how much CYPHER Learning costs, but if you have the budget, it is worth it.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we used a platform called Modul, which is open source, but it was less user-friendly for everyone. We also had a platform called Classroom but everything was a bit fragmented. CYPHER Learning has allowed us to unify all the teachers' and students' tasks in a single platform.

I have also used a paid platform called Docent, but with CYPHER Learning I have access to local platforms built by universities.

There are some other free online platforms and one where you have a trial version and then you can upgrade to a paid version and receive more tools. But it was very dedicated to the educational side, meaning the broadcasting of content and activities, but had very little in the way of evaluation or administrative management. In that sense, it did not provide the support we needed.

In the end, our university made CYPHER Learning the only official platform. Even if it hadn’t been mandatory, I would have chosen it anyway.

When it comes to competency-based learning I do not know if it is fully enabled in our case. I can see that the students have badges or awards, and when they have been outstanding in one subject or another, but I have not been able to see a record of the student's performance. It is likely that it is not enabled.

In terms of the staff needed to manage the LMS, we have had to dispense with some functions and enable other functions. Some administrative management has been decreased, but the level of technical support for students and teachers has increased. Some people have had to assume the roles of technological and pedagogical advisors, while others have been able to reduce their involvement in qualifications because those processes are more automatic.

It is a fairly complete product that not only allows you to manage content and educational activities but also to manage things administratively. You can create learning communities, and it enables you to link many tools. There are also many options for accessing libraries in one place. It is suitable for a university. Other educational institutions may find it too big.

Overall, it is quite good and has the essentials.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

Se crean espacios para nuestras asignaturas y cursos y cada profesor gestiona las cosas según sus necesidades. Intento crear contenido y fuentes de actividades y acciones que se puedan realizar mediante la vinculación con otras aplicaciones y también configurar el aspecto de calificación.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Ha ayudado a que la relación entre el profesor y el alumno sea transparente de diferentes maneras. En primer lugar, permite al alumno y al profesor saber qué progreso ha realizado el alumno. En segundo lugar, además del sistema de calificación, hay gráficos que tanto los profesores como los estudiantes pueden ver, que indican el desempeño del estudiante y sus calificaciones.

La transparencia es uno de los aspectos valiosos de la plataforma. Puedo ser muy transparente con los estudiantes, tanto en términos de avance en el tema como en la producción de conocimiento. Eso es especialmente cierto en las áreas de evaluaciones, calificaciones, las posibilidades de retroalimentación y correcciones. Eso me parece muy importante. CYPHER Learning me da esa capacidad y, en algunos casos, me motiva a hacer un trabajo extra. Tomemos, por ejemplo, un cuestionario relativamente mecánico. Debido a que existe la oportunidad de dar retroalimentación, lo hace menos mecánico y les permite a los estudiantes saber dónde se equivocaron y cuál es la impresión del maestro. Eso me parece importante.

También ha permitido la incorporación de nuevas herramientas vinculadas a la plataforma. Es una herramienta para mi día a día. Cada paso que doy en la materia, ya sea virtual o presencial, tiene una característica correspondiente en CYPHER Learning.

Estamos pasando por la pandemia y con el confinamiento y las cuarentenas, e incluso cuando hay un brote local, CYPHER Learning nos permite pasar rápidamente a la educación virtual. Estamos adoptando un tipo de educación híbrida, y eso ha sido fundamental durante la pandemia.

También me permite tener una fuente de referencia de lo que está pasando durante el semestre. Nos brinda un registro único de las interacciones presenciales y virtuales, lo que lo convierte en una referencia más sólida.

Otro beneficio es que ha ayudado a ahorrar tiempo en las estrategias de intervención para los estudiantes, especialmente para aquellos que necesitan orientación. Me lo ha facilitado bastante en casos particulares. El hecho de que pueda recuperar material de una biblioteca y cargarlo de forma adaptativa me ha ahorrado mucho tiempo y me permite adaptarme a la situación.

El hecho de que los alumnos tengan un punto de referencia en la plataforma hace que las clases no se fragmenten. La plataforma permite al docente unificar actividades enfocando a sus alumnos en instrucciones o contenidos o actividades. Crea puntos de referencia bastante sólidos sobre los estudiantes.

También es genial que no tengas que imprimir cosas. CYPHER Learning no es la única solución con esta capacidad, ya que otras aplicaciones te permiten hacerlo. Pero podemos vincularlos con CYPHER Learning y eso también es bueno. La universidad también ha incluido el acceso a las bibliotecas internacionales y esto significa que los estudiantes no buscan información en cualquier lugar, sino que utilizan estas bibliotecas. Como resultado, ha habido muchos ahorros de costos. Prefiero que los alumnos hagan el trabajo virtualmente en lugar de imprimirlo.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

En comparación con otras plataformas, es muy fácil de usar e intuitiva, y tanto los profesores como los estudiantes pueden encontrar fácilmente lo que necesitan y utilizar las funciones sin tener una gran formación. Obviamente, necesitas una mínima introducción al sistema.

Hay un montón de funcionalidades integradas y muchas más funciones de las que usamos, cosas que necesitamos saber en detalle.

En cuanto a la automatización me he dedicado a hacer pruebas o calificaciones de forma más automatizada, pero no he profundizado en otras cosas.

CYPHER Learning ofrece una variedad de actividades para ayudar con la participación de los estudiantes. Hay algunos alumnos que se limitan en cuanto a lo que el profesor les ofrece desde la plataforma, pero hay otros alumnos que aprovechan bastante bien los recursos de la plataforma. Debido a la falta de habilidades de algunos estudiantes en mi país, no hay posibilidad de explotarlo todo.

Permite la integración de diferentes enfoques pedagógicos. Si bien es cierto que todavía no podemos hablar de un escenario completamente virtual, lo que se ha hecho en cambio es una adaptación de lo presencial a lo virtual. Muchos docentes han intentado recrear su formato presencial, mediado por la virtualidad, y CYPHER Learning ha sido fuente de material y de clases grabadas y publicadas.

Algunos profesores han utilizado otros enfoques, como el uso de los aspectos colaborativos que hace posible CYPHER Learning. De esa manera, el aprendizaje no es solo a través de una clase compartida con explicaciones, sino que también incluye actividades que permiten construir y aprender a través de la colaboración. Este es un salto que nos permite la educación virtual. Desde mi punto de vista, CYPHER Learning tiene herramientas tanto participativas como colaborativas y esta me parece una muy buena combinación. No lo tiene todo, y es cierto que podría haber más aplicaciones adaptadas e incluidas.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Quería usarlo como una fuente de comunicación con los estudiantes, pero eso no funcionó muy bien. Es fácil para los educadores comunicarse con los estudiantes, pero CYPHER Learning se constituye como una herramienta de comunicación formal. Muestra lo que se dicen alumnos y profesores, pero para avisos no formales, prácticos, diálogos y preguntas sobre lo que la gente no entendió, usan mucho más WhatsApp o Telegram.

A nivel de comunicaciones diarias, CYPHER Learning no es la herramienta que utilizan. Solo se usa para cosas como solicitar permiso o comunicarse con toda la clase. El tipo de comunicación que tenemos es bastante horizontal en general, por lo que hay mucha comunicación no formal, y esa comunicación personal entre alumnos y profesores es normalmente vía WhatsApp o Telegram.

Me gustaría ver una mejora en la vinculación entre pares y la posibilidad de que los estudiantes compartan conocimientos entre ellos sobre el trabajo que realizan. Eso sería de gran ayuda ya que no sería un formato de comunicación de uno a muchos.

Otra posibilidad sería incorporar aplicaciones adicionales para ampliar las funcionalidades de la plataforma. No sé si existen o no porque no tengo privilegios de administrador, pero eso podría ser interesante.

Además, los profesores no tienen privilegios en comparación con otras plataformas. No podemos conectar aplicaciones que nos permitan afinar LMS o potenciarlo mucho.

Otro punto es que hay algunos trabajos o tareas que no todos pueden ver. Si alguien envía trabajos, puedo verlos pero los estudiantes no tienen esa posibilidad, o al menos yo no la he descubierto.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la plataforma?

He estado usando CYPHER Learning durante un año y medio o dos años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Nunca he tenido ningún problema con su disponibilidad. Sé que hay estudiantes que han tenido problemas que estaban relacionados con sus navegadores o con el acceso a Internet que tenían. Pero nunca ha surgido ningún problema con la plataforma en sí. Siempre ha funcionado bastante bien.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Como institución, no hemos probado la escalabilidad de forma exhaustiva. Somos una universidad con sede en cuatro ciudades y la distancia entre ellas es de 400 kilómetros. CYPHER Learning nos ha dado la oportunidad de tener una sola asignatura con un solo profesor que trabaja en un lugar determinado y eso ha sido una forma de escalabilidad que antes no existía. Lo llamamos "interramificación".

Tenemos unos 20.000 alumnos y unos 2.000 profesores además de otras 500 personas que están vinculadas a otros servicios que probablemente lo estén utilizando. No sé exactamente cuántos usuarios tenemos.

La universidad nos ofrece esta plataforma y todos los profesores y alumnos están vinculados a ella. Cada uno lo aprovecha de una manera diferente. En determinados casos y situaciones específicas, se siguen utilizando otras plataformas y no siempre están vinculadas a CYPHER Learning. Hay profesores que prefieren usar otras plataformas para ciertas cosas.

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

Nunca he utilizado el soporte técnico pero se hace a través de la plataforma, ya sea presencial, en una llamada telefónica o a través de un chat de WhatsApp. Por lo que entiendo, suelen responder muy rápido.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

He trabajado con otras plataformas, así que cuando vi CYPHER Learning me resultó muy intuitivo y no tuve problemas. Es necesario invertir un poco de tiempo para entender ciertas modalidades, pero es sencillo y amigable, una vez que conoces el entorno.

Me llevó un par de semanas configurar las cosas esenciales, mientras que las cosas más complejas me llevaron meses.

Como parte de nuestra estrategia de implementación, nuestra universidad hizo tres cosas. Primero llamó a un experto local que no era de la institución ni de CYPHER Learning, y él hizo la capacitación inicial. Hubo otra ronda de formación para los profesores que profundizó un poco más, ayudándoles a investigar y utilizar la herramienta, especialmente en el ámbito de la evaluación. Finalmente, hubo un curso organizado por una universidad argentina que utiliza CYPHER Learning para estrategias pedagógicas.

¿Y el equipo de implementación?

Utilizamos un integrador al principio y un consultor después. Parte de la capacitación fue más técnica, sobre el uso de la plataforma en sí y cómo funciona. Otras sesiones fueron más sobre cómo explotarlo pedagógicamente. Eran dos aspectos diferentes, pero ambos fueron muy útiles.

El consultor fue un representante de la Universidad Católica de Salta en Argentina quien nos brindó los aspectos más pedagógicos relacionados con CYPHER Learning.

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

Si comparamos CYPHER Learning con Modul, Modul es gratuito pero el problema es que la cantidad de tiempo que hay que dedicar a la configuración de sus herramientas es considerable. Cuando traduces ese tiempo en dinero, tiene un peso económico. Con CYPHER Learning, todo está listo, lo que facilita su uso sin tener demasiadas configuraciones profundas o requisitos de conocimiento de lenguajes o programación.

No sé cuánto cuesta CYPHER Learning, pero si tienes el presupuesto, vale la pena.

¿Qué otras soluciones evalué?

Al comienzo de la pandemia, usábamos una plataforma llamada Modul, que es de código abierto, pero era menos fácil de usar para todos. También teníamos una plataforma llamada Classroom pero todo estaba un poco fragmentado. CYPHER Learning nos ha permitido unificar todas las tareas de profesores y alumnos en una única plataforma.

También he usado una plataforma paga llamada Docent, pero con CYPHER Learning tengo acceso a plataformas locales construidas por universidades.

Hay algunas otras plataformas en línea gratuitas y una de ellas tenía una versión de prueba y luego puedes actualizar a una versión paga y recibir más herramientas. estaba muy dedicada a la vertiente educativa, es decir, a la difusión de contenidos y actividades, pero tenía muy poco en cuanto a evaluación o gestión administrativa. En ese sentido, no proporcionó el apoyo que necesitábamos.

Al final, nuestra universidad convirtió a CYPHER Learning en la única plataforma oficial. Incluso si no hubiera sido obligatorio, lo habría elegido de todos modos.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Cuando se trata de aprendizaje basado en competencias, no sé si está completamente habilitado en nuestro caso. Puedo ver que los alumnos tienen insignias o premios, y cuando se han destacado en una materia u otra, pero no he podido ver un registro del rendimiento del alumno. Es probable que no esté habilitado.

En cuanto al personal necesario para gestionar el LMS, hemos tenido que prescindir de algunas funciones y habilitar otras funciones. Se ha disminuido parte de la gestión administrativa, pero se ha incrementado el nivel de soporte técnico para estudiantes y profesores. Algunas personas han tenido que asumir roles de asesores tecnológicos y pedagógicos, mientras que otras han podido reducir su participación en las calificaciones porque esos procesos son más automáticos.

Es un producto bastante completo que no solo te permite gestionar contenidos y actividades educativas sino también gestionar cosas administrativamente. Puede crear comunidades de aprendizaje y te permite vincular muchas herramientas. También hay muchas opciones para acceder a las bibliotecas en un solo lugar. Es adecuado para una universidad. Otros tipos de instituciones educativas pueden encontrarlo demasiado grande.

En general, es bastante bueno y tiene lo esencial.

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.