eLearning - An idea whose time has come (BigGyan Cloud eLearning)

The people and the companies who ignore this fundamental business reality have and will lose huge amount of time and money. Today, IBM could have been in a position where they controlled the whole personal computer business (Microsoft plus Apple plus more). They lost the crucial first mover advantage to Apple. By the time they came to their nerves, Steve Jobs had got them labeled as uncreative, near-sighted, bureaucratic company and reduced them to a wannabe in PC business. From being the top company in technology business for about 50 years, IBM came to a near bankruptcy in early 1990s. Luckily, IBM got a second chance in 1990s when internet started to pick up lot of traction. And this time IBM did not screwed up. Under Louis V. Gerstner, IBM refocused its strategy that brought it back from brink of disaster.

Every age has a rage, for this age it is Internet. No matter what business you are in, internet is making everybody change. The bottom line is either you change with it and use it to your benefit or you will be eliminated from the business. As with any major technology, Internet has some issues too. Bernard Howe shows pros and cons of internet beautifully in his poem titled (no surprises here) - "The Internet".

The internet is, a fountain of information.
its available to everyone, in every nation.
Pages for children to read and enjoy
along with the spam which can really annoy.
Poetry and forums for everyone's pleasure
just about anything, even selling your treasure.
Its even used everyday in our schools
it has lots of help and good learning tools.
Ethics are used by those who do care
and often free help with things we do share.
Friendships has spread all over the earth
I even made a friend who lives way down in Perth.
I enjoy it so much, I think I'm addicted
I think I was warned, as this was predicted.

In India and other countries, various sectors of economy like banking, telecom and large part of services industry as a whole have taken internet very seriously and reaped incredible benefits. We have learnt to do lot of things in our own life online - Communication and relationship (emails, social networks), Internet Banking, Online trading (shares, funds, investments) and so on. Nevertheless, how many of you have taken some form of education that incorporates use of internet. Probably very few. It is because somehow, the education sector as a whole did not took up internet as fast as other services. It is shocking at first because a large percentage of people in this sector are computer literate and use emails, social networks daily. Somehow, they are not using the internet when it comes to their work.

We at BigGyan researched for over 6 months to know the reasons for this. The result was shocking - unlike emails and social networking, there was no complete solution in the market for education sector. So the problem was not at the end of school administrators and teachers but at the end of solution providers! The software providers were providing the software but expected institutes to setup their own server or buy space on some host server to host the software, then install the software on the server, manage the software and then do time-consuming data entry before the solution was ready to be used. In short, eLearning solutions were in Stone Age when scaled on internet timescale. Let me give you an analogy using email to give a feel of the problem - It was like asking someone who wanted a simple email address to first buy space on a server, install and manage the email software before using the email. We all know we do not need to do any of this. Hotmail and then others made email so easy that anyone could use it.

Therefore, the goal we set for us was to make eLearning as simple as email.

We identified 8 reasons (blockers) that act as barriers for an institute from using eLearning in spite of knowing its benefits. We worked on our solution “BigGyan” for over 2 years to solve all the 8 problems. The result is simply unbelievable. We surpassed our own expectations, we have made eLearning so easy that even your mom (with due respect) can use it. Literally.

Here are the 8 blockers we identified and BigGyan solution for each of them.

Why you don’t want an eLearning solution?

BLOCKER 1

eLearning is a costly option. In general, this is true. Setting up an eLearning platform is a cost intensive task. eLearning platforms come at a huge cost, not to mention cost of maintaining software, upgrading software and setting up computer networks. For example - A typical installation of blackboard (an eLearning platform) will cost in the range of $200,000 plus yearly costs for upgrades.

BigGyan solution

BigGyan is the totally free. It is a feature rich eLearning platform with an elegant UI and a robust backend to provide a remarkable experience to the user. It leads to low cost of entry, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), elimination of capital expenditures and dramatic reduction in IT spending.

So now, the big question is how we do it. We have a unique way to provide the platform to institutes that reduces our costs dramatically to enable us to provide it for free. We make money on support services though.

BLOCKER 2

eLearning requires educational institutes to set up and manage computer network and software.

BigGyan solution

Managing software and computer networks is not a core task of educational institutes. Educational staff has more important tasks than to handle complexities of technology. We provide our eLearning platform based on SaaS (Software as a service). Users of the platform just need to log into our website and straight away start using the platform. We host the software on our website for you.

We strongly believe that it is right of a user to be a user. User needs to just use the platform; we manage the security issues, upgrade issues, daily backups. Basically, we are gmail of eLearning.

BLOCKER 3

Requires lot of training for admin staff, teachers and students

BigGyan solution

Our eLearning platform includes visual tools to create your lesson structure and add content, powerful online-test builders, communication tools (chat, forum and personal messages), content scheduling, activity tracking, announcements, content flows, cooperative content building, lesson rules, vertical views of the lesson and many more. No technical knowledge is necessary to create content or use it as a student, all tasks are performed with visual tools and editors. We provide with detailed training modules to use these visual tools.

BLOCKER 4

Is it really going to help students?

BigGyan solution

BigGyan brings in amazing addition to user/student experience.  Some of the advantages are:

• Enhancing student-to-student and faculty-to-student communication – Making students feel safe that they have support whenever required.

• Enabling student-centered teaching approaches.

• Providing 24X7 accessibility to course material.

• Providing just-in-time methods to assess and evaluate student progress.

The integration of web-based learning with classroom teaching adds value to traditional education. Students and faculty benefit from using the communication and assessment tools. Continual access to resources through online delivery and automated management tools minimizes the faculty's cost and time associated with the experience. The advantages of eLearning make a significant impact in higher education today. As technology evolves, we are planning to deliver even greater benefits in the future. Currently, we working on providing mLearning (making BigGyan accessible on mobile), Facebook app, Orkut app and iPhone app.