WordPress Learning Management Systems Are Growing Up

By: Justin Ferriman • April 16, 2015
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growing-upIf you could rewind the internet back to January 2012, you wouldn’t find much on WordPress learning management systems.

In fact, you wouldn’t find anything.

During that time I was working on an elearning consulting engagement for a client and was researching possible learning management options.

Having experience with systems across a large variety of platforms, I wondered if such a system existed for WordPress (a software I enjoyed using in my spare time).

Seeing nothing there, I started a blog in March 2012 (at the time called WPLMS). It was the first time the words “WordPress” and “LMS” had ever been used in any serious manner. It also marked the infancy of what has become LearnDash.

Fast-forward to today and the landscape is much different.

The market has been flooded with various WordPress LMS offerings from internet marketers, WordPress theme providers, and freelance developers. The industry has become quite noisy and highly competitive!

But competition is never a bad thing. In fact, some of the best innovations have come as a result.

The WordPress based LMS is not only growing up within its own industry, but across the entire learning management universe (I say “universe” because it’s an absolutely enormous industry with various sub-categories).

By way of example, someone using LearnDash as their primary course delivery mechanism has much more flexibility than what currently exists in traditional LMSs like Moodle.

The reason for this is multi-faceted, but mainly due to people’s expectations of an online learning experience. Specifically, these expectations have resulted in demand for features and functionality that comes more natural to WordPress than many proprietary closed-source systems.

This of course is made possible due to the passionate WordPress ecosystem with entrepreneurs, innovators, developers, and designers all intent on pushing the boundaries of the software – never settling for “good enough”. A natural benefit of open-source code.

If you have a need for online courses and are investigating LMS options, then you owe it to your program to see what WordPress could do for you and your learners.

If you’re interested in learning more about your options, send us a note! We’d be happy to discuss your project and whether LearnDash and WordPress are a right fit for you.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter