Concrete5 as LMS

Permalink 1 user found helpful
Hi all...I have been using Concrete5 for years, and recommending it to my family/friends/work colleagues, etc. I like it!

With that said, I am at a crossroads: I am needing to set up a website that will do these functions:

-have user logins/accounts
-eCommerce: purchase "courses"
-eCommerce: ideally also have option of subscription (but that is later on)
-eCommerce: track which courses apply to specific users
-deliver: video, downloads of files, and text per course
-track: the user's progress in going through the courses so that they know what they have/have not completed
-track: have users answer quizzes to track their understanding
-track: based on successful quiz completion, award badges/certifications that go into their profile

All of this is what LMS systems do, but I would love not learning another system if Concrete5 can do this......but I am also fairly certain that the answer will be thus: "Concrete5 CAN do this because it is so flexible... but it will take a lot of work to make it do so".

Is that about right?

Thanks!

pendragn
 
exchangecore replied on at Permalink Reply
exchangecore
I didn't see anything that did exactly this available in the marketplace at a quick glance. However it is definitely possible (and there might be something I missed). I actually think that the Concrete5 certifications does a good portion of what you're asking for here (https://www.concrete5.org/community/certification/... ).

This add-on looked like it might complete some of your requirements but I didn't see anything about e-commerce, nor video delivery.
https://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/quizmaker-pro/features/...

Hope this helps.
goldhat replied on at Permalink Reply
I'd think of eCommerce and eLearning as distinct pieces. Maybe major LMS systems incorporate eCommerce directly, but in most CMS solutions for eLearning you have the generic eCommerce solution (WP WooCommerce for instance) and then the eLearning solution (WP Courseware, Sensei) which then relies on the eCommerce solution for it's payment processing.

AFAIK there is no significant bundled elearning solution for C5 that would be equivalent to Courseware or Sensei. Building one is a big challenge, a good testing engine alone could be hundreds of development hours.

For eCommerce well as you probably know in 5.6 there was only Core Commerce. Now in 5.7 there are already 2 free eCommerce options. Vivid Store is first out the gate, and our Razor Commerce http://razorcommerce.org is going into beta May 1st.

Razor Commerce might be useful as the eCommerce portion to integrate with an eLearning system. It has the kind of structure where you could programmatically make courses into products for instance. And do things like embed checkout on course pages.

For the eLearning features, it would be great to see a packaged solution for C5. The flexibility of C5 for editing seems like a real bonus for eLearning because there tends to be situations where courses have special/unique requirements that are tough to box into WP/Drupal etc. With C5 being able to make blocks and drop them in where you need them might help create a more flexible elearning platform.
pendragn replied on at Permalink Reply
pendragn
Thanks to both of you! Yes, I agree that the flexibility of C5 would be good down the road, and I don't really want to learn Moodle (plus I think most of the sites I have seen based on Moodle are not the prettiest), but I also don't want hundreds of development hours for an unproven/custom solution.....thanks for your advice!
exchangecore replied on at Permalink Reply
exchangecore
If you ever do decide you want to look for some quotes on building something custom that you just don't have the time / skillset to do yourself you can always post your requirements to the Concrete5 Job board and get a feel for what other developers think it would take to build a solution for you.

https://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/jobs1/...

Best of luck!
Engine44 replied on at Permalink Reply
Engine44
I don't know if my solution will solve all of your issues but I'll present it. I am designing a site that requires extensive ecommerce features. I decided to use Prestashop for the eccomerce portion of the site. The rest is concrete5. I set up Prestashop as a subdomain. Perhaps this would be helpful to you. Good luck.