In 2022, video usage analysis will be used extensively in the education sector to improve the quality of learning. By tracking and analyzing the usage of videos, educators will identify which videos are most effective in engaging students and teaching them new concepts. This information will then be used to create more effective videos that can be used in classrooms across the world.

The increasing use of videos for learning and teaching purposes is expected to drive market growth. The market is expected to be driven by the growing demand for video-based learning tools and the increasing demand for online education. The ever-increasing adoption of video-based learning tools by educational institutes is expected to boost the market growth. As per the BusinessWire report, The US and China are leading countries in the eLearning sector due to the rapid increase in the available online courses and course hosting platforms, rise in disposable income per capita, and internet penetration. The North American region is expected to dominate the eLearning market in 2022.

Many research studies related to eLearning have provided that students benefit from e-learning. These benefits can be summarized as providing time and location flexibility, helping the educational institution to save time and money, providing self-directed and self-paced learning activities, building an environment to study collaboratively in the distance; make available learning materials anytime.

Under the view of these previous research findings, this Online vs Offline Learning Survey in Education Sector aims to examine the impact of video consumption on online learning in 2022. The Video Usage Analysis Survey in the education sector in 2022 will aim to understand the current and future video usage trends in the education sector.

The Online vs Offline Learning Survey in Education Sector will focus on understanding the video usage patterns of K12 students, Graduates, Exam Aspirants and those who are Employed. It will also identify the factors influencing video usage in the education sector. The Online vs Offline Education Survey in 2022 is a comprehensive report that provides a detailed overview of the current and future use of video in the education sector.

Education Survey Background and Objectives

Surveys are important because they provide researchers with data that can be used to make informed decisions. Survey data can help researchers understand how people feel about a specific issue, how they behave, and what they believe. Surveys are often the best and usually only reliable way—to discover what people think and want.

Our Video Usage Analysis Survey aimed to collect information and opinion of students, aspirants, professionals, and graduates about how video consumption impacted learning in 2021. We collected unbiased survey data and analyzed it based on results or opinions. This valuable feedback is our baseline to measure and establish a benchmark to compare results over time.

Online vs Offline Learning Survey in Education Sector Methodology

The Video Usage Analysis Survey was conducted in January 2022 by VdoCipher. The analysis in this report is based on both Online Polls and Manual Survey Questionnaires. The Manual Survey was conducted among a sample of participants, including K12 students, Graduates, Aspirants preparing for competitive exams, and employed. The Manual Survey Questionnaires were distributed via Google Forms for the participants to fill in. Also, the participants were limited to demography based in India.  On the online side, the poll was conducted on social media covering Global demography.

Manual Survey Questionnaires are important because they allow for more personal interaction with the respondent. This can help to gather more accurate information. Manual Survey Questionnaires provide accurate data about people’s opinions and experiences. They can be conducted in a variety of ways, including through interviews, focus groups, and our chosen way of questionnaire forms.

Our Manual Survey methodology involved a few in-person questionaries which included multiple-choice questions (5), Yes/No Questions (5) and some Open-ended questions (2). The verbal responses were collected on a Google Spreadsheet attached to Google Forms for further analysis in combination with the results of Online Poll results.

Nearly, 30% of the respondents gave no answer to the subjective question about the platform and reason of liking and that’s why their data was cleaned and processed for observation results to be procured. They were usually marked with “None Specific” and “No Reason Specified” markings respectively.

Survey Results (Charts, Stats and Online Poll result)

In this section, we will present the outcome of our Video Usage Analysis Survey and will try to draw various inferences out of it. We will also present related study results so that the viewers can observe the similarity and contradictions based on their sample demography or time frame in which they were conducted.

The Shift in Learning Mode

Internet usage has seen a tremendous surge in the form of video chats, video streaming, online classes, and online gaming since early 2020.

• A Pew Research survey highlighted that 90% of Americans believe the internet has been essential to them.
• In our Video Usage Analysis Survey, 46.3% learned new things in life by both offline and online means. Among the remaining, 38.8% believed online mediums helped them learn things. The proportion of offline learning in life was just 14.9%. This may be presumed due to the shift from traditional learning to online learning in recent years.
• Statistics by Statista also show that internet penetration in the United States is at approximately 91%. We adopted – willingly and not-so-willingly – new ways of using the internet for business, education, and social activities.
• Similar to the Manual Survey results, when the audience were asked to choose among the two modes, 65.75% of respondents chose the ‘Online’ mode out of 946 responses received for the question.
  

Online Education better than Offline?

Online education will continue to increase in popularity as costs get lower due to technological availability and the quality of instruction continues to evolve and improve. Learning online will become more of a norm and less of a novelty within the next generation.

• In December 2020, the U.S. National COVID-19 School Response Dashboard found nearly 56% of schools adopting a hybrid model, 29% offering in-person instruction, and 15% running remotely.
• While in our Manual Survey, only 47.8% of participants believed that online education is better than offline. With 52.2% of participants inclined towards offline education, the margin seems very small.
• As per the ‘How America Pays for College report’, conducted by Ipsos, 75% of college students and their families prefer to have in person-only or hybrid learning next semester, citing difficulty concentrating and difficulty collaborating with peers among their top critiques of online education.
• In the conducted online poll survey, the audience was asked the question, “Is online education better than offline?”. 1074 poll responses were recorded. Nearly 61% of the audience felt online education to be better than traditional learning. For Higher Education or 4-year institutions, retention rates for online students were 60–65% compared to a 75–80% retention rate of students in offline courses. This report was published after thorough research in 2016.

Both online and offline learning has specific benefits and drawbacks. To the learners, Some learners prefer interactive and visual methods. Others prefer face-to-face training to online training. Both types of education are essential in their own right. Even though online learning has benefited us, it will never replace classroom education completely.

Have you benefited more from online learning?

Peer-reviewed open access scientific journal, PLOS One accessed student’s experiences with online teaching following Covid-19. In the survey, after two weeks of online education, 8/16 students (50%) expected that their learning outcomes would be inferior with online education compared to their pre-COVID-19 education at campus. After 12 weeks, 15/ 21 students (71%) expected their learning outcome to be lower, and, notably, none of the students expected it would be higher. On both occasions, most students reported that studying had become more difficult compared to the time before the pandemic.

On the contrary, we were able to observe that participants who were nearly forced to adopt Online Education due to Covid-19 for 2 years have a better acceptance. Their responses include 55.2% of participants choosing ‘yes’ as their choice and the remaining 44.8% believing in Offline modes of learning.

Cost of Online Education vs Offline Education

A study called “Making Digital Learning Work,” released by Arizona State University analysed the cost of delivering education of large-scale online efforts at six colleges and universities. In the study, When they compared the overall costs of online courses with average costs at four of the institutions, they found that the savings for online courses ranged from $12 to $66 per credit hour, a difference of from 3 per cent to 50 per cent of the average credit hour costs”

Digital learning can help institutions reduce costs and pass along savings to students. This can be done through three primary mechanisms: raising student-to-instructor ratios, drawing on a broader network of adjunct faculty, and avoiding additional operations costs.”

The same can be corroborated in our Manual study where 61.2% of participants believe that Offline Education is costlier than Online one. In the online survey, we asked the audience to choose “Which education system they believe is more costly?”. Interestingly, out of 1070 poll responses, 621 (58%) respondents opted for Online education as more costly compared to offline.

To understand the contrast between the Online and Manual Survey, we must recall that Manual Survey had an audience only limited to India and the Online Poll had a Global audience. This can also be inferred as the Indian Audience having a majority overview towards Online Education being less costly while the Global audience having a reverse overview on that.

Have you ever done Online Group Study?

The benefits of online group study are many. First, online group study allows students to learn in a collaborative setting from one another. This type of study can provide students with various perspectives and deepen their understanding of the course material.

Additionally, online group study can help students develop essential teamwork skills. Various skills teachers can educate students on different in-demand subjects, such as programming, digital marketing, copywriting, or UI/UX design. Group members must work together to stay on track and complete assignments on time. Finally, online group study can be a cost-effective way for students to receive supplemental instruction.

• One participant in the survey says that screen-sharing allows him to better understand some of the students’ issues in the group. Some participants feel that there’s simply no ideal replacement for face-to-face study groups. Beyond the other considerations, online learning requires more self-discipline.
• While many K-12 students are now connecting using Zoom to form smaller group study communities. 55.2% of the respondents said they had done online group studies, while 44.8% did not feel a need for the same.

Recorded Videos, Live Classes or eBooks?

The participants were given four choices to select – Recorded videos, eBooks, Live Classes – One to One, and Live Classes – One to Many.

• Interestingly, 55.2% opted for recorded videos, followed by Live Classes One to Many (23.9%), Live Classes – One to One (17.9%), and 3% for ebooks. The result clearly states that students prefer video learning over ebooks. The reasons can be many.
• Recorded Video content is absorbed in a more accessible and easier manner. Students can learn and review in their way to playback recorded lectures. Learning is more easily accessible for everyone with playback speed adjustment and closed captioning features. This way, students who may have disabilities or prefer to learn a certain way can review what works for them.
• Some participants said they need to hear lessons more than once to comprehend. They can re-watch lectures as many times as they want or need. Also, without thinking about slowing down the class or course for everyone else.
• Coming to Live Classes One to One, which was the second voted online learning content mode, one K12 student says, conversations are almost student-driven. The student has complete control over the instructor’s questions and their feedback. Some students feared answering questions in one to many live classes and comparatively felt less stress in one to one interactive classes.

Social debates are already raging on the internet and offline on whether ebooks are still the best way to learn or learning videos presents a better alternative. Both learning modes have their strengths, and one is always better for specific tasks over the other. For example, videos appear as a better medium when used for introducing complex topics instead of reading.

Short vs Long Videos

According to the research study at the University of Wisconsin, most students agreed online video content learning helped them. Also, it notably worked best when video length was kept below 15 minutes. Another article by Wall Street Journal, too, made the same deductions. The optimal preferred video length is 6 minutes or shorter. This was when the students watched most of the way through these short videos.

• The average engagement time of any video is a maximum of 6 minutes, regardless of the video length. Also, the engagement rate decrease as videos lengthens. On average, learners spent around 3 minutes on videos longer than 12 minutes. This means they engaged with less than a quarter of the video content.
• Certificate-earning students engaged more with videos, maybe because they had greater motivation to learn the material. The VdoCipher survey found participants opting for short video content (40.3%) over long-form video content (16.4%). For 43.3% of participants, the length of the video was not a concern. They were comfortable in both, short and long videos.

Do you think your school should be available in the Online format?

The use of online courses among K-12 students has grown rapidly in recent years. All high schools in metro cities now require students to take at least one online course. Most online courses, particularly those serving K-12 students, have a format much more similar to in-person courses. The teachers have virtual discussions among the students, assign homework, and follows up with individual students. On comparing online and in-person classes, however, online classes aren’t as effective as in-person classes for most students.

Jessica Heppen and colleagues from the American Institutes for Research, assigned second-semester Algebra failed students to either take face-to-face or online courses in the summer. Students algebra test scores were lower in the online medium. They also rated their class more difficult than their peer of face-to-face option.

58.2% of our survey participants feel that schools should not be in the online format. Both studies found evidence that online schooling was less effective.

Overall, Being in person with teachers and students creates social pressures and benefits that help motivate students to engage. Some students do as well good in online courses as in in-person courses, some may actually do better. On average, students do worse in the online setup, and this is mainly true for students with weaker academic backgrounds.

Other Research on Online Vs Offline Education

One research conducted by Senthil Veerasamy and Susobhan Goswami, published in the International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology (2022), explores the academic performance of students in online versus offline learning environments. The study utilized statistical tools like descriptive analysis, independent t-tests, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to assess whether online learning provides better academic performance compared to offline (face-to-face) learning.

Descriptive statistics showed a slight advantage for offline learning in terms of academic performance, with average scores of 73 (offline) versus 71 (online). Independent t-tests and ANOVA further supported the significant impact of the mode of learning on academic performance.

Another study conducted by Priyanka, published in the International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (2023), investigates the preferences between online and offline modes of learning, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research collected data from 100 students across various regions in India, using an online survey structured into four sections to gather personal information and views on both learning modes.

Key findings and data include:

• Demography – The respondents consisted of 53% males and 47% females, primarily aged 18 to 25 years. The educational background ranged from high school to postgraduate levels, with a significant portion in urban areas (58%).
• Preference – 53.5% preferred offline learning, while 46.5% opted for online learning.
• Inclination – 70.7% favored hard copy study materials, showing a strong inclination towards traditional learning resources.
• Compatibility – 60% reported no difficulty in finding offline coaching, indicating accessibility to face-to-face educational services.
• Focus – A higher focus and interaction were noted in offline classes, with 80% of students finding them more engaging and motivating.
• Technology – About 60% had a laptop, and 88% had an internet connection, crucial for online learning.
• Engagement – Despite the convenience of online learning in saving time and enhancing efficiency, a considerable percentage of students (64%) felt bored compared to offline classes.
• Online Platforms – YouTube was the most used platform (86%), followed by Google Meet and specific educational websites.

Appendices

Survey Questionnaire

1. How do you mostly learn new things in Life?
   Online/Offline/Both
2. Do you think Online education is better than offline?
   Yes/No
3. Have you benefited more from online learning?
   Yes/No
4. Which Education System is more costly?
   Online/Offline
5. Are you aware of any Online Tutorial (Tuition/Coaching) platforms?
   Yes/No
6. Have you ever done Online Group Study?
   Yes/No
7. Which type of Online Learning Content do you like more?
   Recorded Videos/Live Classes – One on One/Live Classes – One to Many/eBooks
8. What Videos do you like more?
   Short/Long/Both
9. Do you think your school should be available in the Online format?
   Yes/No
10. How many daily hours do you usually spend on Online Learning?
    <2 hours/>2 hours
11. Which eLearning site or App is most used by you and why do you like it?
    Subjective Answer

Technical Terms

We have tried to produce this report in very easy language for our intelligent users. We believe that moderate terms like sample size and demography are also understandable as per our readers’ capabilities. If we have missed explaining a term within the report, kindly search it on any search engine of your choice and we believe it will be easily learned.

Ethical Considerations

All participants gave their informed consent. The questionnaires did not include questions about personal health information or sensitive data. The quantitative data were collected through a self-administered survey. The participants provided their written consent to draw observations on data except for their names and identity.

FAQs

Why Classroom Learning Is Better Than Online?

The physical presence in a classroom environment enhances focus, minimizes distractions, and fosters a sense of community and collaboration among students. The structured schedule of offline learning helps in better time management and discipline, contributing to more effective learning outcomes.

What Is Better Online Or Offline Classes?

Offline classes are better for those who value face-to-face interaction, hands-on learning experiences, and a structured learning environment. On the other hand, online classes offer flexibility, accessibility, and convenience, especially for those with time constraints or geographical limitations.

What Is Offline Education?

Offline education typically involves standard teaching aids like textbooks, physical materials, and on-site facilities, emphasizing real-time learning and interaction.

What Major Difference Do You Find In The Teaching Of Online Classes And Offline Classes?

The major difference between online and offline classes lies in the mode of interaction and communication. Offline classes benefit from direct, in-person interaction, allowing for nuanced communication, including non-verbal cues, immediate feedback, and spontaneous discussions. In contrast, online classes rely on digital platforms, offering greater flexibility and accessibility but potentially limiting the immediacy and depth of teacher-student interaction.

References

• Business Wire – link
• Statistsa – link
• Sallimae – link
• PLOS Journal – link
• Academia Edu – link
• US Edu – link
• Delhi Univ – link

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

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With increasing internet bandwidth, and improved hardware and software, delivering video content to viewers has drastically improved. Educational streaming materials like lectures, assignments, tutorials, how-to-dos and visual graphics are now readily available over the internet.

Video streaming in education is the technological approach to deliver educational content, such as live and pre-recorded lectures, interactive classes, webinars, and multimedia sessions over the internet. Learners on the other hand access video content anytime and anywhere on their connected devices including smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Video files when downloaded take up a considerable amount of storage space. A streaming media file is played as it is received and does not remain on the viewer’s device storage.

Importance and Benefits of Videos in Education

In the last few years, videos have increasingly become a replacement for traditional classroom learning. Videos have proven to be a strong medium to deliver lectures and education of all forms to students learning remotely.

One of the main reasons why video education is benefitting both educators and students is the power of demonstrating complex concepts in an easy-to-learn environment of video learning. Video content is interactive and the most engaging mode of conveying information. It helps increase the retention and engagement rate.

• Highly engaging and interactive – The use of images, audio, and animations gives an auditory and visual viewing experience which helps to capture the attention of students. Often educational videos have polls, quizzes, and interactive elements which keep the students engaged and motivated.
• Video content is personalizable – Videos can be easily personalized based on the specific needs of a student and learning styles. For example, some educational videos have animations while some include narrations.
• Great assistant in learning – Especially for students, video adds a diversity of learning experiences such as virtual tours, lab simulations, real-world problem solving, and more.

Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

Humans have a deeper understanding of pictures and words compared to words alone. We ourselves choose books and study materials that are filled with charts, graphs, diagrams, and maps. In educational lectures and work organizations, we rely on PowerPoint presentations and videos to efficiently learn and grasp concepts.

According to Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning, “humans learn more from pictures and words than from words alone. Moreover, just adding words to pictures is not an effective way to achieve multimedia learning.”

Types of Video for E-learning

Interactive videos

Interactive videos allow the viewer to perform some actions such as clicking on the image, and taking quizzes or polls between the videos. The participatory actions may include hovering, dragging, gesturing, and scrolling.

360-degree and Virtual Reality (VR) videos

360 videos are like personal field trips. Learners can have an immersive, concrete learning experience that is otherwise not possible in a classroom. VR video simulations take learners to a whole new level of experience. From exploring a planet to walking alongside an animal, VR simplifies understanding and provides a more active learning environment.

Micro-learning videos

Microlearning is a way of delivering video content in which the information is broken down into short videos, with each tackling a single learning objective. The videos are short, usually 2-4 minutes, and require little understanding effort from the learner. Examples include employee training videos.

Webinar videos

Web seminars or webinars are online-hosted video presentations, lectures, or workshops. Usually, an expert takes a webinar and participants can interact in real-time discussion and ask questions. Webinars don’t require a big venue and virtually you can meet and learn from people across the globe.

Animated explainer videos

Animated explainer videos open fun and exciting ways to learn. They create a sense of visual learning and are most beneficial to achieve great outcomes for slow learners. Animated explainer videos combine eye-catching graphics and simple voiceovers and music.

Screencast videos

It’s a digital technique where everything that happens on a computer screen is recorded as well as the narration. Basically, it’s a screen capture and covers images, text, images, and mouse movements. Screencast videos are usually instructional videos where the instructor performs some action on the computer screen to educate learners.

Real-life teaching videos

Real-life teaching videos are similar to actual classroom teaching scenarios. There is a typical educational setup and teaching is completely virtual.

Best Practices for Creating Engaging Video Content in Education

• Create videos that last less than 6-7 minutes – Short videos have proven to be beneficial in conveying information compared to long-duration videos. Videos limited to 10 minutes have high retention rates and often educators chunk down a long concept into shorter videos.
• Add quizzes and polls to make videos more interactive – Interactive activities like polls and quizzes increase viewers’ engagement and test their grasping capabilities. Quizzes and polls are displayed alongside the video in real-time at designated points.
• Provide captions or text scripts – Captions are the written- form of the audio content and help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. Text scripts include written dialogues and narration helps non-native speakers and those having difficulty understanding the audio. Both captions and text scripts open accessibility to a wider range of audiences.
• Set up a proper environment – The key considerations include proper lighting, camera quality, audio clarity, uncluttered background, high-speed internet connection, and preparation for technical glitches in advance.
• Choose a hosting platform for your videos – A video hosting platform is where teachers and educators upload their videos and the service provider manages all the aspects related to your videos such as seamless delivery, CDN-based serving, encryption, and more. Secure video hosting services like VdoCipher offer Hollywood Grade DRM encryption to fight piracy and unauthorized access.
• Understanding the latest streaming stats can also help enhance the effectiveness of video streaming in education, ensuring that educators and institutions are leveraging the most current data to engage learners.

Features of an Online Video Streaming Platform for Education

Security & privacy

The hosting platform must have robust security measures in place. It ensures the videos hosted on the platform are protected from unauthorized access and downloads. Also, various information like personal data and confidential data must be kept secure.

Video analytics

Video analytics allows for collecting and analyzing the video parameters like view count, traffic source, and watch time. It helps in understanding the viewer’s behaviors, preferences, and overall performance of your videos. Some platforms even provide heatmaps to determine which part of the video was skipped or played for a long.

Scalability

A video hosting platform must be scalable enough to handle growing users and videos without any interruptions or performance issues. The platform must be able to accommodate the increased bandwidth and storage demand in able to serve the video content efficiently. Even when a large number of simultaneous users access the platform, there should not be minimum delays or downtime.

Accessibility

The platform must be accessible by low-spec devices as well as by those having limited internet access. Features such as multilingual subtitle support, adaptive streaming, and closed captions make the platform much more accessible. Overall, more accessibility makes the hosting platform reach a wider audience and boosts engagement and revenue.

Integrations

While hosting videos on a platform, you require integrations with third-party tools and platforms. The integrations include anything from embedding videos, social sharing, integrating video editing tools, or collaborating with other services. The hosting platform must be capable of offering easy integrations with other platforms.

Pricing

The pricing of every video hosting platform varies with the features and services they offer. Some are pay-per-use, subscription-based, or free with limitations. The choice completely depends on your business requirements and budget. Some platforms even offer discounted pricing on long-term commitments.

Customer support

While using any platform, there arise technical issues or queries that need to be addressed on priority. Good customer support is available through support channels like email, phone, chat, and nowadays, WhatsApp too.

Online Video Education is the Future

The way people now access and learn new skills has evolved. With the flexibility of growing learning options and accessibility, online video education is definitely the future of learning. Its major importance stems from the major advantages of accessibility, affordability, convenience, and retention rates.

This new form of learning is more interactive, engaging, and most importantly, accessible to those with tight schedules or remote learners. Today, a student sitting in one corner of the world can gain knowledge of any topic of interest from anywhere and anytime. It’s true that there are still regions where people don’t have access to smartphones or the internet, but things are slowly digitizing.

Irrespective of age and location, online streaming in education videos are accessible to everyone as long as they have internet access. During the pandemic, we have seen how quickly things moved toward digital learning. It saved time and effort and students could study at their own pace and at ease.

Compared to traditional class setups, online videos are always affordable. From trainers to offline training institutes, nearly everyone has moved towards online classes. To learn a new skill, you don’t have to go to a physical setup and rather opt for online classes from a reputed educator. Those who cannot afford classroom studies, maybe due to financial issues or time dependency, can easily study at the home, workplace, or even while commuting.

As discussed in the above sections, streaming in education videos give learners a better understanding of the subject better than text. The whole online learning experience is more personalized and customizable as per the learner’s preference. Slow learners often face difficulties in classroom learning and while through online video learning, they can study at their own pace, pause, rewind, and again play content in a loop.

VdoCipher – Best online video streaming platform

When uploading videos on a hosting platform especially paid one, the security of the videos is a necessary requirement. At no cost, you can afford to have your videos illegally downloaded or shared. There is also the risk of unauthorized access and compromise to premium and sensitive media files. The extent of piracy can be easily analyzed by the fact that up to 24% of the global bandwidth is taken by illegal downloads of copyright content.

‘In 2022, online movie and TV piracy accounted for nearly $52 billion economic losses.’

To fight video piracy and secure your premium videos, VdoCipher, a secure video hosting platform with a complete infrastructure setup is helping elearning and media platforms. VdoCipher offers Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM which protects videos from illegal downloads and unauthorized access.

How DRM protects video content?

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology controls the access and usage of video content by restricting unauthorized copying, distribution, and access. DRM is implemented at the hardware and software level and it is by far the highest available level of video security. The chunks of video are converted into an encrypted format and decrypted at the player’s end with a private decryption key. The raw video file is not available to the viewer for downloading or pirating.

Common encryption technologies like AES128 and RTMPe have a partial key exchange mechanism that exposes the key for hacking and unauthorized video downloads using plugins. So, in order to have complete video security with the latest technological advancement, DRM is the only choice as provided by VdoCipher at an affordable price.

‘Covering more than 120 countries, over 3000 customers trust VdoCipher to secure their premium videos.’

Why choose VdoCipher to host videos?

Video security with DRM encryption – Highest video security using Google Widevine and AppleFairPlay DRM

Secure offline downloads in apps- iOS native SDK to enable secure video download on device. Restrict offline download availability and apply time validity for downloaded videos.

Dynamic watermarking – a customizable watermark that is dynamically placed over the video. Customizable for transparency, color, and size.

Screen capture block in Android and iOS native apps – VdoCipher native SDK integration restricts screen capture at the hardware level and discourages screen capture.

Geo-restrictions – Restricting users based on their IP group helps control access in a particular geographic location.

WordPress plugin – VdoCipher WordPress video player plugin works with popular WP membership plugins such as MemberPress, Restrict Content Pro, and WP eMember. The plugin also supports LMSs like LearnDash, Sensei, and WP CourseWare.

HTML5 video player – VdoCipher HTML5 video player comes with dynamic controls and supports multilingual subtitles and adaptive bitrate streaming. Script code easily enables CTAs like forms and buttons

Adaptive video streaming – Adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) allows automatic adjustment of the video quality as per the viewer’s internet connection speed. This is very beneficial for students having poor internet connectivity or those living in remote locations.

FAQs

What are the benefits of video applications in education?

Video applications in education make the learning process more engaging, personalized, accessible, and cost-effective.

What equipment and tools are required for online elearning video streaming?

For recording video lectures, you require a camera, an editing tool, and a stable internet connection. For live streaming to your students, you need a good quality webcam, microphone, and a device like a smartphone connected to the internet.

Name some of the free video platforms for education.

YouTube, TED-Ed, and Khan Academy are some platforms that offer free video lessons.

What is the biggest challenge while streaming elearning videos?

The major challenge is video security. Anyone can easily access and download your video content if there is no robust security in place like DRM encryption. Platforms like VdoCipher not only secure your videos with DRM encryption but also prevent illegal downloads and piracy with features like dynamic watermarking, screen capture prevention, secure offline downloads, and more.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

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With the rise of educational video streaming platforms, there is a growing need for advanced video storage, delivery, and security to protect against illegal downloads. Also, features like multi-DRM, dynamic watermarking, CDN, video analytics, high-quality content delivery, adaptive bitrate streaming, multi-device compatibility, and multi-language video captioning are must-have in your video infrastructure.

What is Educational Streaming of Videos?

With the technological advancements and penetration of internet connectivity, the delivery of content through the internet has rapidly increased. Within a span of seconds, information is transferred from one part of the globe to another. The delivery of educational video content over the internet in real-time or pre-recorded video sessions is known as educational streaming. Educational video content is usually delivered via mobile apps, and browsers and all you need is an internet connection and a connected device. The purpose of educational streaming is to provide students with a highly convenient and accessible way to learn, irrespective of the geographical location or schedule.

‘During the period 2018-2023, The Middle East Online Education market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.7%. The likely driving factors are rapid adoption of eLearning by colleges and organizations and governmental investments.’

Types of Educational Streaming Platforms

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms

MOOC platforms are open online courses and often free, aimed at unlimited participation and geographically dispersed learners. These platforms are widely used in distance learning and do not always offer academic credits. Most courses are certificate-based and include filmed lectures, course material, and problem sets.

The first even MOOC course was MIT’s circuit and electronic course which is still available. 2012 was declared as the year of MOOC. Edx, Coursera, and Khan Academy are some of the most popular MOOC platforms. SWAYAM MOOC platform is India’s largest free eLearning portal.

LMS

LMS stands for Learning Management System. These are software applications that facilitate the creation, management, and delivery of educational content. Although focused on online learning delivery, LMSs may offer instructor-led training, asynchronous and synchronous learning, online assessments, managing users, courses, and learning management. During the covid-19 pandemic, there has been a massive demand and growth for LMS platforms. Moddle, TalentLMS, and LearnDash are popular LMS platforms.

Learner Experience Platform – LXP

A Learner Experience Platform (LXP) is a software solution that is designed to help organizations and individuals improve their learning. It provides learners with personalized learning paths, content recommendations, curated content libraries, and tools to track progress and measure results as per their role, future job growth, stream change, etc. The most popular features of an LXP are content curation, personalized learning pathways, and tracking learner progress. Many organizations are turning to LXPs to increase engagement and productivity, as well as to reduce costs and improve human resource learning outcomes.

Examples of LXP include LinkedIn Learning, EdCast, Internshala Courses, and many others. They provide a cloud-based learning platform that enables learners to manage learning through video classes, course material, assignments, and final certification exams. It provides personalized learning paths tailored to individual learning needs and preferences, which even includes skipping parts to pay more attention to other interesting topics.

Custom Built Educational platforms

Custom-built educational platforms are built to cater to specific educational needs. It can be an Offline coaching institute trying to provide a means of online education to their students. It can be a highly subscribed YouTube channel trying to monetize premium content. Even a custom platform built to create separate branding and security for its educational video asset suffices as a need.

These platforms use video hosting services, web development, app development, and many other in-house and third-party services to completely set up the whole infrastructure. Custom video hosting setup is also a possibility but requires setting up additional technical plugs like Video CDN, Custom Player, Video security from illegal downloads, etc.

Advantages of Educational Video Streaming Services

• Flexibility – These services allow students to access learning content from any device, geo-location, and at any point, making it easier for students to manage their time more efficiently. They provide an interactive learning environment through tools that allow students to take part in live lectures and ask questions, resulting in greater engagement and higher retention rates. Cloud-based video streaming also allows for videos to be watched multiple times, enabling students to go back and review specific material.
• Cost-effectiveness – By streaming videos rather than purchasing physical copies of videos, students can save money on materials and the cost of storage. From an educator’s perspective, streaming video eliminates the need to invest in expensive video equipment or hire technical staff to maintain the equipment. They can also use secure video hosting services to protect videos from getting illegally downloaded.
• Personalized learning – students can access educational videos that are specifically tailored to their individual learning needs of the job, career growth, exams, certifications, etc. They get their own profile, own progress report, and completion certificate. This is beneficial for students who have specific learning requirements and sometimes, also do not want to attend a traditional classroom.
• Instant feedback – Allowing students to receive feedback on their learning progress through questions and answers or other interactive elements can help them quickly assess and adjust their learning strategies. This can improve their learning outcomes and make the learning process more efficient. It also allows teachers to better monitor student progress and provide timely guidance and support.

Need of Security in Educational Video Streaming

In the planning phase, it is best to start looking for video security options. This will help you save the migration cost when you switch to secure video hosting. Switching at a later stage might become a necessity due to the threat of your premium video content being leaked. Hosting provider usage statistics show that the use of educational video streaming has increased significantly in recent years, especially after COVID-19. Many schools and universities rely on LMS, CMS, and video hosting platforms for remote learning. This has led to an increased need for video security to ensure the confidentiality and privacy of their curated video content.

In addition to the threat of premium content being leaked, educational videos often contain sensitive information such as teachers’ identities, grades, test scores, and students’ personal information. Ensuring security protocols is a must so that this information remains confidential and secure to protect the privacy of students and teachers. Even a security breach of non-encrypted data through hacking reveals everything before the unauthorized person.

Video security is becoming increasingly important in the realm of educational streaming as more and more students and educators rely on online platforms for learning and teaching. If a video gets downloaded by tools like IDM, it is fairly easy to distribute via platforms like telegram and torrent. These tools have become so advanced that video needs to have a highly secure encryption and dynamic key exchange mechanism during the playback. The solution for establishing such a secure connection is only possible if the hardware or environment also provides a black box for key protection. That is the reason this technology is limited to the likes of Google and Apple who control the environment of video playback. As public access to the technology (DRM), they provide partnership options to security service providers like VdoCipher. Using a multi-DRM security solution like VdoCipher also takes care of bug-free integrations, APIs, SDKs, plugins, dynamic watermarking, protection on rooted devices and much more.

Role of Tracking Students and Teachers Education Video Playback

It is essential to monitor and analyze usage patterns and engagement levels of video viewers. This information can then be used to improve the overall effectiveness of online learning. Some key tracking parameters have been listed below:

• Evaluation of Cost: It is always advised to keep a track of costs associated with your educational video platform. A major chunk goes into video hosting only. Even if you plan to have your own data servers, the starting cost to set up a bug-free cloud infrastructure is huge. Using the video hosting cost calculator at the initial stage gives you the idea and later helps you specifically calculate your per-student cost, etc.
• Frequency of Views: This helps you get insights into how well students are retaining information and progressing through the video course material. If a video is too hard to understand, it might have higher multiple playbacks by the majority of students. Similarly, views can help figure out which course is in demand and much more.
• Mapping Viewership with results: An educational platform can also try to customize its analysis and can even draw some interesting conclusions. With the availability of clustering, segmentation, and analytics algorithms based on neural networks, it is a fairly good analytics to have. These results showing relationships between the group of video viewership and students’ final results can also help create more of such content.
• Tracing the need for Content improvement: browning through your video analytics will also show you skips and viewership gaps on part of videos or even full videos. This may indicate that the teacher has made the video or part a bit boring, confusing, lengthy, and much more.
• Compliance Monitoring: It is always important to keep a track of certain bandwidth usage spikes to ensure that your content is not getting illegally downloaded. A reputed secure video hosting provider places automated checks to curb such cases in addition to multi-DRM protection.

Features of educational streaming services for teachers and students

DRM protection – At no cost, no course creator or platform wants their videos to get pirated. Securing videos from illegal downloads, sharing, and unauthorized access is a big concern. DRM protection uses the latest available technology to protect videos from piracy and unauthorized access and sharing. Multi-DRM platforms like VdoCipher are trusted by educators to host and deliver their premium video content.

Video analytics – Video analytics presents the data of all the parameters that affect your videos and helps in better understanding and managing the videos. The parameters include the number of visitors, traffic source, view time, and other key engagement metrics. Based on the video analytics, you can tailor and improve the video performance.

Monetization options – Educational streaming services often have the feature of monetizing your video content. There are also subscription-based monthly and yearly plans which students opt for. Also, there are pay-per-course models, advertisements, and affiliate marketing choices.

High-quality content delivery – Educational streaming services store video files in various formats and deliver the best quality resolution videos. They have sufficient infrastructure like high-performing servers, CDNs, and bandwidth to seamlessly deliver HD content.

Adaptive video streaming – Also known as ABR streaming, it’s a technology that automatically adjusts the video quality based on the viewer’s internet speed. Irrespective of low connectivity or remote locations, videos are delivered at the best possible resolution

Multi-device compatibility – Videos hosted on educational streaming services are compatible with a range of devices and browsers. There is a choice of multi-screen view wherein, the same content when watched on a smartphone is later continued on a laptop.

Multi-user access – In multi-user access, multiple users access a service account at the same time. It is very important in cases where a number of persons work on the same account with different levels of access. Some may have an editor or complete access while some may only have a view or upload access.

Video captioning – Proper captioning makes video accessibility much wider, covering those who are deaf or hard of hearing. As captions have written transcripts of the video, the level of comprehension is further improved. This leads to better engagement and availability of content to a global audience and non-native speakers.

VdoCipher – Best Educational Streaming service for videos

A Video hosting platform is an online service or platform to store, manage and deliver video content in security. Users can upload videos on the hosting platform and the service will provide the complete infrastructure from video upload to seamless content delivery across the globe and on all compatible devices.

It has been observed after visiting multiple Edtech conferences and events, that educational videos are at a greater risk of getting illegally downloaded. This is the reason, many popular online learning providers like BYJU are interested in technologies like DRM for their video protection. They even know about Netflix and Amazon Prime also using the same technology. But setting up an in-house team to set up the whole DRM and video hosting infrastructure is itself a very capital and time-consuming job. Also, it is required to be a license partner with Google and Apple for their Widevine and Fairplay DRM respectively.

VdoCipher is not only a Google Widevine partner providing multi-DRM protection, but also it provides a highly scalable video infrastructure based on AWS for the highest uptime. It offers the most affordable pricing even if you compare that with a non-secure video streaming option. Apart from DRM to protect your videos from illegal downloads and screen captures, it offers many other additional security features and very easy integration options like,

• Dynamic Watermarking
• Secure offline download in SDK
• Screen capture block in Android & iOS Native app
• Multi-level user access
• Geo-Restrictions
• App-based security by Google Play Integrity
• APIs, SDKs, and Plugins
• Smart and Secure HTML5 Video Player

Role of Educational Streaming and Survey Points

Educational streaming is likely to spread more and become highly affordable and accessible. As technology continues to improve and internet access gets cheaper and more widespread, it is not far that rural areas that used to have very low connectivity to adopt online education. Such a trend can be inferred from the growth of massive open online courses (MOOCs), which provide free or low-cost access to educational content from top universities and institutions. This could make education more accessible to people around the world, regardless of their financial situation.

It’s possible that more schools and universities will adopt online streaming as a primary method of delivering educational content. Even the top institutes are looking at one potential development which is the use of virtual and augmented reality in online education. This would allow students to not only watch videos but also immerse themselves in interactive simulations and experiences that can help to bring the content to life. Additionally, the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence could lead to personalized educational content. This can also be understood as there won’t be an unbiased teacher available at every point but a machine can adapt to the needs and learning style of each individual student.

FAQs

Requirements for Streaming Teachers and Students?

The minimum requirements start with camera and editing tools before publishing to YouTube which later can be monetized. Advanced requirements of an online education platform include video hosting, streaming, CDN, DRM, transcoding, and integration with web or app platforms.

Do Educational video hosting platforms support app playback?

Not all but educational video streaming platforms like VdoCipher support secure playback on all devices, browsers, and apps including that of Android and iOS.

What are educational apps?

Language learning apps like Duolingo, Math and science apps like Wolfram Alpha and Photomath, and Flashcard apps like Quizlet are all examples of educational apps. They help people of all ages learn new skills, improve existing ones, or simply engage with video content or other interactive elements in a fun way.

What are some educational video creators?

There are many in every field, some have even created their own platforms like PW. In general science, Creator channels like Veritasium, and Be Smart exist and the list keeps on adding in every such educational topic of interest.

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

The post Video Educational Streaming Service for Apps & Browser Playback appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

Recently, The Digital Learning Pulse Survey by Bay View Analytics and Cengage in April 2022 collected responses from 1,246 students. The survey was on how the shift towards digital learning is affecting them.

• 935 students are currently enrolled in online courses and desire to opt for more courses in the future.
• Of those students taking online courses, 62% gave online courses learning an “A.”

What is an online course hosting platform?

A course hosting platform allows you to upload your courses onto their servers and then embed them into the relevant pages on your site, where it won’t slow down your page load times. Course hosting platforms also have additional benefits, such as securing your online course videos, video analytics information, and sharing options.

If you have a website, surely you can upload your online course video files to the server and play the content on your website. But hosting courses locally isn’t a good idea. Unlike plain text or images, video files take up considerable storage space and bandwidth. Plus, there are all sorts of playback issues, buffering, latency, quality problems, device support, and, most importantly, video security. As a course creator, you won’t expect your videos to be leaked and made available on the web. Your whole earning model can be dramatically affected. These cumulative issues may lead your website not to bear the load, leading to page loading delays.

Hosting your videos on a professional and secure online course hosting platform easily cuts through all these issues. Later, you can easily add the video course to a website, web page, or social media using copy-paste the embed code with the touch of a button.

Free Course Hosting Platform

These platforms allow free video hosting with limited upload count, bandwidth limitations, and a few additional features. You might even face your website downtime, or it may not be capable of handling traffic spikes. Due to the free service, there is mostly a basic plan and no flexibility in various web hosting packages.

The free hosting platforms may seem reasonable in the initial phases of video hosting. Still, as the video requirements increase, people have to shift towards paid course hosting. Another concern with free video hosting is video security. These platforms, in most cases, won’t provide secure hosting, i.e., your videos are at risk of piracy. Anyone can download your video and make them available on the web. Even when you lose your data, there is no backup to recover them.

‘According to Eurostat European Statistics, in 2021, among all EU Member States, Ireland had the highest share (46 percent) of people aged 16 to 74 doing an online course.’

Paid Course Hosting Platform

Paid course hosting platforms have flexibility in bandwidth and storage consumption. These platforms employ the latest technologies to keep your content performance at the best possible state. Most of the paid course hosting platforms have high uptime and better management of your video content during peak surges. You can choose the paid plans based on your bandwidth requirements and the number of videos you plan to upload. Anytime the business from your end increases, there is always room to opt for a higher plan with more bandwidth and other features.

Security is one of the main factors in choosing a paid course hosting provider. Creators wishing to monetize their content or prevent unauthorized access require a secure video hosting platform like VdoCipher. The course hosted and served via VdoCipher cannot be downloaded or shared using any internet plugin or software hack. This helps secure your videos and boosts the generated revenue, and at the same time, protects from video piracy and illegal downloads.

Difference Between Free and Paid Course Hosting Platforms

Types of Course Hosting Platforms

Some course hosting platforms are designed specifically for video courses, while others are more general purpose.

1. Video course hosting platforms: Built specifically for hosting and delivering video courses. The services include video hosting, CDN-based delivery, password protection, easy-to-manage access from Dashboard, video analytics, and most importantly, video security of your premium videos.
2. General hosting platforms: These platforms host a variety of course content, one being video courses. They may lack the features of a dedicated video course platform but still deliver and manage video courses.
3. Self-hosted course videos: This means hosting and video course content delivery on your own website or server. Self-hosting may give you better control over the delivery and management of courses but requires more technical knowledge and hosting expertise. Your webpage where the courses are hosted may even suffer latency, unauthorized access, and page load time delay, which can be easily addressed by opting for a secure video hosting platform like VdoCipher.

Features of a Good Online Course Hosting Platform

Easy Embed Options

When you upload a course to a hosting platform, you require it to be placed or embedded into your website or other platforms. An embed code is used to add the video to your website, and viewers can watch the video without leaving the website. The video can easily be altered for height, frame size, and more. The hosting provider must have easy embed options with a simple embed code.

CDN-based Delivery

Content delivery networks serve content via a group of geographically distributed proxy servers. The servers create a copy and store cached information. The content is delivered via the nearest CDN instead of the origin server whenever a user makes a playback request. CDN-served courses have minimum latency and buffering and are readily available to the viewer even during the time of peak traffic. It also provides security against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

APIs for Easy Integration

To streamline and automate the workflow, the course hosting platform must provide APIs and SDK support. APIs help manage videos, enable auto upload, add interactive features to the player, customize designing, and much more. A course hosting provider’s API allows third-party tools and applications to integrate the provider’s hosting functionality and features.

Adaptive Streaming

Your course learners may sometimes encounter slow internet speed or network congestion. In such a scenario, the video quality is badly hampered, and there is buffering and latency. In ABR streaming, the video quality automatically adjusts to the viewer’s available bandwidth. The video file is chunked into variable bitrate segments. If the hosting platform lacks ABR, the viewing experience may suffer due to buffering and more load time.

Multiple File Format Support

The file format varies with device and browser. While converting a video into various file formats, often the video quality is lowered. A video may play at a low quality on one device and comparatively better on another. A course hosting platform must be capable of converting the video file into the best resolution formats for every device type.

Customer Support

The platform must provide dedicated video customer support to address any issue faced by the customer. The support channel may be email, phone, WhatsApp, or contact form. The priority of addressing the problem is what makes a good customer service portal.

Affordable for small creators as well as enterprises

The pricing model of the platform must have a range of plans to opt for based on bandwidth, storage, and other requirements. You may look for those giving free trials before choosing a higher-paid plan.

IP/Domain Restrictions

It is a very helpful feature if you want to restrict course access based on IPs. Viewers connected to those IPs are not permitted to watch the video. Course hosting platforms even provide the feature of Domain Restriction, wherein viewers in a particular list of restricted domains are blocked from watching the content.

Security

While choosing a course hosting platform, the security of your videos is a major factor to consider. You never expect your videos to be leaked or exposed to hackers or illegal downloads at any cost. Platforms like VdoCipher provide Multi DRM encryption using Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM.

Need for Secure Course Hosting Platforms to Host Online Courses

Some courses are available to the public for free, while for some, you pay in the form of on-time payment, subscription, or enrollment. For video creators looking for monetization or making the courses paid, protecting the videos from unauthorized access is important. Many viewers legally download and stream the content. This leads to huge revenue loss for the creators as the content is readily available without paying. The content makers are less motivated to create high-quality content which also affects the viewers.

‘Digital video piracy costs the US economy around $29 billion in lost revenue per year.’

Companies like Netflix have their anti-piracy team to address this issue. The device people use to download pirated content may become infected with malware which can compromise personal data.

When it comes to choosing the course hosting platform, security is one of the major deciding factors. Common video hosting platforms have standard AES-128 encryption as the video encryption protocol for video protection. In themselves, DASH, RTMPE, and HLS Encryption are not sufficient to completely secure the content. The major security flaws are Partial video encryption and the Open key exchange mechanism.

Tools like IDM and Video DownloadHelper can even download encrypted content, exploiting the vulnerability in the above-mentioned streaming protocols. We at VdoCipher use the modified and more secure streaming protocol to prevent illegal downloads, discourage screen capture and minimize bandwidth usage.

‘More than 2500 customers from over 121 countries rely on VdoCipher secure video hosting services to protect their premium video content and boost performance and revenue at affordable pricing.’

VdoCipher – Best Platform to Host Online Courses

If securing your videos is your main priority, VdoCipher is the best available online course hosting platform for your business. There can be security risks if the videos contain sensitive information and the hosting platform does not have adequate video security measures in place.

You no longer need to worry about unauthorized access to your videos or sharing because the videos are Multi DRM protected with Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption. We are a direct partner with Google and employ Google Widevine DRM and Apple FairPlay DRM to protect your videos. Apart from the highest level of video security, we offer features like Dynamic Watermarking, Secure offline download in apps, WordPress Plugin, and APIs.

Features

• Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM Encryption
• Dynamic Watermarking to brand your videos
• Domain Restrictions
• Screen capture block in Android and iOS Native App
• Secure offline downloads in apps
• Smart HTML5 Video Player with adaptive bitrate streaming, multi-lingual subtitle support, chapter segmentation via API, customizable controls, theme, and layout
• Global AWS Cloud Infrastructure
• Easy to manage Dashboard to upload and edit videos, generate embed code and view the usage of bandwidth consumption
• WordPress and Moodle Plugin for quick integrations
• VdoCipher Android SDK to integrate Google’s Safetynet to added video protection

FAQs

What is a course hosting platform?

A cloud-based platform to upload, store and share course videos. These platforms provide a reliable and secure infrastructure for course hosting and streaming.

How much does the course hosting platform cost?

The pricing varies depending on the number of videos uploaded, video size, bandwidth, and storage requirements. Contact us for more information on storage estimations and pricing.

Which is the best course hosting platform that offers free trials?

At VdoCipher, every new user gets 5 GB bandwidth for 1 month at no cost. Except for the FairPlay DRM trial, all the other features are included. Up to 4 videos can be uploaded in the free trial. If satisfied with the service and support, you can upgrade to the paid plan anytime.

Jyoti

Jyoti began her career as a software engineer in HCL with UNHCR as a client. She started evolving her technical and documentation writing skills to become a full-time Content Marketer at VdoCipher.

The post Online Course Hosting Platform with Security for Premium Video Content appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

In a recent survey, 88 percent of universities admitted that video increases student achievement levels. Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, online learning is playing a significant role in people’s lives. Video platforms have started gaining traction due to the shift from traditional classes to online classes. Several education institutions are leveraging the power of video platforms to enhance the learning experience. Let’s deep dive and find out the benefits of video learning platforms for students and educators. 

“According to Statista, in K-12 classrooms, the most commonly used online learning materials are online educational videos, software, and apps.”

What is an Educational Video Platform?

With the growth of online social connectivity and economic developments, education is transitioning from brick-and-mortar classrooms to rich media online learning platforms. The shift has been influenced by greater worldwide internet access, increased mobile devices, technological advancements, ease of accessibility, and content delivery for teachers and students.

An educational video platform is a website or online service that provides videos designed to educate users on a particular topic. The platform can offer a variety of videos on different topics and subjects. Many video educational streaming service platforms also provide additional features, such as quizzes, study materials, ebooks, and tests, to help users learn more effectively and calculating their grades. An education video platform can be both free and paid.

Videos have now become an integral part of learning and teaching habits. Educational videos are more effective, engaging, and readily available and are now the primary medium of online learning and education. Video production has become much easier with the availability of dedicated platforms to make online education available globally.

Types of Video Platforms

Public Video Platforms

Videos on online public platforms are available for a mass audience, and anyone can watch and share them. The video publisher has no direct control over how the content is shared and distributed. These video platforms are mostly free with limitations like the number of video uploads. Public video platforms are a great option to reach large audiences and brand presence.

Internal or Private Video Platforms

Unlike public video platforms, private video platforms are meant for videos containing private information and not for a general audience. Teams and organizations often use these to send and receive video content. The video publisher has complete control over how the video content is accessed.

Video-on-Demand Platforms

VOD or Video-on-Demand platforms provide video content from an online content library covering different content genres. Unlike traditional broadcasts, VOD viewers can choose what to see and when to see it at their convenience. Popular VOD platforms include Netflix, Hulu, and other online video streaming services.

Training Based Video platforms

Big organizations and companies have their own in-house video platform where employee training programs are available. These platforms have restrictive sharing, and no content is available outside the organization. So, it’s a great option for teaching employees about the anti money laundering software market, sharing cybersecurity trainings, and other company-related coaching. Often the content visibility is limited even within the organization. The video content type includes mandatory compliance training and the latest technological advancements.

Live Streaming Video Platforms

The video is streamed in real-time, i.e., recorded and broadcasted simultaneously. Examples include Facebook Live, or World Cup live streaming. The audience can even engage and give real-time feedback, comments, polls, and more.

Video Hosting Platforms

Video hosting platforms host and manage video content. The videos are hosted on the hosting provider’s server and are easily embeddable on third-party sites for viewing and sharing. Viewers can watch the content either on the video hosting site or embed the video on their own website.

Online video hosting service simplifies the hosting process and eliminates the bandwidth and storage costs associated with self-hosting. These video hosting sites offer additional features such as video analytics, smart player, adaptive bitrate streaming, DRM encryption for security against video piracy, and much more. One such popular video hosting platform is VdoCiper, which offers secure video hosting with Hollywood Grade DRM Encryption and other features.

Key Benefits of an Online Video Platform for Education

Video offers a go-to resource that students can watch from anywhere with an internet connection. Since online video platforms are accessible on several devices, people can learn on the go. Video platforms allow students to learn at their convenience and from wherever they are.

Easy brushup

Help learn Learners can stop and resume the videos on online video platforms as many times as they need. Even if you feel like you cannot recall any concept, just a few clicks can help you brush up the concept again. 

Practical learning

Students can learn by seeing the step-by-step procedures that help them problem-solve and learn science and math formulas in no time. In short, video learning software adds life to the course material by engaging and interactive for learners.

Remove geographical barrier: 

Video platforms enable teachers to create a flipped classroom, making students feel that they are in a traditional classroom. It also removes the geographical barrier and helps teachers reach students from all over the world.

Analytics to track students :

The analytical features of video platforms enable teachers to track student engagement and attendance using helpful analytics. Educators can track which student is viewing the video for how much time. It helps them measure the effectiveness of video on students. 

More convincing

Since many things like text, animations, sound, images used in video content, it became easy for learners to learn and retain content for a longer time. 

LMS integration 

You can integrate videos into the institution’s learning management system (LMS) to give an additional resource for students and teachers. It helps students learn at their own pace and brush up their knowledge whenever they need it. 

These are only some of the key benefits of using an online video platform for education. If you are an educator or a course creator, investing in an online video platform is wise. However, you need to figure out which video platform is suitable for your student, teachers, and teaching method. To help you out, we have created a list of things you should consider before investing in an online video platform. 

One-To-One Tutoring and Lecture Capture

The online learning platforms should allow teachers to interact with their students personally. The platform must allow educators to record and store lectures or classes so that students can use them later to brush up on key concepts.

Custom Integration with Top LMSs

LMS Integration helps educators streamline video production and grading. A good video platform integrates well with LMSs through Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) technology standards. 

Flipped Classroom and Social Sharing Platforms Integration

In video learning platforms, students should be able to learn courses at their own pace. If you integrate the video platform with a social sharing platform, students can interact with the system across platforms, allowing students to put theory to practice.

Frequent Assessments Can Reduce Distractions

Your video platform should have frequent assessment features to help students reduce their distractions and keep them focused on the syllabus. 

All-Device Compatibility Adaptive Streaming

Make sure your video platform choice is compatible with multiple devices and seamlessly stream videos with available bandwidth. It ensures a better learning experience across the board.

Multiple Deployment Options

Your video platform should offer different deployment options like on-premise servers or on a hybrid system of the two. It provides you to choose whichever option suits you best.

High-Quality Content Delivery

Your video platform should have high-quality videos and should not buffer. Regardless of the number of users, the video quality should be high and give a smooth experience.

Multiple Monetization Models

Your video platform should enable you to switch between options like pay-as-you-use, subscription-based, or hybrid. Having multiple monetization models helps you use your video software as per the predefined budget. 

Insight into Video Viewership and Engagement Analytics

Your video platform should identify its audience and engagement numbers to help you make better content overall. The analytics present in your video platform helps identify which video is performing better, what topics are gaining the most popularity. 

Content Security/DRM Protection

Your online video platform must-have features to protect your data and privacy. In simple language, it should have high-end DRM-based video encryption.

These are some of the things you should keep in mind before investing in an online video platform. Since several proficient video platforms are available in the market, you need to do your research and choose a video platform that suits your needs and budget. 

How to Implement Video Security on your Educational Platform?

The use of video in learning has benefited the students, teachers, institutions, and the entire online learning ecosystem. There is rising demand for high-value videos and online course offerings amid the rising competition among educational platforms. With such high demand, securing the videos from hackers and piracy is definitely needed.

An unsecured premium video is downloaded to be freely available on the web within seconds. This leads to not only video piracy but also significant revenue loss. The major copyright abuse cases include password sharing, copyright infringement, content downloading, screen capture, and much more. A secure video security system must-have features such as secure authentication, encryption, access control, and managing users’ access and permissions.

Over 2500 business customers from over 40 countries, especially e-learning and media websites and apps, rely on VdoCipher for secure video hosting. VdoCipher offers Hollywood Grade DRM Encrypted video streaming similar to what platforms like Netflix use to secure video content. Videos streamed via our platform cannot be illegally downloaded or shared by any online software or plugins.

The security features we offer which make us the most popular choice for secure video hosting are:

Video DRM Encryption

Many popular video encryption platforms use HLS Encryption with AES-128, Dash, and RTMPE, which have security flaws. One is partial video encryption, and the other is an open key exchange mechanism. The entire video stream is encrypted with a hidden or non-public key exchange mechanism in DRM encryption. The procedure involves Widevine and Apple FairPlay DRM. Since the encryption key is protected, no hackers Google can pirate the video, and only authorized users can access the video.

Dynamic Watermarking To Discourage Screen Capture

Watermarking is the method of placing some piece of text or your logo onto your video or document to make it copyright protected. If someone illegally circulates your video online, it becomes easy to identify it as yours. Often pirates capture the screen and republish the video claiming it as theirs. By adding watermarks, screen capture is discouraged. We provide dynamic watermarking to display the username, user email, and user IP. The watermarks are customizable for movement, color, and transparency.

Smart HTML5 Player

Streaming your videos with our multi-device smart HTML5 video player gives the best viewing experience with customizable features. We provide Adaptive Bitrate Streaming. It means even HD videos can be streamed at low bitrates, and viewers can easily access them without buffering, even at low internet speeds. The player features include multi-language subtitle support, player themes, playback speed controls, custom overlay and tracking, video analytics, and secure offline downloads in Android.

Android SDK for security on mobile devices

VdoCipher android SDK lets you download videos offline to be stored locally on Android devices. It includes API to Download media assets to local storage, track and manage download progress and fetch available download options for a video in the dashboard. To initialize video playback, OTP is generated. There is also the option to limit the time period for offline video playback.

Plugins For WordPress & Moodle

Integrating the VdoCipher WordPress video hosting plugin lets you stream videos on your WordPress site with the best possible content protection. The plugin installation is pretty straightforward and works well with all popular CMS.

AWS-powered server and CDN

The video content is securely hosted on Amazon AWS S3 servers. It adds a double protection layer with server-side video encryption technology. With CDN, the video content is smoothly delivered without issues like buffering, latency, delay in page loading, or poor video quality.

Top online video education platforms

Below, we will discuss the top video platform for education;

VdoCipher+LMS

The first one in our list of VdoCipher. It allows you to create and stream e-learning videos on your course securely and smoothly. You can integrate the video player with your website or app portal hassle-free. 

When you combine VdoCipher with any LMS platform, you will get- WordPress-based LMSes. WordPress LMS provides you with an interface to quickly build a course website. It helps you create courses, track students’ progress, take quizzes and help monitor subscription and subscription models. Also, it ensures video protection from piracy with help of Hollywood Grade DRM encryption.

Video platform for educations often tend to lose out on their revenue due to piracy. Vdocipher’s hollywood grade video protection ensures that you don’t lose revenue due to piracy. 

Vdocipher Features

• Multi DRM Support to prevent videos from download
• Screen Record Prevention on iOS and Android Apps
• In-depth video analytics (e.g., number of views, viewer behavior)
• Device Compatibility (Desktop, Android , IOS)
• Content management features like uploading/importing videos, configure security settings, customise thumbnail via simple dashboard

Teachable

The second one on our list is Teachable. You can use this simple solution for uploading content, customizing your virtual school, and help educators interact with students. It also offers the best online learning platforms for marketing your course as you have the option to sell your systems as a standalone product or in bundles.

It comes with an option to enable or disable that file for student downloading. Teachable has procedures for encrypted transmission and storage of sensitive information.

You can fully customize your class and get payments as well. You will have the opportunity to choose the payment plan, charge a one-time fee, or allow your audience to subscribe to the course. Here’s a short comparison of Teachable with other popular video platforms like Teachable vs Kajabi

It comes with an option to enable or disable that file for student downloading. Teachable has procedures for encrypted transmission and storage of sensitive information.

Features

• Unlimited video bandwidth, unlimited courses and coaching services on all paid plans
• It offers native integrations 
• Synchronous Learning
• Easy to use platform. In a quick time you can create an online course, including curriculum and media. 

Kajabi

The third one on our list is Kajabi. If you are a busy course creator and want to sell your courses, Kajabi is the right platform. You can also create sales funnel, landing pages, sales pages, webinar pages, and much more. You will also have access to tools for course launches and more within a few clicks. In short, it is a content management system that helps you automate the entire marketing task of your video course. If you’re looking to compare Kajabi with other LMS platforms, we’ve got you covered with a Kajabi vs Thinkific here.

Features

• It offers ready to use templates
• 24/7 Chat Support
• Analytics can be tracked on your site with metrics like Net Revenue, Subscription Metrics, Page Views
• Option to integrate quizzes & surveys

Proctor

Proctor offers ready-to-launch solutions to sell videos online, conduct exams, and more. It is a purely Indian company with an affluent customer base from India. It is an end-to-end solution for educational video streaming solution to help institutions or individuals publish their e-learning videos online. You will have features like fees management and admission management tools to conduct online quizzes in Proctor, etc. 

Vimeo

Vimeo offers a clean interface for selling your online video courses. It is a video streaming platform that provides both- streaming and video hosting services in one place. However, you need to buy their premium subscription to access basic live streaming functionality. You can use their proprietary hardware and software for live streaming videos. 

Features

• Privacy feature includes password protection, viewer permissions
• Easily organize, share, and make bulk changes to everything from embed settings to licensing.
• It allows viewers to speed up or slow down videos 
• Supports user friendly streaming solutions with high quality video 4K Ultra HD
• Flexible storage options are provided

Panopto

Panopto is a video content management system primarily serving businesses and colleges across the globe. Using this video platform, you can manage, live stream, record, and share video content online in one place. 

Pinetop markets itself as a lecture capture system that offers flexibility to record any size and provides complete control over the entire video recording infrastructure.

Panopto platform does not offer video monetization features. The security features are also limited.

Features

• Video CMS integrates with single sign-on (SSO) ID management solutions including Google Apps, oAuth, SAML, and Active Directory
• Live webcasting and Live-stream screen video recording
• You can easily create playlists, optimize playback and measure viewer engagement
• It makes video more accessible by automatically adding text captions to videos using the built-in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) feature

Thinkific

Thinkific offers a full-fledged video platform for education where you can create, deliver, and market and sell your video courses on your website. You can use their range of predefined templates like mini-course, digital download, webinar replay, etc., to design studying video courses. It is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) to help course creators build and launch their video courses. You can also do a Thinkific vs Teachable before getting started as both are equally good and close competitors.

Features

• Interactive video quizzes, engagement surveys, assignments
• In-depth reporting to track student’s progress
• Built-in content creation tools
• Option to Embed 3rd party tools and sites

Conclusion

These are the top-notch video platform for education. Several educational institutions are already using the power of video platforms to make their learning easier simpler for both teachers and students. Make sure to choose a video platform that puts students and teachers and makes education an enlightening and holistic experience for everyone. If you are looking to start using a video platform for education, then NOW is the right time to start. Here we have compared for you the 3 most popular video platforms currently i.e. Teachable vs Thinkific vs Kajabi

Like this article? Want to read more like this, you can read more about study apps for students in the blog linked.

FAQs

What are some points to consider when using free video platforms for education?

Firstly, it is important to ensure that the videos are appropriate for the age and learning level of the students. Secondly, the videos must be high-quality and informative with easy accessibility.

Are there any disadvantages of online education?

To some, online education seems less personal than traditional education. There is also a risk of not receiving a high-quality education if the chosen online program is not accredited.

What is meant by an Interactive video platform?

An interactive video platform can be a tool, app, or platform where the learner can perform some form of action on the videos. The interaction can be a click, responses, quizzes, polls, in-video shopping, branching storylines, and more.

Rahul Rana

Head of Digital Marketing at Vdocipher. I love the art of connecting the right product to their users. When i’m not doing that i love getting lost in books.

www.vdocipher.com/

The post How to Choose the Right Online Video Platform for Education? appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

The unforeseen pandemic led to a global disruption to school and college education, affecting nearly 1.6 billion students worldwide. As a result, education has changed drastically, seeing a remarkable shift from traditional in-class to online learning as students move towards eLearning video platforms.

Update 2022:

• The eLearning market is expected to grow at a 14.22%(CAGR) during 2022 –2027
• Interactive eLearning or gamification is expected to reach $1.8B by 2023
• The US market is growing as per the expectation of reaching $72.41B between 2020 and 2024
• The LMS market alone will grow to $29B by 2026

To better understand the ever-increasing eLearning sector, we put together a list of key statistics related to online learning. We have kept some statistics in descriptive form and the others in tabular form as per the nature of that data. So, let’s have a look.

• With the education and corporate sector adopting flexible learning technologies, the overall global eLearning market is expected to reach $350 Billion by 2022. The international ed-tech investments have already crossed US$18.66 billion in 2019. -Forbes
• The United States is the leading country in the Global eLearning Industry.
• With hundreds of online colleges, courses, and online learning platforms, The United States is the undisputed leader in the online education market. Many education institutes in the U.S are focusing on Augmented Reality Learning. Other significant markets are India and China. Hindi has seen remarkable growth in the past couple of years.
• Mobile learning could possibly reach $80.1 billion by 2027.
• Amid the global Covid-19 crisis, the market for mobile learning rose to US$22.4 Billion. It is estimated to reach US$80.1 Billion by 2027, a CAGR of 20% growth in 2020-2027. -GlobeNewswire
• Corporate eLearning may see a boost of over 250% between 2017 to 2026.
• Corporate eLearning offers businesses and organizations the latest skills and online tools for recruiting training, sales training, learning new technology, workshops, and more. It has numerous benefits for organizations having scattered employees across the continent. In 2017, the corporate E-Learning market was valued at $14.23 billion. It is expected to hit $50 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 15% -Business Wire
• Until 2025, The massive open online course (MOOC) market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 32.09%.
• MOOCs are online open learning courses that are in the form of lectures, videos, reading material, quizzes, forums of discussion, and more. According to eLearning industry statistics, the MOOC market is currently valued at $5.16 billion, and by 2025, it could be worth $25.33 billion -eLearning Industry
• 93% of global companies planned to adopt online learning in 2020.
• According to Finances Online Statistics, 93% of companies across the globe say they were willing to embrace online learning. Interestingly, around 90% of companies used online learning to be a source of skill development and learning tools -Finances Online

Popular Website Centric Ed-tech platforms statistics

Data as per July’2021

• For nearly 50% of the video platforms, India contributes as a major traffic country.
• Nearly 35% of the major platforms are focused on Digital Skills development and 25% of the platforms are found to be multidisciplinary.
• Overall positive growth in Alexa is more than thrice of negative growth in Alexa during the last 90 days period i.e. between April-July’2021.

Major YouTube Centric platforms eLearning Statistics

Data as per July’2021

• Doubtnut has uploaded the highest video content on YouTube and the same can be attributed to its highest growth of Video views in the last 30 days.
• Same as web-centric platforms, nearly 35% of the major platforms are uploading content on Digital Skills development.
• Creators in the Test Preparation category and specifically from India are gaining subscribers and views rapidly like that of wifistudy, Study IQ and Examपुर.
• Most Views/Uploads comes from Arts & Creativity uploaders having near to 1million views per upload like Masterclass followed by Multidisciplinary, Language Skills, K-12 and Digital Skills category.

Popular App Centric Ed-tech platforms eLearning Statistics

Data as per July’2021

• Duolingo, a Language Skills development app, is among the most downloaded apps in the Education category with more than 100 million downloads.
• Khan Academy, BYJU’s & Unacademy can be seen working on App, Website, & YouTube as they are managing to attain a position in 10 major eLearning platforms.
• Multidisciplinary courses providing Apps have a greater share than Coding skills focussed Apps on the Play store.

Education vs other categories Apps on Play store

Data Source: Vdocipher

Top Education category performing Apps – Globally

Data as per July’2021

Major Category Wise Overall Grossers

Multidisciplinary

K-12

Digital Skills

Arts & Creativity

Language Skills

Test Preparation

Growing Online Education Brands’ and Creators YouTube statistics in India

• Unacademy India with its sister channels like Unacademy JEE and Unacademy NEET are among the Top 10 Indian brands channels on YouTube as per their views gained per month during the July 2020-June 2021.
• Before grossing 53 million views in June 2021, Doubtnut grossed 11.5 million views in May 2021 which is near to a 400% M.O.M. growth.
• With continuous shuffling, BYJU’S is still among the top 20 rank holder brands in India during July 2020-June 2021.
• Edureka! gained nearly 7.26 million views in June 2021.
• Study IQ education grossed more than 60 million views on YouTube during June 2021.
• WifiStudy is averaging more than 40 million views every month during the July 2020-June 2021.
• Examपुर is making good growth with May 2021 seeing a whopping 270 million views on their YouTube channel.
• Top subscribers holding channels in the Education category on YouTube, uploads content around pre-school teaching. Examples include Cocomelon, Pinkfong Baby Shark, ChuChu TV, Little Baby Bum, and Infobells.

eLearning & Online Learning Piracy Statistics

• 52% of users watch illegally downloaded or streamed videos.
• More than 60% of people are aware of piracy while downloading or streaming copyrighted videos.
• Majority of websites that allow piracy distribution are hosted in America and Europe.
• Telegram has emerged as a host to most of the pirated content distributed via the App.
• Nearly 25% of global Internet usage is for online piracy.
• Free hosting websites get majorly used for downloading pirated content.
• The revenue losses expected in 2022 are more than $20B in the Online Learning industry.
• A report by MUSO, a piracy analytics company, shared a report in 2018 showing the percentage of Top countries in illegal downloads.
  

  Country	Billion visits
  United States	21.88%
  Russia	18.22%
  India	12.07%
  France	9.24%
  Turkey	9.24%
  Ukraine	7.71%
  Indonesia	7.65%
  United Kingdom	7.24%
  Germany	6.74%

FAQs:

How big is the eLearning industry?

According to Global market insights, the eLearning market will surpass USD 375 billion by 2026.

What are the benefits of eLearning for companies?

Standardized training, use eLearning to train new hires fast, boost productivity and performance by offering training to employees. It is scalable for any number of employees, time-flexible, cost-saving and allows global collaborations.

How many people are using mobile eLearning?

In 2020, the mobile learning market has risen to $22.5 billion. By 2027, it is projected to reach $80.1 billion.

What is the retention rate from eLearning?

The Research Institute of America has found that online courses increase the retention rate from anything between 25% to 60%. The contributing factors are engaging multimedia content, self-paced learning and more control over the study material.

Which countries offer the best infrastructure for eLearning?

Preply, a digital learning platform published a global study on the technical infrastructure and accessibility for eLearning. This is based on access to computers, education expenditure, broadband and mobile internet speed, education expenditure & more. Denmark tops the list, followed by the United States, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

Vishal Sharma

My expertise focuses on DRM encryption, CDN technologies, and streamlining marketing campaigns to drive engagement and growth. At VdoCipher, I’ve significantly enhanced digital experiences and contributed to in-depth technical discussions in the eLearning, Media, and Security sectors, showcasing a commitment to innovation and excellence in the digital landscape.

The post 50+ Online & eLearning Statistics Of Course Apps Websites [2023] appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.

Using this WordPress membership plugin would help you in deciding what content to provide to which category of learner. Control of access to content eventually determines that you are able to monetize your content. We discuss how to implement Per user restriction on login time and preventing unauthorized access so that one paid member has maximum restrictions from sharing their access credentials.  We have given the links to plugins at the end.

The biggest utility of membership plugins is to protect content in a Learning Management system. For suggestions on free LMS plugins to use in WordPress check this blog on Free WordPress LMS.

Specific case of protection for video membership site is also written in brief at end. Overall aim of the article is to ensure that maximum revenues from your content reaches you while you are able to continuously grow your subscriber base. 

WordPress Membership plugin is one of the most popular free membership plugins. This is the wizard page in the plugin, and guides you about how to set up your eLearning site.

WP eMember

WordPress eMember is a plugin that helps you manage memberships to your content. eMember offers various customizations – including integration with WordPress so that any account created for eMember would automatically make a corresponding WordPress account. You may make multiple membership levels depending on the level of access decided for the user. For example for a basic trial access to the site you may give users free access to a certain amount of content, or for a limited period of time. For this a free membership may be created. 

Selective content protection and access

To protect content you can use two methods

• Enabling custom protection and access through dashboard
• Using shortcodes

Custom Protection

• To enable general protection, go to the “WP eMember” button on the WordPress sidebar, and in the drop down menu go to “Membership Level” button.
• From here go to the “Manage Content Protection” tab. Click on “Custom Posts” to see all the posts that make up your content. To protect some or all of these posts, select them and click on the “General Protection” option in the drop down menu at the top of the page. General Protection restricts access to all the posts that you select (you can select all posts or pick specific posts for protection). 
• After access restriction, the next step is to grant access according to the membership levels. For this go to the same drop down menu as the General Protection option, and select each membership levels. The resulting files will be files that are restricted from access.
• You can select the files for which you want to grant access , and after selecting, click the “Grant Access” button. You can make various membership levels, each differentiated by the number of pages that access is granted to.

Using shortcodes

Alternatively, partial content protection may be implemented using this wordpress membership plugin. For this you can make use of shortcodes to grant partial access to pages. Suppose you have two membership levels, Membership Regular and Membership Lite. You might wish to grant access to only the Membership Regular users, having level id 4. For this you can use the shortcode:

“[emember_protected for=4]”

“[/emember_protected]”

Suppose that level id 3 corresponds to Membership Lite. You can grant access to a section to both Membership Regular and Lite users. To do that you can enclose it in this shortcode:

“[emember_protected for=3-4]”

Note that membership levels to which access is to be granted are added using the dashes. Without specifying the membership ids, ie “[emember_protected]” – content is limited to logged in users only, including free registered users.

General eMember settings

WP eMember offers multiple options using which you can customize membership experience of users. These include the option to:

• Decide if you wish to grant free memberships
• Offer attractive login page – so that a popup appears rather than redirecting to a login page

Limited muliple logins To Your WordPress Membership Plugin

• Limiting number of IPs used from a membership per day, so as to discourage password sharing
• Disabling simultaneous login, again to discourage password sharing

Encouraging Membership Renewals

eMember also has features that encourage memberships renewals upon expiry. These include

• Triggering auto expiry email notifications shortly before account expiry date
• Allowing expired memberships to move to free membership status, to protect continuity
• Generating special renewal membership links.

Besides this, eMember offers options for integration into wordpress, so that logging in to eMember would automatically log you into wordpress. The very large number of customization options that WP eMember offers makes it one of the most useful WordPress membership plugin.

Drip Content

You can structure access to your learners so that the release of course material is done periodically. This method of releasing course material, called drip content management, limits the amount of information accessible at once to the user. This prevents your learners from being overwhelmed by the magnitude of the course. The auto-upgrade feature in this WordPress membership plugin allows for dripped content management, although this entails making multiple courses.

Auto-upgrade feature

According to this feature, using WP eMember you may upgrade a member taking Module 1 of your course to Module 2 automatically after a thirty day period (or a 7-day period, according to how you wish to structure your course). So, if there are say 5 modules to one course, each module to be accessed 30 days from the previous module, you may time the auto upgrade feature so that

Module 1 -> 2: 30 days from start of course
Module 2 -> 3: 60 days from start of course
Module 3 -> 4: 90 days from start of course
Module 4 -> 5: 120 days from start of course

Pros and Cons of Drip Content Management

There is a debate regarding the merits of drip content management policy – a negative of this approach is that it dictates that learners follow the particular pace with which you have structured the course. The other side of the coin is that you are ensuring that you do not overwhelm your learners with too much information.

Prevent Concurrent Login plugin with WordPress Membership Plugin

A major concern for eLearning site managers is the possibility that their content may be shared by multiple users using a single login. Password sharing is a problem that eMember does address, through the previously mentioned settings of limiting number of IPs and the option to disable concurrent login.

In case the WordPress membership plugin that you use does not have the option to prevent simultaneous logins, a plugin that that specifically prevents concurrent login is the “Prevent Concurrent Login” plugin. This is a plugin that you only need to activate, and store in the Must Use category of plugins, for it to run silently in the background. It then by default prevent access to your membership system from multiple systems at the same time. You may use this plugin with any wordpress membership plugin, including the widely used WordPress Membership 2 plugin, and Wishlist Member, both of which rival WP eMember in popularity.

Video Membership site with eMember

For many premium video businesses like elearning & media , the necessity to protect video content from piracy by so many free downloaders, plugins , hacks is a must. Most of video streaming providers like youtube, vimeo, or self hosting doesnot allow for any protection. To restrict the access of your video content to only only your subscribers on wordpress, VdoCipher has come up with a secure video streaming solution based on encryption and watermarking.

The plugin enables you to use a custom short code. You can use the plugin and the shortcode with any wordpress membership plugin. Also as explained in the eMember section protection code, you can design your course to allow free registered access to trial learners and paid membership for the video. For this you only need to place the VdoCipher shortcode inside the sectional protection shortcode.

Links:

WordPress page for the e-member plugin

Prevent concurrent Login plugin

VdoCipher secure video streaming account signup, 5 GB Free Trial

Siddhant Jain

CEO, VdoCipher. Writes about video tech, ed tech and media tech.

www.vdocipher.com/

The post WP eMember as WordPress Membership Plugin: User Management Tutorial appeared first on VdoCipher Blog.