[Shopify] Video teaching material site using LMS (Learning Management System)

With Shopify, the cost of implementing an LMS (Learning Management System) can be achieved at a low cost!

This can be achieved for a monthly fee of less than 10,000 yen !

This article will be useful for anyone who is thinking about using an LMS to sell learning materials and other items! Recently, we updated the Basic Course used in Liquid Masters, a learning and engineering community for Shopify creators run by our company.

Until now, we've been using Liquid, a Shopify-specific language, to change the "visible" and "invisible" areas depending on the member status, but we decided to introduce an LMS to make it a more formal system and improve learning efficiency and motivation!

What is LMS?

Before we talk about introducing an LMS, let's start by asking, "What is an LMS?"

I understand. I didn't know much about it either until I started using it. (laughs)

LMS・・・Learning Management System

It seems to be an abbreviation for "learning management system," which in Japanese means "learning management system."

In short, I think it's okay to interpret it as "a system that manages the progress of courses that students take via video courses, etc."

Video learning...you can imagine it like when you take a course on a well-known site like Udemy, where it displays something like "Progress 40%."

That system will become the LMS.

Generally speaking, the most commonly required features are

• Video distribution function
• Progress Indicator
• Download files
• Certificate of completion
• Memo function
• Testing function
• If available, ask a question

I think these are the main features that are required.

When I googled "Tameshi LMS," I found that the average monthly cost for Japanese LMS providers is low, but the initial cost is low.

・Pay-per-use (number of students x 200-1,000 yen)
・Monthly plan (50,000 to 200,000 yen) 

This is about the going rate.

This is the kind of system we are currently running under our name "Liquid Masters".
By implementing it in the shopify app 【LTD online Courses】

This was made possible by paying just $10/month (approximately 1,500 yen) for the app !

Liquid Masters has well over 300 students, so even if you were to pay the lowest pay-as-you-go rate of 200 yen, it would cost 60,000 yen a month, but the cost is only 1,500 yen.

This is not a bargain, what else can I say!

Introducing LTD online courses

Liquid Masters, which is operated by our company, originally made good use of Shopify's membership function to create a membership-based video distribution site using only Liquid editing and Vimeo (similar to YouTube).

The monthly costs were just 700 yen for Vimeo and the monthly fee for Shopify, so I think I was able to achieve this for around 5,000 yen.

However, when using a combination of Vimeo and Shopify's liquid, although it was possible to stream to members only, there were no "user-facing" features, such as allowing members to manage their own progress.

I ran it like that for about three years, but then I started to think that I needed a learning system to improve customer satisfaction, and that's when I learned about the word "LMS." When I was looking into Shopify apps, several candidates came up and one of them was "LTD online Courses," which is what I have now introduced .

The above is the app's pricing list, and as you can see, even the free plan comes with a variety of features, and even the paid plan has a decent amount of video storage with the Starter version, as well as an unlimited number of courses .

There are over 100 user reviews, and the only one with a rating of 5 stars...

What is this? Isn't this a godly app ?

I found something with this specification and decided to give it a try.

What you can do with LTD online Courses

In the previous chapter, I listed the following features I would like to see in LSM ...

• Video distribution function
• Progress Indicator
• Download files
• Certificate of completion
• Memo function
• Testing function
• If available, ask a question

Amazingly, you can do all of this .

Most things can be implemented without coding, and there's no limit to the number of courses.

In the case of Liquid Masters, it is sufficient to create three courses: "Beginner," "Intermediate," and "Advanced," but it seems that they can always handle adding other courses if they find themselves wanting to do so!

The video itself can fit in 50GB of storage! The content is about 17 hours long, and the file size doesn't reach 20GB, so this is more than enough for video materials of this size.

(Liquid Masters still manages its videos on Vimeo.)

How to sell your course

Since it's a Shopify app, the courses themselves will be sold through Shopify!

The courses that can be viewed at that time can be managed by linking them to "product purchases" or "customer tags ."

The fact that it can be linked to both is quite useful, as you can tag people for administrator use even if they don't buy, and even if you collect payment through a method other than Shopify, you can tag customers so that they can watch the course, which greatly expands the range of payment methods!

The settings screen can also be translated into Japanese , so it looks like this.

The settings can be determined in detail for each course.
The idea is that they can be divided into "beginner courses," "intermediate courses," and "advanced courses."

①In the first section, you can choose the scope of disclosure.

You can also set up courses that can only be viewed by people who purchase a specific product (course), and you can also implement "openly free courses" that allow people to try them out.

2) Sell your courses through Shopify

It is possible to link the courses sold here with courses.

3) Sell your courses through tags

This is a function that allows viewing when customer information has a specific tag.

Liquid Masters originally used "customer tags" to control which courses could be viewed depending on each membership status, so by using the tag function this time, we didn't have to set up anything new on the customer side, which was a huge help!

Also, by combining tags with subscription apps such as ShopifyFLOW, it is possible to deliver courses on a monthly subscription basis, although this requires a somewhat complicated setup!

As you can see, there aren't many settings to choose from, so being able to manage them this way is a very handy feature.

Various course settings are possible

Next, let's take a look at what can be set for each course!

This time, we'll start with the settings screen for Liquid Masters' "Beginner Course."

The left side is the section that divides the units within the course, and you can place video lectures for each unit.

"Distribution Slides" allows you to upload PowerPoint slides in a format that can be displayed as is (and also downloaded).

There is also a "quiz" function that can be placed anywhere in the "Beginner Course," either at the end or in the middle.

You can also determine values ​​such as "the percentage of correct answers required to pass," so by setting questions that cannot be answered if the question is simply skipped, you can avoid issuing certificates unnecessarily.

At Liquid Masters, we have a system where you take tests like this and once you pass you are issued a certificate of completion!

Certificate templates are available and can be customized.

It can automatically change the names of courses, so it really has all the features you need.

You can also manage students.

There is also a management screen for each student, allowing you to see what progress each student is making.

You can also look at the following:

As I will explain later, students can use the Note function to take notes and ask questions to the organizers!

You can reply to questions from this individual management screen, so you can follow up with students (the Note function can be hidden).

From the student's perspective

Next, let's take a look at what it looks like from the student's perspective.

First, a dedicated URL will be issued for each course. This URL can be changed to a certain extent, but it will be something like a common entrance for all courses.

At the entrance, the courses that the person can view are displayed, so customers must log in. (Of course.)

Liquid Masters has three basic courses, so it is displayed like this.

It's a little difficult to modify it to three side-by-side. It's possible to do it by force, but I decided not to do it because it's often better not to modify the app by force.

As you can see, you can check the progress of each course, which makes it easy to get motivated!

This is what the course itself looks like:

The left side will show a check mark when the task is complete, and the progress will be displayed at the top.

This is a very common LMS UI, but the good thing about LMSes is that they can do this, so make sure you don't overlook this aspect!

As you can see, there is a Note function at the bottom of the lecture. This can be used for "memos" and "questions", so it is a very useful function for students.

If you write a note here, there is a function to send a "notification" to the management, so if there is a question, it will not be overlooked.

(No questions asked. Customizations such as "memo only" are possible by force.)

I think the screen looks pretty good from the students' perspective too!

There is a proper test and you can download a "certificate of completion" at the end, so it's easy to stay motivated and set goals.

summary

Let's summarize the features we want again!

• Video distribution function
• Progress Indicator
• Download files
• Certificate of completion
• Memo function
• Testing function
• If available, ask a question

The features you'll want are listed above, but as you can see, it can all be done!

Even with all these features and 50GB of storage, the only monthly charge is $9.9/month for the app; the only other cost is the Shopify usage fee.

The lowest monthly fee is as low as 6,000 yen!

In reality, you will probably need to install other apps to use Shopify, so it's a good idea to plan for a cost of around 10,000 yen per month.

You will see that it can be implemented at a much lower cost than other LMS systems!

Cave de Script Inc. has been able to accumulate know-how in this area in-house.

If you would like to create a learning site using LMS on Shopify, please feel free to contact us.

We are also happy to discuss the production aspects of an e-commerce site based on cost.