Online learning has exploded in recent years, as the emergence of new technologies has improved the speed, ubiquity, and convenience for students during the learning process. Many institutions now offer e-learning courses in addition to traditional in-person classes.
However, increasing the number of courses offered online presents unique challenges for academic institutions. These challenges include training faculty for teaching courses online, managing tasks such as grading, and providing access to e-learning resources content.
The automation of these tasks offers many benefits to online learners and instructors. In this article, we cover what e-learning automation is and its five key benefits.
What is e-learning automation?
E-learning automation is the automation of tasks associated with online learning. These include, but are not limited to:
- Grading and feedback
- Peer assessment and communication
- Administration and faculty support
- Online learning activities
Technologies like machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) make automation easy and cost-efficient. They allow faculty to generate automatic assessments and create learning objectives for individual students. They also let administrative personnel set up automated notifications.
The benefits of automation in online learning.
Automation provides benefits for the online learner and e-learning professionals. For example, automation allows instructors to spend more time actively mentoring students, grading work on a larger scale, focusing on essential activities like discussion forum moderation, and creating meaningful relationships with students.
Capacity is a support automation platform that helps academic institutions streamline their online learning opportunities. We’re helping universities and colleges deliver higher quality services at a lower cost.
Here are five key benefits of automated e-learning:
E-learning automation improves access to course materials and important information.
Automation lets instructors create online training without having to find and purchase physical textbooks. Instead, instructors can provide students with e-learning content they can access instantly from any device.
When course material for online classes changes, automation can share the updated information with students enrolled in the class. This automated process ensures all students receive the latest version of any notes, readings, videos, and other materials.
Similarly, automation can notify students about upcoming class deadlines and assignment due dates. This ensures that students are aware of and can meet current requirements for passing the course.
E-learning automation makes the e-learning process more engaging.
Automation doesn’t mean a decrease in human interaction. The opposite is true.
Instructors can automate the creation of groups for peer-to-peer interactions. Then students can ask questions or collaborate on class projects with no manual organization by an instructor. This helps to increase student engagement and collaboration between fellow learners, creating more effective e-learning experiences.
E-learning automation facilitates fast grading and feedback.
Two common areas that automation excels at in online education are grading and feedback. It helps instructors grade papers, exams, and assignments more quickly than they would if they had to do these tasks manually. Instructors can give students immediate feedback and allow them to move forward at their own pace after they have mastered a knowledge area.
Also, automation provides students with consistent standards for grading their work.
E-learning automation increases the efficiency of administration and faculty support.
Automation tools can manage mundane tasks related to faculty support, such as updating course materials or answering the vast majority of student queries. For example, automation enables instructors to make updates or changes to their online courses without having to access many login accounts or remember long reference codes.
When colleges and universities adopt automation, they can improve data collection for student satisfaction metrics. For example, automation can send customer satisfaction surveys to students after they have completed their e-learning courses. The automation process ensures students receive the survey on time so they are more likely to respond promptly. Automation tools can also send follow-up messages to students who don’t reply after the initial request.
E-learning automation supports personalized learning opportunities.
Automation tools can help to customize courses based on the unique learning needs of each student. For example, automation can collect information about student learning styles and abilities.
This allows instructors to use automation tools such as adaptive testing or automated essay grading to personalize the material they provide based on how well each student responds to particular teaching methodologies (e.g., video lectures vs. text-based instruction). They can also use automation to provide personalized content based on student progress, knowledge gaps, or interests. If a learner fails a subject, automation can provide them with individualized instruction in that area so they can improve in their own time.
How can Capacity help with e-learning development?
Capacity enables automation for course materials, student questions, peer assessment and communication, predictive analytics, faculty support, and more.
The platform has an easy-to-use interface that requires no coding or software installation so that colleges can go live with Capacity in 30 days, regardless of their technical abilities.