CYPHER Learning Reviews

We use CYPHER Learning to train our employees and the public.

CYPHER Learning is hosted on our users' website. Our users can access it by logging in.

Several of our internal teams have joined the program, and they create training modules, which we then upload to CYPHER Learning and make available to everyone. CYPHER Learning has now put us in the position to provide better internal training than ever before, thanks to this tool that makes it easier. Since we have employees in multiple locations, we are now able to train our entire team more efficiently.

We have seen a small reduction in printing costs, but I foresee more savings as we ramp up our training.

I like that CYPHER Learning can accommodate all types of media, including video and audio. It is also easy to use. 

I really like that we can add third-party apps to make CYPHER Learning more useful. 

The assessment tools are one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning, so we could provide instructional feedback for incorrect assessment answers.

The customization is very good because it allows us to completely brand the product so that it is our brand.

I really appreciate the ability to provide feedback for assessments. However, the user interface for this feature is not very user-friendly. I think it could be improved by making it easier to understand.

CYPHER Learning has a lot of resources for finding answers. They have a search tool that allows us to search for answers on our own. However, I think it would be helpful if the resources were more structured in a how-to format. This would allow us to find the information we need without having to talk to a trainer or tech support. I think the current feature is good, but there could be more self-learning opportunities for how to use the product.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for almost eight months.

CYPHER Learning is stable. We have not had any issues.

CYPHER Learning is highly scalable. We are not using all the seats available yet.

The technical support is quick. I usually receive a response within just a few hours. If the support is not quite able to answer my question, they are very quick to respond to my follow-up questions. Once, a junior analyst answered my question, and then I think a senior analyst came in and added to the explanation to make it clearer. I'm not sure if it was to correct the junior analyst or to provide additional assistance, but it was impressive.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. However, it is a very full-featured system, so it has taken a lot of training to learn how to use it effectively. CYPHER Learning has provided excellent training materials, and our IT department has been very helpful in setting up the system and connecting it to our other systems. Overall, I think the setup process has been fairly straightforward.

We had several meetings with our IT and project management teams. It took some time to convince them of the benefits of using CYPHER Learning. I am on the education team, and our job is to train both internal and external users. We held several meetings and demos to explain what we wanted to use CYPHER Learning for and why we chose it. Once we had their buy-in, it was just a matter of getting the paperwork and approvals in order. Now we are in the process of creating half a dozen courses. We are still in the early stages of implementing CYPHER Learning, but we are excited about the possibilities.

Three people were involved in the deployment: two from the education team and one from IT.

The implementation was completed in-house.

We are still in the development phase. At this time, we are not seriously considering generating revenue through courses. Instead, we will be relying mostly on savings, travel expenses for training, and other expenses. As a result, I cannot say that we have seen a return on investment yet. CYPHER Learning is still in the investment phase.

We were happy with the pricing for CYPHER Learning. As a nonprofit, we received a discount. They were also able to work with us on some other questions we had. This was one of the reasons we chose CYPHER Learning. The price was fair for all the features we received.

We evaluated dozens of solutions and considered all of their features, prices, and reviews. In addition to CYPHER Learning, we narrowed down our choices to Moodle and Tovuti LMS. 

We selected CYPHER Learning primarily because of positive customer reviews and a competitive price. Customer reviews praised its ease of use, and the price was fair for the features we received. Additionally, CYPHER Learning appeared to have plenty of room for us to grow into. The features were robust enough that we would likely not use them all at first, but we would learn to use them as we needed them. CYPHER Learning seemed like it would challenge us, and it has. 

I give CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten. There are a few tweakable areas but I have no regrets about selecting CYPHER Learning.

We currently do not use the competency-based learning features of CYPHER Learning. However, one reason we chose CYPHER Learning is because it has the capacity to support our future growth in this area. Therefore, it is something we may use in the future, but not yet. 

We do have some audit automation as far as emails, reminders, and things like that, but not specifically gamification.

Since CYPHER Learning is a new system in our organization, we have not yet seen a reduction in our training costs. However, we anticipate a reduction in training costs as we begin to train employees remotely and no longer have to fly trainers to different locations.

We currently have 50 users, and we expect to have many more as we increase our training volume.

CYPHER Learning has not required any maintenance as of yet.

CYPHER Learning is a very powerful tool with many features. However, this also means that it has a steep learning curve. If we don't have a lot of time or are not comfortable with technology, CYPHER Learning may not be the best solution for us. However, if we are looking for a scalable and powerful tool that can grow with our needs, CYPHER Learning is a great option. Just be aware that it will take some time to learn how to use it effectively.

We use CHYPHER Learning to deliver all our apprenticeship programs. All of the apprentice learners are added to the platform and follow several courses. We also provide access to employers so they can monitor the learners' progress.

We find that learners are much more invested in CHYPHER Learning compared to other LMS platforms we used in the past. The people who use the platform to learn and do their assignments are the ones who benefit the most from the system. It enabled us to engage with learners more than the previous systems we used.

We do a little gamification, but the problem is that our learners start at different times throughout the year. We have rolling programs, but some gamification features aren't relevant if one person starts in October and another in February. The person who started earlier will be ahead on any leaderboards, which isn't helpful. Gamification doesn't affect our learners' progress much because we haven't used it as much as we'd like. The interface isn't too important because of the nature of our rolling programs. 

We look at how we can extend what learners do based on their job roles. If they complete particular assignments well, we introduce other topics based on what they achieve. 

I don't think it has reduced our training costs. We still primarily do face-to-face instruction. Also, our goal for CYPHER Learning isn't necessarily to save money. We use it to enhance our programs. However, it saved us money on printing materials. 

The most valuable feature is competency tracking. All apprentices follow particular programs where they have to demonstrate competencies, skills, knowledge, and behavior standards. The ability to track and measure their progress against the norm is functional. By aligning the work that our learners submit and the learning resources, we get an excellent picture of where they are in their progression.

We're judged on those people's ability to achieve those competencies. We must ensure they meet the standards because they will be independently assessed after finishing the program. 

I've got one bespoke request with CYPHER Learning, but it's not an overall product improvement. I'd like a way to set deadlines for assignments to be submitted by learners' onboarding programs based on their enrollment dates. For example, if a learner starts in October, and we want the assignment submitted 30 days after that. 

We've been using CHYPHER Learning since October 2020.

CYPHER Learning is a solid platform. I rarely have problems with it. We had a caching issue a few months back, but we've had no problems aside from that. 

Adding more students to CYPHER Learning is simple. You just need to pay more money.

I rate CYPHER Learning's support a ten out of ten. I've contacted them several times and always gotten satisfactory answers. 

Positive

I built a custom solution a while ago. It was great, but keeping it updated was painful, and people constantly asked me questions about it. We also used Moodle and Lodash in the past.

I used CYPHER Learning in its previous form when it was called EDU 2.0. After that, I built my own system, but it was too much of a hassle. Finally, in 2020, I decided I would switch to another solution. I tested out Moodle, but it wasn't very good for competency-based learning, so I adopted CYPHER Learning. 

CYPHER Learning is a SaaS platform. We subscribe to it and add learners as needed. The setup is straightforward, but there are a few advanced features that you need to get your head around if you want to extend the way the platform works. I've done lots of work with webhooks and APIs to extend the platform and integrate our data systems. It's quite simple to log in and use the platform. There is no maintenance on our end. 

We are funded by the government, so we're capped at what each program costs. Students who use CYPHER Learning give us positive feedback, and the improved experience helps increase the number of learners. Getting learners to engage with the platform is always a challenge. They go on there, do the work, and leave positive feedback. It's great. 

We're considered a business, so we don't get education discounts. However, I am funded by the government the same way that a college or a school is funded. I don't have the kind of flexibility to pay these prices. It's a little bit more than I want to pay, but I'm okay with it.

I rate CYPHER Learning a ten out of ten. Before implementing CYPHER Learning, make sure you need all of its features. A lot of it is modular, so you can pick what you want.

CYPHER Learning is where we upload the class sections and create links so that students can connect to Zoom. These things were mostly done during the pandemic and part-time face-to-face education.

Now that we have returned to full face-to-face education, I still upload the material to the platform but our use of the platform is lower.

CYPHER Learning was implemented in our institution at the time of the pandemic. Before that, things were quite messy because we had another platform that was used more as a scheduling calendar for the parents. Teachers did not know exactly how to use it and teachers could only send links individually. NEO LMS helped us to organize ourselves, both in terms of class schedules and organizing information about the academic year. It also helped us with direct communication with the students and parents.

Another benefit is that it enables students to have a means of access to school information no matter where they are. For example, if a student is sick or is traveling, the system enables him to have the information he needs, to observe the material, and to see the comments of his classmates live.

Using the platform is interesting and fast. I work with 11 and 12-year-old students who already handle the systems area a bit. It allows me to see how much a student is interacting with the activities. In that way, as a teacher, I can help them with any problems they have.

The main way it helps in this regard is through the direct-message feature. This is the best tool in CYPHER Learning for intervening and correcting. Because my students are 11 and 12 years old, not all interventions can be done through the platform. Most of the time, we do personal meetings by Zoom to provide more active intervention.

Also, during the pandemic, I saved a lot of time on administrative work by using CYPHER Learning, especially since I am a teacher of the same subject in different classes. Thanks to the platform, I was able to share the folders only once instead of having to duplicate or recreate them. I saved about four to five hours a week on administrative work.

I mainly use the storage folders that allow students to upload their work in an organized way. By providing a large storage capacity, the system allows students to upload videos and images. I can also rate students and give them feedback with comments or stickers.

For me, the system is quite agile because I have it sorted by grade and sections within the grade. That way, if I want to send a message to the grade, I simply enter and send the message. It also allows me to send messages individually.

I believe that communication is one of the main elements needed for education, whether it is virtual, semi-attendance, or face-to-face. There is not always a way to solve students' doubts immediately, but CYPHER Learning facilitates communication between students and teachers.

I have also used tools such as the discussion forums where students can give their opinions. The forums allow students to compare their answers and to reply to the questions or opinions of their classmates. If they come across an opinion they like better, they can avoid waiting to ask the teacher questions. It has definitely helped on this topic.

These activities are part of our educational goals: that students gain the ability to self-regulate, overcome, and seek better strategies, although during the pandemic it was used more than now in face-to-face education.

But CYPHER Learning still allows them to do these activities. For example, sometimes I upload reinforcement activities and, although the students know that they are not going to be given any score for doing them, they prefer to do them anyway because they can receive an immediate response. They do these reinforcement activities autonomously to have a better idea of the kinds of topics they might see in an in-person exam.

It is a fairly agile and intuitive environment. As the vendor updates things such as allowing sessions to be done only through Zoom, and the ease of manipulating the class sections, I feel more and more confident using the platform.

The vendor could improve on the chat system. Right now, the student only has access to messaging. Maybe it would be good to have a mini chat or the ability to do video calls with teachers if they have any questions about an assignment.

Another improvement would be the ability to create groups. Currently, a teacher has to manually drag the names of the students. It would be better if the students themselves could create groups independently.

I started using CYPHER LEARNING two and a half years ago.

It is very stable. In the time we have had it, it has only gone down a few times.

While we were in virtual education mode, it allowed us as many resources as we needed. Now that we have returned to face-to-face education, our use has decreased a bit, but we will continue using it.

We have about 2,000 users, including teachers, parents, and students.

The technical support is quite good. No matter what time of day it was, when I went to the forums, I always received quick answers.

Positive

This is our first LMS.

For me, the setup was quite simple. It was very automatic and the class sections are quite flexible. It took approximately two weeks.

CYPHER LEARNING offered us an expert who assisted us in making full use of the platform. We had training meetings and practical exercises. The person who trained us showed us how to use it step by step. The training was divided into sections and classes, and if you had any questions, you shared your screen so that the administrators could help you. 

Once the face-to-face training was completed, the system administrators were left in charge to advise us when there are questions.

Thanks to this LMS we had a more flexible way of managing the period of virtual education. We had the option to save time by uploading folders and grading the students' work. We were able to find everything we needed in a single place.

We are in the process of learning about the whole subject of automation and adaptive learning. We recently had training where they taught us everything about auto-responses, qualifications, and automated messages to facilitate administrative work.

Because my students, aged 11 and 12, are at a very initial level, they are still entering CYPHER Learning only to review the classes that the teacher uploads, so their use of its tools is very basic. During the pandemic, they were slowly directed on how to upload things. They have not yet mastered the platform.

I would tell others who are looking into this product that it is a fairly agile platform, especially in educational management. It also eases the virtual and semi-face-to-face learning process, because it allows you to create independent users, such as parents or students in one area, where they can do a general scan of their academic progress. And the uploading and storage area of data is quite capable.

CYPHER Learning taught me to get closer to my students and allowed me to do so. Now, there is a space where I can comment on any topic at any time. It has allowed me to speed up the process of communicating with them.

Foreign Language:(Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

CYPHER Learning es donde cargamos las secciones de clase y creamos enlaces para que los estudiantes puedan conectarse a Zoom. Estas cosas se hicieron principalmente durante la pandemia y durante la educación semi-presencial.

Ahora que hemos vuelto a la educación presencial completa, sigo subiendo el material a la plataforma pero nuestro uso de la plataforma es menor.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

CYPHER Learning se implementó en nuestra institución en el momento de la pandemia. Antes de eso, las cosas estaban bastante desordenadas porque teníamos otra plataforma que se usaba más como un calendario de programación para los padres. Los profesores no sabían exactamente cómo usarlo y solo podían enviar enlaces individualmente. CYPHER Learning nos ayudó a organizarnos, tanto en los horarios de clases como en la organización de la información del curso académico. También nos ayudó con la comunicación directa con los estudiantes y los padres.

Otro beneficio es que permite a los estudiantes tener un medio de acceso a la información escolar sin importar dónde se encuentren. Por ejemplo, si un estudiante está enfermo o está de viaje, el sistema le permite tener la información que necesita, observar el material y ver en vivo los comentarios de sus compañeros.

Usar la plataforma es interesante y ágil. Trabajo con alumnos de 11 y 12 años que ya manejan un poco el área de sistemas. Me permite ver cuánto está interactuando un estudiante con las actividades. De esa manera, como docente, puedo ayudarlos con cualquier problema que tengan.

La forma principal en que ayuda en este sentido es a través de la función de mensaje directo. Esta es la mejor herramienta de CYPHER Learning para intervenir y corregir. Debido a que mis alumnos tienen 11 y 12 años, no todas las intervenciones se pueden realizar a través de la plataforma. La mayoría de las veces, hacemos reuniones personales por Zoom para brindar una intervención más activa.

Además, durante la pandemia, ahorré mucho tiempo en trabajo administrativo usando CYPHER Learning, especialmente porque soy profesor de la misma materia en diferentes clases. Gracias a la plataforma, pude compartir las carpetas solo una vez en lugar de tener que duplicarlas o recrearlas. Ahorré entre cuatro y cinco horas a la semana en trabajo administrativo.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Uso principalmente las carpetas de almacenamiento que permiten a los estudiantes subir su trabajo de manera organizada. Al proporcionar una gran capacidad de almacenamiento, el sistema permite a los estudiantes cargar vídeos e imágenes. También puedo calificar a los estudiantes y darles retroalimentación con comentarios o calcomanías.

Para mí el sistema es bastante ágil porque lo tengo ordenado por grado y secciones dentro del grado. De esa forma, si quiero enviar un mensaje al grado, simplemente entro y envío el mensaje. También me permite enviar mensajes individualmente.

Considero que la comunicación es uno de los principales elementos necesarios para la educación, ya sea virtual, semipresencial o presencial. No siempre hay una forma de resolver las dudas de los alumnos de forma inmediata, pero CYPHER Learning facilita la comunicación entre alumnos y profesores.

También he utilizado herramientas como los foros de discusión donde los alumnos pueden dar su opinión. Los foros permiten a los alumnos comparar sus respuestas y responder a las preguntas u opiniones de sus compañeros. Si se encuentran con una opinión que les gusta más, pueden evitar esperar para hacerle preguntas al maestro. Definitivamente ha ayudado en este tema.

Estas actividades forman parte de nuestros objetivos educativos: que los alumnos adquieran la capacidad de autorregularse, superarse y buscar mejores estrategias, aunque durante la pandemia se utilizó más que ahora en la educación presencial.

Pero CYPHER Learning aún les permite realizar estas actividades. Por ejemplo, a veces subo actividades de refuerzo y, aunque los alumnos saben que no les van a dar ningún puntaje por hacerlas, prefieren hacerlas de todos modos porque pueden recibir una respuesta inmediata. Realizan estas actividades de refuerzo de forma autónoma para tener una mejor idea de los tipos de temas que podrían ver en un examen presencial.

Es un entorno bastante ágil e intuitivo. A medida que el proveedor actualiza cosas como permitir que las sesiones se realicen solo a través de Zoom y la facilidad de manipular las secciones de la clase, me siento cada vez más segura al usar la plataforma.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

El proveedor podría mejorar el sistema de chat. En este momento, el estudiante solo tiene acceso a la mensajería. Tal vez sería bueno tener un mini chat o la posibilidad de hacer videollamadas con los maestros si tienen alguna pregunta sobre una tarea.

Otra mejora sería la posibilidad de crear grupos. Actualmente, un profesor tiene que arrastrar manualmente los nombres de los alumnos. Sería mejor si los propios estudiantes pudieran crear grupos de forma independiente.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

Empecé a usar CYPHER LEARNING hace dos años y medio.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Es muy estable. En el tiempo que lo hemos tenido, solo ha fallado un par de veces.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

Mientras estábamos en modo de educación virtual, nos permitió los recursos que necesitábamos. Ahora que hemos vuelto a la educación presencial, nuestro uso ha disminuido un poco, pero lo seguiremos usando.

Tenemos alrededor de 2,000 usuarios, incluidos maestros, padres y estudiantes.

¿Y el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

El soporte técnico es bastante bueno. Sin importar la hora del día que fuera, cuando iba a los foros, siempre recibía respuestas rápidas.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Este es nuestro primer LMS.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

Para mí, la configuración fue bastante simple. Era muy automático y las secciones de clase son bastante flexibles. Tomó aproximadamente dos semanas.

CYPHER LEARNING nos ofreció un experto que nos ayudó a aprovechar al máximo la plataforma. Tuvimos reuniones de capacitación y ejercicios prácticos. La persona que nos capacitó nos mostró cómo usarlo paso a paso. La capacitación se dividió en secciones y clases, y si teníamos alguna pregunta, compartimos nuestras pantallas para que los administradores pudieran ayudarnos.

Una vez finalizada la formación presencial, se quedaron los administradores del sistema como encargados de asesorarnos cuando hubieran dudas.

¿Cuál fue nuestro Retorno de Inversión?

Gracias a este LMS teníamos una forma más flexible de gestionar el periodo de educación virtual. Teníamos la opción de ahorrar tiempo cargando carpetas y calificando el trabajo de los estudiantes. Pudimos encontrar todo lo que necesitábamos en un solo lugar.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

Estamos en el proceso de aprender sobre todo el tema de la automatización y el aprendizaje adaptativo. Recientemente tuvimos una capacitación donde nos enseñaron todo sobre respuestas automáticas, calificaciones y mensajes automatizados para facilitar el trabajo administrativo.

Debido a que mis alumnos, de 11 y 12 años, están en un nivel muy inicial, todavía ingresan a CYPHER Learning solo para revisar las clases que sube el maestro, por lo que su uso de sus herramientas es muy básico. Durante la pandemia, se les instruyó lentamente sobre cómo subir cosas. Todavía no han dominado la plataforma.

Les diría a otros que están investigando este producto que es una plataforma bastante ágil, especialmente en la gestión educativa. También facilita el proceso de aprendizaje virtual y semipresencial, ya que permite crear usuarios independientes, como padres o estudiantes en un área, donde pueden hacer un escaneo general de su progreso académico. Y el área de subir documentos y almacenamiento de datos es bastante capaz.

CYPHER Learning me enseñó a acercarme a mis alumnos y me permitió hacerlo. Ahora, hay un espacio donde puedo comentar sobre cualquier tema en cualquier momento. Me ha permitido acelerar el proceso de comunicación con ellos.

We use it for employee training.

It has helped us in moving to digital training sessions from in-person training sessions and that has reduced our costs. We used to spend around $15,000 to $20,000 annually on training.

And indirectly, it has helped increase profits by improving the efficiency of our employees. That benefits our business.

The most valuable feature is the gamification of the training courses. Learners can compete with their colleagues and access the leaderboard, and this enhances our efficiency and our learners' creativity. The employees can also compete with their colleagues and they get awards and badges, which motivates them.

We also like the automation features because it makes the training interesting and interactive.

And the competency-based learning helps teams acquire the desired skills. It displays the available skills and puts an emphasis on progressing on what the employee lacks. The competency-based learning systems that we have created are very important. Before, we were using Talent Elements and the reason we shifted to CYPHER Learning was because of this feature. They are the reason for buying this product. Competency-based learning helps us certify the skills of learners and make decisions about promotions and redundancy.

CYPHER Learning's ability to recommend courses to learners based on their job title or set of competencies is great and helps the employees a lot. It's like a non-financial reward for them to keep them motivated.

The mobile app has quite a lot of bugs and it has many fewer integration options.

I've been using CYPHER Learning for two years.

The platform is very reliable.

It's scalable as well.

The support team is great but it takes them some time to answer queries. Also, because the support chat box is integrated into the website, we actually can't open two different tabs, one for customer support and another for the product. We have to open the customer chat box inside the solution and it can be quite confusing. It would be better if we could get email or phone support.

Positive

Previously, we used Talent Elements. In addition to the lack of competency-based learning, in which there were only a few ways to track learner progress, there were relatively few gamification features.

Our return on investment is in the improvement of our efficiency and productivity.

It's affordable, but they have doubled the pricing at random times. That's a problem. They have to change that for forecasting purposes.

I strongly suggest changing your training solution to CYPHER Learning. If you are doing it on your campus right now, this will help you save costs.

We use it for teaching online.

The students have begun to use the platform, above all, because it also allows them to join libraries instead of searching for bibliographic references on Google. They make use of the libraries and that has facilitated academic activity. That is an area that has been exploited effectively in our university.

CYPHER Learning has saved us time on intervention strategies for students, especially those who need guidance. It has saved us approximately 30 percent compared to other methods, especially because of how intuitive the platform is.

Another benefit is the time saved on administrative work, such as grades, filling out reports, and student control. Having these things automated instead of doing them manually results in very considerable time savings. If I did those things manually in half an hour, with CYPHER Learning I do them in five minutes.

It also saves on printing costs. It enables you to do everything in a digital format. You prepare something, put it in a PDF, and send it by email. It makes things much easier for you.

We use it mostly as a repository for study materials, the tasks to be carried out,  and to allow students to publish their documents, the area of ​​qualifications, and feedback.

One of the features that is very good is the automation for setting trigger rules that show or hide specific class sections or assignments. We have it based on mosaics and it is very intuitive. We immediately find what we want. What we call "Unit Zero" is where the manuals, et cetera are located. Each unit, in turn, has another group of mosaics where units and tasks are broken down.

The adaptive learning for providing students with personalized content based on their goals and performance is also good. Because I started in online education two years ago, I am very used to it.

One area that needs improvement is the feedback box. In our case, the space  for it is in the right-hand menu but with little margin width. That makes it very difficult for us to fully visualize what we are writing. It would be a great help if they would give us 150 points of width to effectively see the area where we are writing.

Also, I would like to see better integration of the platform with Zoom or Meet so that programming of video conferences would be much more interactive within those platforms. Currently, if we have to do a conference in Zoom or Meet, we have to leave the platform because we cannot do so directly within it.

Another point for improvement is the integration with other platforms, especially because students and teachers are already familiar with other platforms. Sometimes, they have a lot of material in one of those other platforms and when integrating it with CYPHER Learning, the formats and instructions do not match, and that can affect their performance levels. Integration with other file-sharing platforms needs to be exploited.

I have been using CYPHER Learning for about three years.

So far, my impression of its stability has been positive. There have been very few crashes, and many of them have been due to internet bandwidth rather than system failures. On occasion, when refreshing the database, some content has been lost but that has been very sporadic and infrequent.

Scaling has been handled as needed, but there is still a lot to explore because it has not been used to 100 percent of its capacity. Our requirements themselves are what make us increase our use of the solution, little by little.

It is very underutilized because students limit themselves to uploading their files to it, but they do not make effective use of it because the university was designed to be face-to-face. The vast majority of students do not accept working online, except for the delivery of files. While I have experience with it and have seen many of its functions, the students are not used to it. In that sense, the platform has been very neglected.

We have approximately 6,000 people who use it, including teachers, students, academic coordinators, campus directors, managers, and site administrators. It has not decreased the number of people we need to administrate our educational center.

On the occasions that I have requested help, the response has been fast. It has taken approximately one or two hours.

Positive

This is our first such solution. Because of the pandemic, we were forced to teach classes online. Our university was designed to be 100 percent face-to-face, so the platform had to be enabled to teach classes during the pandemic.

The initial setup was complex due to its design, because it is different from other platforms. It seems complex when it is unknown, but within three hours you can learn the basics.

Our setup took about three hours. It gives us a web page with an https address and that is where the login is.

In terms of deployment and maintenance, there are three roles: one that uploads the content, one that establishes the parameters of action, and one that manages the platform.

I think it is important to maintain the 30-day trial policy. Perhaps there could be individual licenses for teachers so that they could better exploit and learn how to use the platform. If teachers were encouraged to create their own courses and given an economically attractive license, I feel that there would be an opportunity to have it used more widely. Individual teachers could be encouraged to create their own courses and not depend so much on the formal educational centers.

The ability to communicate with students using CYPHER Learning is very poor. There is a lot of ignorance about the platform, and the vast majority of our teachers were also not used to working online. Many of them do not know how to enable or disable students, how to register them, or how to modify delivery dates. That is not a problem with the platform, it is a lack of teacher training.

CYPHER Learning provides activities to help students get engaged with their learning and develop higher-order thinking skills. However, the teachers limit themselves to a series of activities that are traditional and they have not explored the richness of the features. Most do not go beyond the common essay and the forum becomes a very mechanical database. The wikis are largely forgotten because professors are not used to working this way. They have had to force themselves to teach online without knowing how to do so. Again this is a lack of teacher training, not an issue with the platform.

The gamified learning environment for helping with teaching and learning is a positive. There are areas for improvement, especially in the feedback field, but it is a matter of site design. Overall, I am very positive about the platform. You will master it in a short period of time.

It is a product that is worth it, once you learn how to handle it. There are no limits with it. On the contrary, it gives you the possibility of opening up, increasing, and deepening student learning. You can increase the type and number of activities within the platform beyond the traditional ones used in the face-to-face system.

Foreign Language: (Spanish)

¿Cuál es nuestra razón de uso principal?

Lo usamos para enseñar en línea.

¿Cómo ha ayudado a mi organización?

Los alumnos han comenzado a utilizar la plataforma, sobre todo, porque también les permite unirse a las bibliotecas en lugar de buscar referencias bibliográficas en Google. Hacen uso de las bibliotecas y eso ha facilitado la actividad académica. Esa es un área que ha sido explotada de manera efectiva en nuestra universidad.

CYPHER Learning nos ha ahorrado tiempo en estrategias de intervención para estudiantes, especialmente aquellos que necesitan orientación. Nos ha ahorrado aproximadamente un 30 por ciento en comparación con otros métodos, especialmente por lo intuitiva que es la plataforma.

Otro beneficio es el ahorro de tiempo en el trabajo administrativo, como calificaciones, llenado de informes y control de estudiantes. Tener estas cosas automatizadas en lugar de hacerlo manualmente da como resultado un ahorro de tiempo muy considerable. Si esas cosas las hacía manualmente en media hora, con CYPHER Learning las hago en cinco minutos.

También ahorra en costes de impresión. Te permite hacer todo en formato digital. Preparas algo, lo pones en un PDF y lo envías por correo electrónico. Te facilita mucho las cosas.

¿Qué es lo más valioso?

Lo usamos mayormente como repositorio de materiales de estudio, las tareas a realizar, y para permitir a los estudiantes publicar sus documentos, el área de calificaciones y retroalimentación.

Una de las características que es muy buena es la automatización para establecer reglas de activación que muestren u oculten secciones o tareas de clase específicas. Lo tenemos a base de mosaicos y es muy intuitivo. Inmediatamente encontramos lo que buscamos. Lo que llamamos "Unidad Cero" es donde se encuentran los manuales, etcétera. Cada unidad, a su vez, tiene otro grupo de mosaicos donde se desglosan unidades y tareas.

El aprendizaje adaptativo para proporcionar a los estudiantes contenido personalizado en función de sus objetivos y rendimiento también es bueno. Debido a que comencé en la educación en línea hace dos años, estoy muy acostumbrado.

¿Qué necesita mejorar?

Un área que necesita mejoras es el cuadro de comentarios. En nuestro caso, el espacio para ello está en el menú de la derecha pero con poco ancho de margen. Eso hace que sea muy difícil para nosotros visualizar completamente lo que estamos escribiendo. Sería de gran ayuda que nos dieran 150 puntos de ancho para ver efectivamente la zona donde estamos escribiendo.

Además, me gustaría ver una mejor integración de la plataforma con Zoom o Meet para que la programación de videoconferencias sea mucho más interactiva dentro de esas plataformas. Actualmente, si tenemos que hacer una conferencia en Zoom o Meet, tenemos que salir de la plataforma porque no podemos hacerlo directamente dentro de ella.

Otro punto a mejorar es la integración con otras plataformas, sobre todo porque alumnos y profesores ya están familiarizados con otras plataformas. A veces, tienen mucho material en una de esas otras plataformas y al integrarlo con CYPHER Learning, los formatos y las instrucciones no coinciden, y eso puede afectar sus niveles de rendimiento. Es necesario aprovechar la integración con otras plataformas de intercambio de archivos.

¿Por cuánto tiempo he usado la solución?

He estado usando CYPHER Learning durante unos tres años.

¿Qué pienso sobre la estabilidad de la solución?

Hasta ahora, mi impresión de su estabilidad ha sido positiva. Ha habido muy pocos bloqueos, y muchos de ellos se han debido al ancho de banda de Internet en lugar de fallas del sistema. En ocasiones al refrescar la base de datos se ha perdido algún contenido pero ha sido muy esporádico y poco frecuente.

¿Qué opino de la escalabilidad de la solución?

El escalado se ha manejado según sea necesario, pero aún queda mucho por explorar porque no se ha utilizado al 100 por ciento de su capacidad. Nuestros propios requisitos son los que nos hacen aumentar nuestro uso de la solución, poco a poco.

Está muy infrautilizado porque los estudiantes se limitan a subir sus archivos, pero no hacen un uso efectivo porque la universidad fue diseñada para ser presencial. La gran mayoría de los estudiantes no acepta trabajar en línea, excepto para la entrega de archivos. Si bien tengo experiencia con él y he visto muchas de sus funciones, los estudiantes no están acostumbrados. En ese sentido, la plataforma ha estado muy descuidada.

Contamos con aproximadamente 6,000 personas que lo utilizan, entre docentes, estudiantes, coordinadores académicos, directores de campus, gerentes y administradores de sitios. No ha disminuido el número de personas que necesitamos para administrar nuestro centro educativo.

¿Cómo son el servicio de atención al cliente y el soporte?

En las ocasiones que he solicitado ayuda la respuesta ha sido rápida. Ha tardado aproximadamente una o dos horas.

¿Cómo calificaría el servicio y soporte al cliente?

Positivo

¿Qué solución usé anteriormente y por qué cambié?

Esta es nuestra primera solución de este tipo. Debido a la pandemia, nos vimos obligados a dar clases en línea. Nuestra universidad fue diseñada para ser 100 por ciento presencial, por lo que había que habilitar la plataforma para impartir clases durante la pandemia.

¿Cómo fue la configuración inicial?

La configuración inicial fue compleja debido a su diseño, ya que es diferente a otras plataformas. Parece complejo cuando se desconoce, pero en tres horas puedes aprender lo básico.

Nuestra configuración tomó alrededor de tres horas. Nos da una página web con una dirección https y ahí es donde está el inicio de sesión.

En términos de implementación y mantenimiento, hay tres roles: uno que carga el contenido, uno que establece los parámetros de acción y otro que administra la plataforma.

¿Cuál es mi experiencia con los precios, el costo de configuración y las licencias?

Creo que es importante mantener la política de prueba de 30 días. Quizás podría haber licencias individuales para los docentes para que puedan explotar mejor y aprender a usar la plataforma. Si se animara a los profesores a crear sus propios cursos y se les diera una licencia económicamente atractiva, creo que habría una oportunidad de que se utilizara más ampliamente. Se podría alentar a los maestros individuales a crear sus propios cursos y no depender tanto de los centros educativos formales.

¿Qué otro consejo tengo?

La capacidad de comunicarse con los estudiantes que usan CYPHER Learning es muy pobre. Hay mucho desconocimiento sobre la plataforma, y la gran mayoría de nuestros profesores tampoco estaban acostumbrados a trabajar en línea. Muchos de ellos no saben cómo habilitar o deshabilitar alumnos, cómo darlos de alta, o cómo modificar las fechas de entrega. Eso no es problema de la plataforma, es falta de formación de los profesores.

CYPHER Learning ofrece actividades para ayudar a los estudiantes a participar en su aprendizaje y desarrollar habilidades de pensamiento de orden superior. Sin embargo, los docentes se limitan a una serie de actividades que son tradicionales y no han explorado la riqueza de las características. La mayoría no va más allá del ensayo común y el foro se convierte en una base de datos muy mecánica. Los wikis están en gran parte olvidados porque los profesores no están acostumbrados a trabajar de esta manera. Se han tenido que obligar a enseñar en línea sin saber cómo hacerlo. Nuevamente, esto es una falta de capacitación de los maestros, no un problema con la plataforma.

El entorno de aprendizaje gamificado para ayudar con la enseñanza y el aprendizaje es positivo. Hay áreas de mejora, especialmente en el campo de la retroalimentación, pero es una cuestión de diseño del sitio. En general, soy muy positivo acerca de la plataforma. Lo dominarás en un corto período de tiempo.

Es un producto que merece la pena, una vez que aprendes a manejarlo. No hay límites con eso. Por el contrario, te da la posibilidad de abrir, incrementar y profundizar el aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Puedes aumentar el tipo y número de actividades dentro de la plataforma más allá de las tradicionales utilizadas en el sistema presencial.

We offer transformative health programs. We offer self-paced and cohort-based learning experiences online for health and wellness.

We are using its latest version.

CYPHER Learning is extraordinarily intuitive. It allows us to customize the design and the look-and-feel of all of our pages inside of a course. 

It also allows us to direct students automatically from one task to the next, including creating their own reflections and personal goals. So, it really does support student agency, as we call it, as well as student success in completing tasks on their own.

We are able to see who has not accessed the portal and follow up with those people. It is important for us because retention is one of the factors in evaluating the efficacy of a course.

It enables us to monitor and check student progress. We don't use the mastery tool so much, but we do use the gamification tool where they get a set of scores or points once they complete something, and that badging system helps us track the completion. We've steered away from the grading tool and stuck with more of what I always call the rewards.

We love a couple of things. We love the group feature allowing students to have peer-to-peer learning experiences. In our case, it is for students, but this feature could also be useful for a business to provide peer-to-peer learning experiences for employees. The group tool provides an opportunity for students to connect with their peers inside of their own digital space. One of the aspects that we love about the group tool is that it allows students to leave the course but engage in a digital space where they access materials that are personalized to their group.

We also like gamification. It allowed us to give our users scores and have a friendly competition to motivate their learning success.

Another great feature is that it allows you to change the naming conventions of the tools. I've never seen an LMS that allows you to do that. All organizations have their own vocabulary, and this is just an extraordinary feature that gives you so much freedom to customize the platform to align with your organization's look-and-feel and vocabulary. 

Their Support Forum was exemplary. I got answers within 25 minutes of my questions, and they were personalized to me, which made the Support Forum highly valuable. I love the fact other people could see the question and the answer I got, and I could see theirs.

I'm an instructional designer, so from a designer standpoint, it is important to have a user-friendly resource folder that allows us to organize our artifacts for easy access to pull into multiple pages and modules. The second feature that I need is an easier capacity to edit pages with images and customizable headings. 

I started in November of 2019.

It is highly stable.

It is absolutely scalable. Currently, we have 10 courses, and we could easily go way more.

In terms of its users, we have a curriculum director who oversees content quality, and then we have course builders. Sometimes, the curriculum director takes on the course builder role, which means aligning the content into a cohesive format in CYPHER Learning. We have an admissions director who looks at the analytics to help us look at retention and other continuity needs.

In terms of its usage, we're currently in a little bit of a holding pattern. We've done an initial launch, and we're now assessing and bringing on more content experts. So, we're back in what we call build mode with a plan to launch in the fall another set of courses.

Their Support Forum is fantastic. The initial onboarding was easy with great technical support and relationship building with Alexia. I got a chance to get to know her really well because she's a designer. If I didn't get what I needed at the Support Forum, I could reach out to her directly. I would rate their support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

I am an instructional designer. So, I work with lots of learning management systems, but in particular, for this project, I didn't work with any other solution.

It was straightforward. The company provided us with excellent onboarding training.

The build took a long time, but that was not because of CYPHER Learning. I could probably build a full course in a week if I had all the content with me. 

We implemented it on our own. In terms of maintenance, the curriculum director and the course builder both tag team to support the technical ends. They also need to communicate with the content experts of the courses to manage student expectations and technical needs. We had to set up a Google email account to make sure students had a place to get help.

We absolutely will see an ROI when we launch.

Their plans are based on enrollment numbers. We're at the silver level with 100 active learners. So, you're really beholden to how many learners you're going to accommodate. There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

I evaluated Thinkific, but it was nowhere near the level of features and customization that we needed.

Maybe I'm being biased, but you definitely want to hire or have a course designer with the skills of course design and the understanding of how to leverage all the features that are available in an an LMS. The other piece of advice is to be very thoughtful and intentional about your initial setup by asking how it aligns with your goals and outcomes.  For example, we needed to think about the naming conventions of each feature to match our organization. So, instead of calling them courses, we called them journeys. Instead of calling them groups, we called them communities.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution is to collaborate and work as a team to build the platform, and iterate, iterate, iterate.

We connect it to HubSpot, which is for our tracking of marketing, but in CYPHER Learning, we haven't done a lot of automation. We also haven't used the competency-based learning feature. We're very new, and we do intend to use it, but we aren't there yet. We do use gamification and badging. 

I would rate CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten.

As a reseller, our use case is for a primary school in Egypt. They use it for uploading material for the students and organizing the content throughout the year. They also use it for adding their grades in the grade book and for communication. They have also tried using the gamification and the certificates and rewarding systems in CYPHER Learning, and it has been a pretty good experience for them so far.

The school we sold the system to is pretty happy with the organization of the content and the communication with the parents that the solution provides. They were also very happy with the gamification, the automation that happens within the system when a student finishes a specific part of the content or gets a specific score.

CYPHER Learning was also an additional value for that school, something they needed as they were advertising themselves as using the latest technology in education. The system helped with that, thanks to the stability and the strong features it furnishes.

And because it's pretty organized, it helps students keep track of their standing, both in terms of the materials being covered and within the assessments that they get.

It has also helped our client school reduce administrative work. From the feedback that I have gotten, it is saving them a lot of time.

CYPHER Learning has also reduced costs related to printing materials and textbook acquisitions a lot. This is one of the reasons people are going to software. It's not because they find it is much easier. Sometimes they go for the solution because it saves on costs. That's not just true of CYPHER Learning but of many other solutions.

What I like most is the usability of the system and the many options that it has. I can make a regular course or I can have the course organized remotely. I can turn off and on any feature that I like. That's what I find most interesting. Most LMSs have a fixed template for all the courses and the whole school uses it. When it comes to younger ages, they need fewer features so there won't be a lot of hassle for the teachers and parents. That's what we can do using CYPHER Learning: Just turn off anything that we don't need in a specific course.

I can also engage with the parents or students on different levels, either via groups, within the course or the forum.

The gamification is a good feature because not all LMSs have a gaming or reward system. The leaderboard makes for competition among the students, especially from ages 10 to 15, and makes them interested in moving forward in the educational process, throughout the game. It's good because students need to be engaged more in the educational process.

I find the gamification process easy, especially if I have something in mind for the game. Many teachers also found it pretty easy, while some didn't, but they weren't familiar with using technology in general. The ones who used it regularly with the students were very satisfied with it. In the end, students using it gain points and certificates or badges, and it depends on what the teacher has in mind for the students to compete on.

It's not hard for students to use gamification because, in the end, they just have to finish the material and upload it to get a specific score on a test. They get a badge, and they can see their progress on the leaderboard. It's very rewarding.

Gamification would be much better if there were integrations with LTI tools, or if there were some built-in questions for gamification. For example, if a student achieves a specific score on a test, it would be much better if they were interactive questions added to the assignment itself from within CYPHER Learning. It would be nice if they enhanced this part of the solution. There are many platforms for gamified tests and interactive assignments and worksheets but if these features were within the system, especially the gamification part, it would be great.

For international schools in Egypt, there are certification requirements. They have to have an LMS. But for other schools, it is a value proposition. We have 100 percent face-to-face learning in Egypt, now that COVID is over. There is competition when it comes to having schools use the system and sometimes we face difficulties getting schools, in general, to support this kind of educational process. Having something like gamification helps because students are more engaged with it and are more eager to use the system. That's especially true because they are fully attending classes in the school, nothing is online anymore, other than the materials and assignments in the system. It's good to have something to catch their attention.

Also, customization of report cards is hard to handle, with the grading criteria that specific schools use. It can be done for each course, but in the end, students receive report cards or certificates for their progress throughout the term and the year and it's hard to customize these report cards. They don't have a grading scheme for the Egyptian curriculum.

In addition, if the system had some graphing abilities and not just exporting of data to Excel sheets, that would be nice. I would like to be able to run a report on something and get graphs with insightful data. In an Excel sheet, I just have to reanalyze the data.

For example, if I want to run a report on students' attendance, it doesn't have to be a number for the whole school or a sheet of numbers. It could give me some graphs on different stages or different courses. If I am analyzing a student's time spent within a course, I would like to see how many hours he spent compared to other students. It would help if there were an analytical part to the data obtained from the system.

Also, I have to do a lot of clicking to reach something. When I go back, it just closes all that I did. It collapses everything. It doesn't make it hard to use, but it's disturbing to have to do all those clicks.

We studied the product before we finally started introducing it into the Egyptian market in 2021. There is a school contracted with us for it right now so I have almost one year of user experience. We provide training on the system and technical support for the school.

We are a reseller of educational solutions, both hardware and software. They can be learning management systems, school management systems, and interactive, live panels. Sometimes we sell full solutions to a school, and we provide training and follow-up throughout the year. The Egyptian market is a bit hard to compete in, but not many companies resell these products here.

Solutions like these have gone viral with COVID-19 and schools need support and onsite training for the teachers, and this is what we've been providing for the past 12 years.

It's a pretty good product. In our company, we only resell three products, and CYPHER Learning is one of them. It's pretty reliable and it has a lot of features.

It could be used on many sites, and it will be even better once we have more schools interested in deploying LMSs in their schools. From what I have seen of the system, it could even be used in colleges and universities.

We are involved in implementing CYPHER Learning. First, we open the account and then pay for the license. Then, we start putting the data of the school on the system. We give them the courses, the users, the links for parents and students, and we start helping them with uploading the material. Sometimes, we help them with the grading process, if needed.

I find the initial setup is pretty easy, but schools here have many things inside things, inside things. It becomes a complicated hierarchy. That's what makes it hard. It's easy to get it done on the system, once we figure out what we want things to look like in the end.

We did the setup ourselves. During the first term, we started getting support from CYPHER LEARNING, and it was pretty good. We learned a few points and they gave us good support.

We have evaluated many LMSs before. Some are produced locally in Egypt, some are from the greater Middle East, and some are solutions like Blackboard, Classe365, and others. I'm familiar with using different LMSs and have done comparisons between them.

We provide many products to the Egyptian market. Our customers are the ones who choose. We find that CYPHER Learning is a pretty interesting system, full of features, and it's pretty stable. I can see that the product is developing very well and covers a lot of the needs of the Egyptian market. It's also pretty easy to use, especially if you are provided the right training from the company. We feel that there are many selling points to the product.

My advice would be to organize all the work and the output so that you can see how it would be deployed in the system, and not just look for a single output. Using technology, you can have a million outputs with the same value. You can be flexible with the system, and it will give you the results that you need.

We use it for three different programs of varying sizes. For example, one of our programs currently has 2,500 students. Another has about 1,200. So, we use it for varying programs that vary from anywhere from nine months to two years.

It brings students together in one place with teaching materials. Also, it has a social capability to it by way of forums and groups. That is definitely important for our programs. There has been a lot of engagement in our programs.

It is extremely important that dates and times are exact when we follow up with students, as it keeps our students on track.

For as long as I have been working with MATRIX (for a few years now), they have the social aspect with groups. The thing that they did not have for years, until earlier this year, was a reply-all feature. I had been asking for that for years and they finally added it this year. That has been helpful because now our students are less frustrated.

We can see who has accessed the portal, but it is not very intuitive. There is an issue with MATRIX user reporting. It is not that useful a lot of the time because we see conflicting dates in the activity and login. I have tried to work with their engineers, and asked, "Well, what's the real deal here," and there is no clarity around it. However, we can tell when people have last logged in.

The user reporting is a mess. It is unclear what I will get from this report. You need to keep tweaking and trying different options in the reports, then you don't know what you will get until you run the report. That is time-consuming and unclear to the user.

The calendar system could be greatly improved. I understand MATRIX is progressing in many ways by way of focusing on integrations with other apps and the whole API world. However, it would be nice if they could revisit their basics, e.g., the calendar system and user reporting, and get those basic things that people use every day to be accurate. 

I have been using it since December 2019, which has been pretty much two years now.

On the whole, it is pretty stable, but there have been issues that keep creeping up. I have been reporting them for years, getting temporary solutions. I don't know if they are running updates on their end, but the previous solution will then fall apart. I have to report it again and they have to fix it again. This all has to do with their basics, as far as reporting and calendars.

The technical support is 50-50. You don't know what you are going to get. Sometimes they will resolve it or help you resolve it, then other times you get an answer from someone who says, "It is not capable of doing that." Then, the next day, you might get a response from another technician who says, "Oh, I am sorry. Our system actually does this quite often."

They are hands-off by way of saying, "Oh, we are unable to replicate this." This is even when I am showing them video and screenshot proof of what is happening. Quite often, they say, "Oh, we are not able to replicate this." Then, that is it. They don't really help beyond that.

I would rate the technical support as six out of 10.

Neutral

We didn't previously use another solution.

We do cycles with our programs, but I am involved in every setup.

The initial setup is straightforward in some ways. I have a background in LMS development so it is easy to set up and straightforward in that way. Some of it is not straightforward because some of the options are by way of setting up your site. They are not very clear about what they do. Or, some options are just thrown here and there in the settings. It seems not completely organized. It is like, "Well, where should we put this? Let's just put this here." Even though it doesn't quite make sense there, there isn't a lot of flexibility in terms of customizing things in MATRIX. 

Deployment time varies per program. We try to allow a lot of space for QA testing and other things. It takes about a month to deploy, but that is not necessarily eight hours a day, five days a week. I am saying a month for internal user testing. Since our programs are very extensive with a lot of materials, it does take time to set them up.

We just purchased this solution from the vendor, then it was built in-house.

There is a team for deployment and maintenance because we have so many students across a few programs. There are at least 10 people. That varies from people getting into the weeds of building the courses, working on the back-end, or just administering it.

We extensively use it since we use it to deploy our biggest selling courses or programs. It is used year-round and daily by students, and by us as well. We actually want to look at other systems or develop our own system because the cost point of MATRIX is so high. It doesn't feel like we get any value for it.

Take your time and test it out. Forecast how many users you will have. Are they going to be able to keep up with the high cost per user? I would definitely tell them to really dive in and forecast growth. See if you can keep up with this budgetary-wise.

I really want to work with our VP of technology and see about developing our own system so we can move away from MATRIX and save on profit.

I would rate this solution as seven out of 10.