Have you ever wondered how much your multi-tool education technology stack is actually costing you? More importantly, are the costs more than you should be paying? If you look deeper into the long-term cost of managing multiple disparate platforms, adopted as patchwork to meet urgent edtech needs, you might find that your learning platform is draining your business of money. Schools and higher educational institutions are working to de-duplicate data storage and technologies with all-in-one learning platforms, using true Return on Instruction and Investment (ROII) as a deciding factor.
The Hidden Costs of a Fragmented Tech Stack
A study of IT professionals found that they spend 7 hours a week dealing with complex tools and switching between applications. Schools and universities worldwide have accumulated technical debt by extending their technical stacks with a buy-when-needed approach to learning tools as budgets shrink. UNESCO is concerned that the distribution of learning tools at scale, without evidence of their efficacy, could have paved the way for sub-standard products to reach the masses. You might be paying multiple vendors for licenses, maintenance, and support fees. All these lower the ROII, as investment is focused on non-value-adding technologies.
The cost could be much higher in the digital learning context, where administrators and teachers usually have lower technical skills. The time spent shifting mentally back to productive tasks is essentially time wasted. However, costs, such as man hours to perform administrative tasks, ensure data consistency, and the time educators spend navigating the complex maze of disparate tools, remains hidden in most cases. This constitutes the loss of instructional time.
Moreover, the cost of training administrative and educational personnel is bound to multiply as you expand to newer markets. This is why digital learning platform consolidation via all-in-one learning platforms is gaining traction among districts and learning institutions.
The World Economic Forum suggests using standardized metrics to evaluate the quality of learning tools. Regulatory tightening, deepening oversight, and intensified monitoring are set to reveal the educational, social, financial, and environmental impact of edtech platforms. A transition to consolidated digital learning platforms that adhere to learning, interoperability, data privacy, and accessibility standards have become indispensable for edtechs and educational publishers to stay competitive.
The Benefits of Digital Learning Platform Consolidation
There are several advantages of migrating to an all-in-one learning platform:
Streamlined Operations
EdTech platforms that do not have to load tools from diverse sources run faster. There is reduced overlap in functionalities and data redundancy. A single source of truth also facilitates better analytics. Minimal switching time via a consolidated dashboard reduces administrative overload and boosts teacher efficiency. Most importantly, students do not have to juggle between a multitude of apps with a unified learning platform. This increases engagement and focus on learning. Consolidated learning platforms equipped with solutions designed specifically for educational publishers streamline course authoring and distribution, further improving operational efficiency and reducing time to market.
Reduced Costs
The reduction in licensing fees, maintenance fees to different vendors, and integration efforts are apparent savings with all-in-one learning platforms. The cost savings extend to reduced need for IT staff, and lower training costs to enable teachers and administrators to use the eLearning platform optimally. A consolidated edtech platform with centralized resources and efficient management allows effortless scaling of learning infrastructure. There is no need to work on extending the capacity of every single tool, which saves on testing and accelerates time-to-market.
Elevated User Experience
One of the key benefits of digital learning platform consolidation is a unified user interface. Users can navigate the learning tools seamlessly even if new applications are added. This improves the efficiency of teachers and course authors. Effortless navigation improves usability and elevates learning experiences. It minimizes distraction during a session. All-in-one educational platforms reduce the number of entry points, improving learning environment security. This offers users a heightened sense of online safety and privacy.
The Ideal Solution
Technology synchronization requires assessing the existing tool kit, identifying the gaps and best-fit items, and planning expansion by integrating more best-fit items. However, this could be overwhelming, especially with the need for business continuity and the breadth of use of learning tools. This is where the MagicBox™ all-in-one learning platform comes to the rescue. With cutting-edge content authoring, distribution, learning, and assessment solutions, this platform is a one-stop solution for edtechs, educational publishers, and educational institutions.
Embedded with compliance, such as with FERPA, COPPA, GDPR, WCAG 2.0, LTI, SCORM, etc., the platform improves the chances of state adoption. Plus, powerful security and DRM tools ensure the protection of resources and users’ privacy. It offers role-based, domain-based, and timed access controls to manage users. This helps protect the learning content from piracy and misuse while allowing teachers to assign modules as and when required.
Cloud-based, centralized data centers help minimize redundancies and eliminate inconsistencies. This improves analytical capabilities and accuracy of insights gained from the edtech platform.
In addition, the API-based all-in-one educational platform seamlessly integrates with diverse third-party tools to provide educational institutions the flexibility to choose their preferred support tools.
To succeed in the intensely competitive educational space, you must focus on efficacy and scalability along with cost savings. This is possible with digital learning platform consolidation, which also supports growth and expansion to newer markets. Schedule a free live demo with the Magic team to experience how an all-in-one education platform transforms teaching and learning experiences while reducing costs and improving operational efficiency.
