October 2, 2014
WordPress Learning Management Systems: Question Banks for All
If you're looking to build a WordPress learning management system, then it's likely you'll need a question bank, and now you can, with key plugin support.
WordPress LMS Plugins lacked Question Banks
Earlier this year, in February and March, I did a review of the top WordPress learning management system (LMS) plugins available.
One of the things I noticed was that quiz support, serious support for random quizzes from banks of questions, was lacking across the board.
Within a month, WooThemes rolled out a new version of Sensei (1.5) that supported a "bank" of questions that you could use as a pool to pick from for the creation of random quizzes.
The following month LearnDash also rolled out a new version (1.3) that also supported this feature.
At the same time, I jumped on a call with Lisa League who runs QPractice - the best and leading online prep system for helping interior designers pass their National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) exam.
She has pools of questions (some of them are over 600 questions) and needs to create tests with random selections of these questions to make sure her customers are fully prepared to pass the NCIDQ on their first try.
She'd already invested so much in WP Courseware that what she hoped for was a question bank feature like both Sensei & LearnDash had just rolled out. Except maybe even more powerful.
She had, after all, real world examples she could share with them.
Great News - now everyone has it!
I've told you that I fully support the idea of patronage with plugins - where individuals invest in "sponsoring" development of features that will be made available to everyone.
Well the good news is that both Lisa and I invested in bringing this functionality to WP Courseware and it's now available as part of version 3.0.
Now, all three major LMS plugins for WordPress will support banks of questions being used as repositories that can be accessed to create random quizzes.
Even better news
The best news, related to WP Courseware, is that 3.0 is more than just support for quiz banks. They've also just rolled out timed quizzes, as well as the ability for students to print out (PDF) their own quiz results.
Anytime we see these platforms improving we should all cheer. Because it puts pressure on every one of the competing platforms to get better and better.
In fact, I just heard (the other day) of a new competitor - LifterLMS. So I'll soon have to take it out for a spin.
But right now, what I want you to do is go check out all the cool new stuff that's getting rolled out with WP Courseware (3.0).
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About the Author
Chris Lema has spent twenty-five years in tech leadership, product development, and coaching. He builds AI-powered tools that help experts package what they know, build authority, and create programs people pay for. He writes about AI, leadership, and motivation.
