Training Station recently caught up with Docebo, a Cloud E-learning provider that has released a very useful open source plug-in recently for WordPress users which will bring great benefits fro those using the Docebo platform.
What this does is allows people who use WordPress to turn their websites into a next generation electronic learning portal. On top of that, it also offers them the chance to interface the Docebo platform with any other WordPress Installation they might have.
Check out their blog here.
This is actually a very interesting integration and it will help many save time and hassle, because website owners can easily import their WordPress users into the management system Docebo offers. If they want, they can also implement a WP widget to allow users to see the courses they enrolled in within the E-learning platform. The plug-in is free and it can be downloaded from Docebo’s official website.
Docebo says they have 12,000 total activations. The company has 26 partners, with customer operations in 35 countries.
Training Station spoke recently with Docebo, to look more at this latest release, and where it fits into the company’s overall strategy.
Training Station: You’ve written that you plan on “revolutionizing the online learning market”. Do you think this is necessary and if yes, how is it going to be achieved?
Docebo: We think that an e-learning market revolution is definitely needed. Just think about the “old” E-Learning approach, the “project”. It has lots of disadvantages, like long time to market, high costs and time-expensive deployment. Now we are promoting the E-Learning “service” that is much more affordable (thanks to the cloud technology) and really fast to be deployed (thanks to the “as a service” approach).
We have also worked to simplify our Docebo E-Learning platform, by creating an effective E-Learning ecosystem: the LMS is in fact connected to an Online Marketplace of courses and an App Marketplace as well. The first one allows companies to buy directly online courses and deliver them to their employees. The second one is designed to let corporates enhance the Docebo LMS features: by this way we can keep the product simple, and give the opportunity to add features on demand.
This is what we’re revolutionizing. We want to offer an effective product to companies of any size, while E-Learning was previously related only to Large Enterprises. Docebo Cloud is designed to satisfy both SMB and Big companies training needs, we’re opening the “training technologies” also to small organizations because they need training as well, and they can benefit from E-Learning advantages too!
TS: Are there plans for expanding on other platforms and not just WP?
Docebo: Docebo is already integrated with the Google Apps. We’re now focusing a lot about integrations, because “integrations” allow us to (once again) keep the product simple. For example: why should we create an ad-hoc videoconference system for our LMS, if you – as a company – are already using your favourited one? So, by integrating your videoconference system we allow you to continue using what you like – seamlessly – with your Docebo E-Learning platform.
Our Apps Marketplace will be the key point of our integration strategy. Our customers can access it and find integrations for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Twitter. And we’ll be releasing soon new integrations for Google Analytics and Vivocha (a live help software). Videoconferences software will be integrated within the next weeks, and we already have 6 big names on our list.
TS: How is the WordPress “open source” LMS integration plug-in fitting your strategy overall strategy?
Docebo: Docebo was formerly an open source software, but we’ve found some huge limitations about OS (first of all, lots of hidden costs for consultancy, IT set-up and maintenance). But we still love the OS world, and this is why we have released the plug-in under an Open Source license: we like the collaborative way, and we want to give the WP developers the opportunity to freely access the plug-in, work on it and enhance its functionalities.
Regarding our overall strategy, we see WordPress as one of the best CMS on the market (docebo.com is built on WP!) and we know that many companies are using it for their website. So, why don’t we let them transform this website into an advanced E-Learning platform? With a minimum effort they are now able to optimize their training service and manage everything from their WP portal.
