Online Education software

Nowadays, a significant amount of my time is invested in finding software solutions for the online model of education. The key requirements for such systems are broadly following:

1. Good video streaming (Not necessarily two-way)

2. Interactive Whiteboard facility

3. Attendance system

4. User management

5. Fees/Enquiry management

6. Administrative reports

7. Quiz/Test grading system

8. Recording and delayed view functionality

9. Multiple host/Multiple Live session 

10. Chat/Polls/Share files/Mute all type of features

I along with my other team members investigated multiple tools offered for video streaming, online meetings, and customized solutions for coaching. There is no one tool that caters to all the features. Broadly one can divide the tools into two categories. Branded global tool and Local custom tools.

Branded Global Tools: This includes G Suit product, Adobe Connect, Webex, and Zoom.

The video streaming features are more or less similar in all the four tools. The final choice depends on the relative importance of various exclusive features offered in each product set. However, a comprehensive evaluation indicates the following order. G Suit ~ Adobe Connect > Webex > Zoom. 

G Suit provides an integrated solution of Google Classroom and Google Meet which solves almost all the requirements except that all the students/participants should have same domain.

Adobe Connect provides a very good flash-based solution for web streaming, whiteboard, and other features. The main challenge is if student has to submit the assignment later then there is no classroom-type feature available here.

Webex is also good for corporate style meetings but the issue is you need to buy different licenses for different products. 

And for Zoom, it is made in China so it is any way out of the question.

The Local solutions were Vidu Tech, Class Plus, and Collabspace. The key challenge in all three is they do not have their own cloud. They host your videos and portal on AWS and other servers. Hence the business model is often pay per hour or pay per view. It contains hidden costs and only suitable for 100 lectures, 200 students type setup. Hence it is not desirable.

Overall my experience is Google rocks. Go for G Suit and if not then the second best is Adobe Connect. Will keep you posted about the rest.