CYPHER

My use case for CYPHER Learning is multi-purpose; I use it as a flipped classroom learning model within the classroom, where I get to have my students work synchronously, but also asynchronously on separate assignments. My students can work from home or in another space, so online and physically in the classroom.

The solution has positively impacted my organization and my work because student engagement has skyrocketed in my classroom since I began using CYPHER Learning. I started using CYPHER Learning before Google Classroom even existed, and I continued to use CYPHER Learning even after Google Classroom was launched. The benefits it offers are unmatched and unparalleled compared to anything else available. Student engagement and participation have been exceptional.

CYPHER Learning saves a significant amount of time and resources. It cuts down on the amount of time I spend creating new content once my courses are set up. With AI-driven course creation, even more time can be saved. I have built up this course content over the years, and CYPHER Learning has helped me adjust, readjust and add new content as my curriculum changes.

When it comes to CYPHER Learning's ability to align skills to course materials, the system has a mastery function and various features that allow me to tailor specific assignments to match the students' competencies. One of these features is the debate function, which enables students to answer debate questions and respond to their peers. This encourages student interactivity, creative thinking, and critical thinking, especially as I prompt students to question or challenge each other's responses respectfully. Additionally, I encourage students to include evidence in their replies. This means they not only express their own opinions but also incorporate outside material, enhancing interaction with their classmates. Overall, the entire environment I create within CYPHER Learning simplifies the process for students, allowing them to engage without needing too much external input. It is also effective for monitoring purposes. Once my students understand the expectations and how to navigate the system, everything tends to work smoothly. This approach allows them autonomy over their learning journey, making the experience enjoyable. I prefer to be a guide on the side; I prepare all the material in advance so that I can circulate the room. If I need to spend extra time with one group, I can do so knowing that the other students are capable of working independently without any issues. In summary, the curriculum aligns well with my teaching goals.

I have utilized several Google functions with CYPHER Learning, which helps with ease of getting into the system, including single sign-ons and creating assignments using Google Docs or slides, which I find to be really great. I spend about a week training my students on the ins and outs of CYPHER Learning, with the first day dedicated to immersing them in the system with assignments that match curriculum objectives.

The best features of CYPHER Learning that I enjoy most include the course management system, gamification, blogging, and debating tools that cater to increasing creative thinking, creative writing, and problem-solving. Gamification and these specific tools make it easy for my students to navigate and manage numerous courses within one class while keeping up with my standards for my curriculum, where my students can see their mastery and performance on assignments. I find it extremely beneficial because our curriculum in schools is data-driven. This allows me to easily obtain data from the content-specific standards assigned to each assignment. I can assess what concepts I need to review and identify what the students have mastered. This transparency also enables the students to see their own progress.

One of the areas that I believe CYPHER Learning could improve on is having a saving function as you type in, much as some Google products. That would really help in my classroom because we do a lot of writing, and if that's not saved properly, students may have to redo their work. I would also love to see more integration with other third-party tools I tend to use.

I've been using CYPHER Learning for over a decade, starting back in 2010, which makes it close to 15, going on 16 years.

I would rate CYPHER Learning a 9.9 out of 10 for stability because I rarely have any issues with the system, which is why I have used it for so long. Before using CYPHER Learning, I tried other products that were unstable and did not meet my classroom needs.

For scalability, I would rate CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten because it is built to cater to a few to many users.

CYPHER Learning is basically student-driven; I have anywhere from 100 to over 100 users each year, and I sometimes teach multiple grades. I'm in the process of sharing more about CYPHER Learning with other teachers, hoping that number could increase.

I would rate the customer and technical support for CYPHER Learning a nine out of ten. They are pretty responsive to situations or issues within the system, and solutions are already being worked on by the time I look through issues other customers are facing. This reliability is really important for keeping the system running effectively in a classroom of close to 30 students.

The deployment of CYPHER Learning is extremely simple for me; I've had no issues setting up and getting students ready each school year. Basic maintenance such as archiving students has been a really simplified process.

In terms of the time it takes to train and onboard students, each year, I spend a week immersing my students in the system. Typically, on the first day, I introduce a scavenger hunt of sorts. This isn't just a worksheet where they write answers; instead, it's a hands-on experience. For instance, I give them step-by-step tasks to complete, allowing them to engage with the assignments right away. These tasks are aligned with our curriculum objectives, so they're effectively working on relevant material from day one. Throughout the week, I focus on solidifying their understanding and integration into the system. For students who are already familiar with platforms like Google Classroom or Canvas, I use this week to help them adapt. Fortunately, the system is visually appealing and user-friendly, which generally means that by the end of the first day, they are excited and ready to dive in. Each subsequent day builds on what they learned initially, helping them to improve gradually. As the week progresses, I introduce additional elements to prepare them for the work we will do for the rest of the year.

CYPHER Learning has helped me reduce my course creation time by about 70%. Once you're in the ecosystem and building, each year you tweak and fine-tune rather than starting from scratch, utilizing templates that I've created for specific courses while adapting them as needed to fit my curriculum direction.

The pricing for CYPHER Learning is on par with other solutions. I've been a single user of the system for a while and priced out several other options, and it's probably standard pricing if not maybe a little bit lower, around the range of other similar systems such as Moodle.

I have compared CYPHER Learning to other solutions on the market. CYPHER Learning really stands out. My students love the interfacing. It provides a unique, different experience that makes it more engaging and encourages interaction, unlike standard Google Classroom or even Canvas-based learning management systems. It just feels more welcoming and user-friendly from the initial use for my students.

I absolutely recommend CYPHER Learning to other users. My students really connect with it because it doesn’t resemble anything else available. The ease of use, the autonomy it provides my students, and the flexibility it offers teachers to create their own ecosystem within CYPHER Learning—all of this aligns with the curriculum in a unique way. So, I absolutely value autonomy, flexibility, and ease of use.

I would rate it a ten out of ten because it has completely transformed my teaching approach in the classroom. It has given me the confidence to experiment and engage more actively in learning, rather than having my students struggle with figuring out how to use it. From day one, they catch on quickly! Instead of spending time learning the system, my students use that time to engage more deeply with the content, resulting in unmatched levels of student engagement with CYPHER Learning.

I truly love it. It creates a beautiful and wonderful learning experience for everyone involved. I feel like it’s an extension of myself because I’ve invested so much into the system. When my students interact with it, it feels like they are interacting with me. One of my classroom themes is "Adventure Time," and my system in CYPHER is called "Mimsie 101," making it "Adventures with Mimsie 101." I absolutely love CYPHER Learning. The confidence it gives me is evident to my students, who then become equally engaged and enthusiastic about the system. I can’t say enough good things about it!

 My overall rating for CYPHER Learning is a ten out of ten.

We utilize it for the Music ConstructED Business, a department within West Music, which collaborates with elementary music teachers and their professional development in that career field. We offer various courses and resources for purchase. The primary focus is professional development for elementary music teachers.

One of the significant advantages is that they offer a help center and ticket support. Especially in the beginning, I was submitting tickets every week to ask how to accomplish various tasks. It was incredibly helpful to have someone there to guide us. We received around ten hours of onboarding training, which helped us understand the best practices for using the platform. If we hadn’t received that training, we would have had to backtrack to fix things according to those best practices.

CYPHER Learning  helps align skills with course materials, but a significant part of this process depends on how we design the courses. We have not utilized their AI feature for course creation because our topics are very specific. Instead, we gather information directly from various presenters who develop the courses for us. Our process is largely manual since the presenters provide the content, and we simply input it into the system. Given the specificity of the topic, it requires a human touch, especially since we are in the classroom with the students. Therefore, we choose not to use the AI feature.

We build our courses ourselves and can customize them. We enjoy how easy it is to create a course based on our needs. They have a wide variety of customization options, which we can use to make it work for our customers and our presenters.

CYPHER Learning  has significantly reduced our course creation time. Previously, we used a WordPress  plugin that required us to manually input every single course. We created courses for specific seasons and couldn’t copy existing ones, meaning we had to recreate them each time. On top of that, we were responsible for manually issuing certificates and sending out grades, which made the entire process very labor-intensive. Every  aspect required manual effort—we had to create, edit, and upload courses ourselves, and if any errors occurred, we had to fix them manually. With CYPHER Learning, that workload has been reduced by more than half. I hardly need to log into the platform to maintain it since most updates happen automatically. Now, our questions have shifted from troubleshooting access issues to inquiries about course details from potential buyers. This change has represented a significant improvement over our previous system.

Gamification and certification are the most frequently used automation in our courses. Some courses contain messages, but overall, our offerings are quite diverse. I manually build a portion of the courses using a template, which significantly reduces the time required for setup since I don’t have to input all the settings individually or in a specific order. We have a Sync feature available, but not all courses can utilize it due to their unique nature. However, for our higher education courses that are repeated each semester, I can simply duplicate the template to create new courses or sync the course from that template if there are any necessary edits. This process makes it much easier than manually editing each course individually. Currently, we have about 70 courses on the platform. Occasionally, I encounter a setting that I believe complicates the student experience. Instead of revisiting every single course, I can edit the template directly, which then applies the changes across all relevant courses. Having this ability to make adjustments at the template level has been extremely helpful.

CYPHER Learning has significantly improved our onboarding processes and users' learning curves. With our previous platform, accessing and purchasing courses was quite difficult. Now, the process is much more automated. We offer a wide variety of courses, and users can easily search through them. It's also easier for us to generate profit since users can quickly enter the platform, purchase courses, and choose from many different options. Navigating to the professional development site has become much more straightforward as well. Instead of having to follow a complicated path on our website and click specific buttons, the site now appears seamlessly. Overall, the improvements have made it much easier for our users to utilize our platform, which is fantastic.

For learners, training time has significantly decreased. They are now automatically enrolled in an onboarding course. We have utilized the platform more effectively by creating a course that helps them understand where to make purchases and reminds them that they can place purchase orders through us, as we work with schools and school districts. This course provides all the necessary answers and directs learners to the appropriate contact person. We have only received a handful of troubleshooting inquiries regarding the courses, which were typically due to incorrect settings but were easy to resolve. Previously, we would get weekly emails from users reporting issues or asking how to do something. With CYPHER Learning, the process has become much easier; we no longer deal with those types of inquiries, allowing users to reach their destinations more quickly. 

On the building side, I have been responsible for developing everything on the Learning Management System (LMS ), which required me to learn many new skills. Overall, the process was quite enjoyable. We currently don’t have anyone else who has built courses on the site. I found the learning curve to be manageable, especially thanks to the training I received from the spokesperson for CYPHER. This training enabled me to navigate the system effectively. There have been a few occasions when I had to demonstrate my work to others, as we were considering having them build a course. CYPHER's flexibility is both a benefit and a challenge. While its customizability is advantageous, our additional modifications on top of their existing features have made the system somewhat complex. I have taken the time to document my processes and showcase my work. The templates provided make the tasks much easier, but there is still a lot to understand.

We collaborate with school districts to enhance skill learning. Often, we receive substantial orders from these districts that spend thousands of dollars on professional development courses. In response, we create dedicated portals within our platform specifically for training their teachers, which has proven to be very effective. Initially, we partnered with three school districts, but that number has now grown to seven. We're also seeing more school districts approaching us for professional training for their educators, indicating a positive impact. I take pride in the professional development courses we offer.

CYPHER has significantly saved us time by streamlining the troubleshooting process. Previously, we relied on a third party to help us resolve issues, which required us to transfer information back and forth. This often led to chaos, as we had to communicate the same issues multiple times. Now, with CYPHER, all the troubleshooting is handled in-house, and all necessary customizations and automation are in place. It has made everything much easier. We no longer spend valuable time each week on certifications, automation, messaging, and troubleshooting—it's truly been a game-changer for us.

We have implemented as much automation as possible. I have set up the templates, so I only need to input the content. As we progress, we have made adjustments, and our presenters are now providing content in more effective ways, which simplifies the input process since we understand the system's capabilities. On our end, we have also improved efficiency by refining what we collect from the presenters to create the courses and by outlining the course structure from the beginning.

I have found gamification and automation features very useful. The automation is particularly beneficial because it allows us to send certifications and messages automatically when purchases occur or when users log in. When a user creates an account, they are automatically enrolled in an onboarding class, which reduces the number of questions and troubleshooting.

The primary area for improvement is the reporting between courses and eCommerce, which currently use two separate reporting styles. Information can be accessed within the courses themselves, as well as through eCommerce orders; however, these reports are separate, causing difficulties in our analysis. We need to ascertain not only the title of the course and the total revenue generated but also the timing of purchases and the identities of the purchasers. Additionally, we require the SKU associated with each course and the corresponding purchase reports. Integration between these systems would be highly beneficial since we utilize both.

Regarding integration, we have implemented the Zoom  integration; however, it does not connect with our eCommerce and accounting systems. The platform appears to be more tailored for HR training or school district purchases rather than individual consumer transactions. eCommerce integration is crucial for our needs, as we use NAV and Perfion within West Music Company. Unfortunately, it does not connect to these systems, although it does integrate with the Stripe platform. Moreover, it does not connect to HubSpot, our CRM  platform, which requires us to enter data manually due to its compatibility with a different type of business than what CYPHER typically accommodates. CYPHER is usually designed for schools. 

We launched it in June last year after starting to explore it in November of that year. It has been over a year since then.

I cannot recall any stability-related issues. In our previous system, we encountered many issues, but I do not remember experiencing lagging or similar problems with CYPHER Learning.

They respond quickly, usually within 24 hours, and provide solutions within 36 hours. Overall, their responsiveness is commendable. Since our platform is different from what they're used to, some clarification was necessary. However, they offered a solution or an alternative path for our needs about ninety percent of the time.

I would rate their service a nine out of ten. The only reason it's not a perfect score is that there were some limitations on the platform regarding the specific tasks we were trying to accomplish. Aside from that, they effectively resolved nearly everything for us.

Positive

Previously, we used a WordPress  plugin and had to manually input each course and its duplicates for different seasons. Certificates, grades, and courses required manual input and editing. CYPHER automated much of this, reducing the need for troubleshooting and enhancing our efficiency significantly.

The setup process was mixed for me. I found it relatively easy because I started from the beginning and spent several hours learning the platform. I went through the process of adding sample courses and ensured we set everything up correctly on the first try. Thanks to the time I invested in learning, troubleshooting various issues, and submitting numerous support tickets, the entire experience has been smooth. I now find it easy to understand how to create courses.

CYPHER is highly customizable, which means there are many options to explore. Initially, it was a bit overwhelming to navigate through everything they offer. I am very hands-on and can learn quickly when I can physically engage with the material. However, for someone new to the platform, there is a lot to grasp in order to fully understand how it works. I make an effort to document my processes to explain what I am doing, but for anyone unfamiliar with my work, it could still be quite complex despite my documentation.

CYPHER handles all maintenance, including any updates related to content. The system itself is fully managed by them, which is great because it relieves us of that responsibility. Whenever I encounter an error that I don’t understand, I simply submit a ticket, and they take care of it, which is fantastic.

We had a trainer named Helen who guided us in the beginning. Afterwards, we had support from Jeremy, who assisted us when we needed help from a specific person. Most of the time, I would start by submitting a ticket to see if someone could assist me. If I didn't get the help I needed, we would reach out to either Helen or Jeremy. Occasionally, they would inform us that they were already working on an update and would need a couple of months to complete it. Overall, they have a strong development team.

I did not negotiate the pricing, but from what I gathered, it was a significant purchase for us at West Music. We recognize its value and potential for growth, making it worthwhile. 

I would rate CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten, primarily due to integration issues. If it were more seamlessly integrated with our eCommerce and accounting systems, it would be perfect. Currently, we have to manually input each order into our system, which is not ideal. Aside from that, it is a great platform. It is highly customizable and easy to work with.

We use it as a learning management system (LMS ). I create our e-classes in the LMS  and also upload them. All our classes and students are in CYPHER Learning.

We are able to offer flexible learning. After the pandemic, classes are 50% on-site and 50% online, eliminating the need for more classrooms. We did not go fully face-to-face after the pandemic. We went to blended learning, so we do not have to create more classrooms.

It has saved us a lot of printing costs and effort because we do not have to print the syllabus anymore. Our syllabus is on average 12 pages long and if a student takes seven courses, it will be around 84 pages. We have around 10,000 students. You can imagine the volume of paper that we had to print. We do not do that anymore. We were also printing handouts before. We do not print them as well.

With CYPHER Learning, we are able to offer fully online courses. We have a degree completion program for students who left school because of some reason and could not finish their degrees. They are now working and do not have time to come back to school and attend classes. With CYPHER Learning, we were able to reach out to them and offer them fully online classes. They do not have to come to school physically. They can follow their courses online, and they are able to finish their degrees. For us, that is a big plus because we are able to help our former students finish their degrees with CYPHER Learning.

For every course, in the syllabus, aside from the learning plan, we also have the learning outcomes for the skills. We align every lesson with the learning outcome. We are able to do every assessment and exam within the platform. We are able to align lessons, assessments, and learning outcomes and check if the learning outcomes have been achieved.

When it comes to AI, as a university, we created our AI policy just this year, and we are slowly rolling it out to the faculty members and students. For the teachers, we have subscribed to CYPHER Copilot. We have not yet rolled it out to all the faculty members. We have picked a few teachers to use it to create complete courses, especially for the subjects that are offered for the first time. We also offer creative courses that run for a few weeks, and we use Copilot for that. One thing I like about it is that we do not have to start from scratch. We can give it a syllabus to create the lessons. It was fairly accurate. We loved the outcomes, but it is not 100% there. After creating the course, we still have some work to do. However, before AI, it took us months to create a complete course, whereas now, it would not take that long because it has already created some of the things for us. We just need to add or remove a few things. It has done about 80% of the job and we have to do the remaining 20%.

We have integrated it with Microsoft 365. The integration is seamless and perfect. We can create things like webinars. Within the module itself, we can create a schedule for a meeting. We can also create one on the announcement or news page. We can create a meeting there, and everyone has access to it. The storage for Microsoft 365, in OneDrive, is also integrated there. It is very easy to access the files from OneDrive from the platform.

It has saved our course creation time by a lot. We can create a complete course in ten minutes. Previously, it took us months.

It has been excellent for us. I am the director of the Center for Innovative Learning Programs, and this is the office that manages CYPHER Learning. Before becoming the director, I was a Learning supervisor. To train our teachers, we have face-to-face learning and also self-paced training. We created these training courses in our platform, which we call Schoolbook. Other teachers have the option to do face-to-face or online training. Some prefer face-to-face training, while others prefer online training. With CYPHER Learning, we are able to provide that option. It is being utilized 100% by our faculty members. Everyone, our students and faculty members, uses this platform. It is not just for uploading our lessons or lesson contents or conducting assessments. It has also become a communication platform for everyone. If there are school announcements, we put them there. For example, announcements of no classes are shown on the platform. Also, if some offices want to tell the community about something, they give it to us and we announce it on the platform. It is not just for classes but also for communication and collaboration with the community.

The structure and organization of the modules are valuable. Previously, we printed our syllabus and modules and gave them to our students. We also had pen-and-paper quizzes. We do not do that anymore. It is all there in the LMS. It is very easy to access it, so accessibility is a very good feature. We can access it anytime, anywhere. Our students can easily access the lessons on the platform. We can also conduct online quizzes. There are 15 or 16 assessment types. We are not limited to just quizzes. We can also have essays. We can have debates, discussions, etc.

There is room for improvement in the CYPHER Learning mobile application because my students have given feedback that they are not using the mobile app as it takes time to open. I also use the app. For me, it is easier to use than using the browser, but some of the students do not use it because it takes a very long time to open. Most of our students are using smartphones. Some students do not have laptops, so if the mobile app is more responsive, it would be a great help for us.

The peer feedback feature is not user-friendly. Some of our faculty members were very happy when CYPHER gave the news that there is already a peer feedback feature because we were asking for it, but when they used it, they found it complicated and not user-friendly. They were disappointed with the peer feedback feature. When students submit their outputs, we want their classmates to give feedback as well, but that is not very easy to use. After I tried it, I also did not find it very friendly to use.

They have this assessment type where we can group our students. We create groups, and they can work and collaborate with the group. While grading the submissions of the groups, although we can see that the students are separated by groups, we still have to grade them one by one. We would like a way to grade the group as one. For example, if there are five members in a group, currently, we give each member a grade. It would be easier to be able to give the same grade to all the members of the group. The team assessment feature could be improved to allow grading the group as one.

I have been using it since 2010. It was not yet CYPHER learning. It was EDU 2.0. It was the beginning of CYPHER Learning, and at the start, we were there with them.

I have not experienced any glitches. When teachers and students report a glitch with the platform, upon checking ourselves, we find that it is not really a glitch. It is usually the user's fault. If they say that the computation of the grades is not correct, when we check their grade configuration, it is a mistake on their end. Sometimes the user does not know how to use it. That is where the problem surfaces, but we are able to help them and correct whatever error they encounter. We can do it at our end in the university. If our office cannot handle it, we contact the CYPHER support forum.

I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability. We are happy with the platform.

It is very scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

In the beginning, it was not easy to convince people to use the online platform. Only 20% of our faculty members were really using it. Before the pandemic, we were already using the blended modality with 50% online and 50% on-site. When the pandemic struck, we were able to get everyone on board. We had no choice. The skeptics now see the value of using the platform.

When I started in 2010, there were just a few faculty members. For the training, it took one semester to get everyone on board. After the free version, when we started subscribing, we had to again upscale and retrain the faculty because we were able to use all the features in the platform. We now do training every semester every year because, for newly hired faculty, we have to train them every semester. For those who already know how to use the platform, if CYPHER has updates, we inform them of the new updates.

Now that we are in blended mode, we are also conducting online assessments. Now we are using Proctor360, which is a remote proctoring tool, and it is integrated with CYPHER Learning. When we were deciding on which proctoring tool to use, it was easy. Proctor360 was an easy choice because it was already integrated with CYPHER.

Last semester, we had more than 9,000 students, including graduate school. We manage the CYPHER platform, but we are not IT. We are professors from different fields. I am a philosophy professor. In our team, we have two members who are IT professors, but they are not IT. The rest are from the psychology department and physics department. None of us are in IT. For us, that is a good thing because we are able to encourage our faculty members. They do not have to be an IT person to be able to use the platform. It is user-friendly. We are all teachers, and this tool is very easy to use. It helps us in delivering our lessons.

Their support channel is easy to use. When I ask a question, they answer in a few minutes, any time of the day. I would rate them a ten out of ten. It is the best.

Positive

We have not tried other learning management systems. Personally, when I enroll in online classes, I see other schools using Canvas and Blackboard. I have seen them, but CYPHER Learning is still the best for me because I can customize it. Canvas is very simple, but it is not as beautiful as CYPHER Learning. We can be really creative with CYPHER Learning. When you create a module in CYPHER learning, you can customize the module cover. You can have the description, and if you have ten modules in the course, you can see all the different cover pages of the module related to the topic. In other LMSs, such as in Canvas, that does not seem possible.

Before CYPHER Learning , we also tried to have an in-house solution. My IT created an in-house platform like an LMS, but it had very limited features.

Return on investment is high, about 60% to 70%. During the pandemic, CYPHER Learning saved us. We were already using it before the pandemic. When the pandemic struck, everyone was forced to go online, but it was not a difficult time for us because we were already using it. When we transitioned to fully online, it was easy for us. We did not have to stop our services. We continued to offer our education. We continued to offer our services to our students, and we were able to survive the pandemic with the help of CYPHER. Other schools in the Philippines had to close because they did not have an online facility. They did not know what an LMS was. They did not have time to train their teachers, but for us, it was smooth sailing. 

We even gave our time to train teachers in other schools because there were some schools that did not know how to use an LMS. So aside from training our own teachers, we went out of our way to help other schools. When they asked us which LMS to use and which one we were using, we told them CYPHER Learning. It is very easy. Because we were using CYPHER Learning before, we were able to help not only ourselves but also others. We are glad about that.

It is deployed in the cloud. We are subscribed to CYPHER, and they take care of the maintenance for us. It being on the cloud saves us a lot. Before CYPHER Learning, we tried to have an in-house solution. Our IT created an in-house platform like LMS, but it had very limited features. We were just able to upload content. In the long term, it would not have been good for us because it could get expensive. That is why we decided to subscribe to CYPHER Learning. We do not have to buy additional hardware or train additional IT for the maintenance, etc. We are able to save on the personnel, hardware, servers, etc. If we have problems with the platform, CYPHER support is very easy to contact.

It is cheap for us. We started with CYPHER Learning, and then when our contract was finished, we needed to undergo a bidding process. We had to look at other LMSs as well and compare it with them. Its price convinced us to stay with CYPHER Learning. The cost is low, but the quality is excellent. The lower price compared to other LMSs makes it perfect for us.

I would recommend it to everyone looking for an LMS. We have done it before at the time of the pandemic when schools were asking which LMS to use and whether it was user-friendly and affordable. We told them that it is very user-friendly and very affordable. Even small schools can easily afford CYPHER Learning. We have no issues with its scalability. We even offer schools our help. Whenever they need some trainers, I even offer schools help by providing trainers for free.

Overall, I would rate CYPHER Learning a ten out of ten. For me, it is excellent.

I am an instructional designer, and my job is to build courses and integrate them into CYPHER Learning . I have a person who works for me as the administrator and is responsible for enrolling people in the course and tracking their progress.

We needed a learning management system to track our users. We have about 5,000 users online. We did not start that big, but we had to track their learning through many courses.

Our company also enables schools, typically in the secondary and higher education markets, to teach the courses that we design. We needed them to be able to have a layer of administrative control that allowed them to teach the courses but not change the courses. Having different administrative levels or user permissions was very important to us.

We are very happy with the interoperability of CYPHER Learning with other solutions. We have found them to be very responsive whenever we need anything. We have used it with Credly, which is a digital badging software. We have integrated it with HubSpot, which is a client resource management software, and we also host our website on that. We were able to do that. We have also integrated it with a company called GMetrix, which is a third-party testing solution through LTI features.

We have not used CYPHER Learning internally for onboarding clients. It is our core product that we sell to other companies, and it has been very useful in onboarding teachers and things like that. Its tracking features and reporting features are very helpful. It is a very intuitive learning management system, and the experience has been positive.

It saves us on manpower, especially on reporting and calculations, as we used to do things with spreadsheets. That was very manpower-intensive. The reporting features are very good.

I do most of my development in a product called Articulate Rise  360. It handles the SCORM packaging. Having the SCORM packaging and the ability to move that SCORM packaging in is my number one feature. 

We also use a lot of the API features to work with other service providers. We use Credly and things like that. These features are very useful.

The user interface looks dated compared to more modern learning management systems, which are really clean. There is so much functionality that it almost becomes too much for the user, so the user interface could be improved. 

When I build modules within the learning management system, sometimes I want to move some of the things between the modules. I would love to be able to just drag them. Currently, I can drag within a module, but I cannot drag between modules.

I have used CYPHER Learning for ten years. We have been with them since the beginning of our company.

It has been impressively stable for the amount of usage we have, with about 5,000 users and our presence in multiple states.

It is very scalable. We have not yet hit limitations.

We have a pretty good relationship with them. They are very fast at responding to our initial query, and they usually solve a problem within the week. We do not ever have any problems with day-to-day issues. We usually contact them to connect it to another software.

Positive

I have used many learning management systems, including Canvas, Blackboard, and iSpring. CYPHER Learning far outperforms some of the more basic ones. They have a lot more functionality and outperform the big ones in the field by cost. That was one of the reasons we settled on them. They had the functionality we wanted, and they were priced affordably for a solution.

I do most of my development in Articulate Rise  360. We did try the Copilot feature of CYPHER Learning for course creation, but we found a better solution in Articulate.

We are using a cloud. Its initial setup is very easy. 

You could start your first course and launch within a day. It is very easy.

Its maintenance is being taken care of by CYPHER. All we have to do is administration.

It is a one-person job.

I am happy with it. It is very well priced.

There is a bit of a learning curve with it. They do have a good resource library that helps. I am always learning new features with it. Somebody can build a basic course and use the basic LMS functionality almost immediately. Some of the more advanced things would take a little longer.

I advise users to use the knowledge base inside CYPHER Learning. There is a way to access it by clicking the little question mark in a box. It feels daunting at first because of the amount of information that is there, but you can solve pretty much all of your problems that way. 

Overall, I would rate CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten.

We use CYPHER Learning  as our learning management system, our LMS . Our training courses are housed there, and that is how we do our reporting. 

We also use it alongside an external content creation tool called Articulate 360 . We create content in Articulate 360, and then through the SCORM packaging, we put that on CYPHER Learning as well. So, we use the material that CYPHER created for us, and we also use third-party content that we put on there.

We are a wound care company. Our company has been around for 30 years, but prior to a year ago, when I started, they did not have a trainer like me. They did not have somebody heading the training department. They were a small company with 150 people working. It was a very small organization in terms of number of employees. They did not have the need to have something like this. There was only a revenue cycle department and a handful of clinicians out in the field at the nursing homes. Our business is wound care at long-term facilities, nursing homes, wound care clinics, and things like that. People who go in are basically on Medicare Part B. That was our main business, and we grew exponentially over the last 12 months. Those 150 employees have now turned into 800 in a year. We have opened up several different arms of our business. We do not just have nursing homes; we also manufacture our own goods. We also started a direct delivery department, which is like a mini Amazon. We have warehouses strategically placed around the country so that they are not more than 24 hours away from a facility to deliver. With CYPHER Learning, we have been able to create different organizations depending on who the person is, where they work, and what their skill sets are. We have different departments, so they are going to have different skill sets and different training needs. We were able to create these different organizations, and depending on their role, we have been able to easily create courses and then put them in their little pockets of where they work. When they go into the catalog, they can see the relevant courses that they need to take. It has been easy for that.

We are also doing a big push on leadership. We created a Leadership Academy, and a nice thing about CYPHER Learning is that it has allowed me to create paths or a package of courses within a course. The Leadership Academy has 14 courses within that one course. A nice thing is that it tells you the competencies based on the material. That is something I never had before, and I have been doing this for years. It is just amazing how it tells you how many competencies are there and what those competencies are. If somebody wants to know what they are taking away from these courses, I can show them a list of 105 competencies that they are gaining from taking the courses and successfully passing the test.

Another thing I like about it is that as a trainer, it gives me the ability to not only easily put these courses on, but also when they are done, go in and dissect the person who took them and find out what those strengths are by the scoring of their tests and the competencies they have gained based on their scoring. It has helped me drive their career. For example, they might not be in the right field, so we will look at changing them to a different department or division based on their skill sets. It is all based on their scoring and the courses that they take. That helps me a lot. It is not a one-man show here. I have somebody who works part-time as an admin, but when you have 800 people and you are the one person putting this together, it is not easy, but CYPHER Learning makes it easy for me to dissect people's skills. I have had several people come up to me. In the last month alone, I have gotten a dozen nice emails that are to the president of the company and myself saying how much they like all the courses and how easy it is to take them. It is a game-changer for us. We are now able to open it up to the outside. We have created a wound certification course that has been recognized by the California Board of Nursing for continuing education credits, and it is all on CYPHER. We are able to keep it separate so that when people log in, they cannot see the rest of our catalog. They just see the course that we want them to take. That is nice too. I am glad CYPHER has allowed us to do that. It opened up a lot for us and helped us put our name out there. We are a leader in wound care at this point because of what we have been able to do through CYPHER. It has been a game-changer for us.

CYPHER Learning allows me to put in courses from another content learning tool. Through SCORM, it is so easy. You just have to type in a couple of things, maybe change a picture, for the catalog, and then it goes in very easily. I can create things outside and easily bring them into CYPHER Learning. For the user, it is seamless. They do not know the difference. I love CYPHER Learning for what we use it for, and I do not want to use any other LMS. It is easier for our admins and users.

There has been exponential improvement in our organization. We had our Christmas party on Saturday, and the speeches given in front of hundreds of people were about our learning platform, how great it has been, and how amazing this system has been. It has been a complete game-changer for our company to have our learning platform with CYPHER Learning. We started out with five to ten courses in the first couple of months, and I have been able to put in 132 courses now. We have been able to add so many courses, so many great videos, and so many great things. People just love it. They absolutely love it, and they cannot stop talking about it. I had so many people come up to me on Saturday and tell me how much they loved it.

It has been very helpful with the onboarding process. It is very easy for us to put someone starting new. We have something called a revenue cycle, where they intake people, and it goes all the way to billing and collections. It is a whole cycle of things that billing goes through with Medicare Part B. When somebody starts in that department, I can put them in that organization before they even start with the company. As long as I have their email, I put them in, and then I can set up courses for them to take on day one. It automatically goes on to the plan if they work in a certain organization, and we can preset all that. That is something huge for us. It saves us time. It saves us a lot of emails. When you start in a certain department, you have a series of courses already there waiting for you. That has helped a great deal to get somebody up and running quickly and get them trained quickly. Within a couple of weeks, I can get somebody up and running. Previously, it used to take about eight to ten weeks.

The most valuable feature of CYPHER Learning  is its ease of use. It is not difficult to learn, and we have about five admins using the portal. One of our manufacturing facilities is very highly regulated. Everything should be easy to pull up if there is an audit. The government always requests things. It provides an easy way to report who has taken the courses, how long they have been out, how long they were on when they logged in, and when they logged out. It is very easy to pull up data and run reports.

It is also easy for people to log in. We have had 800 people logged in to CYPHER Learning, and over the past ten months, only a handful of people have had issues logging in, which is phenomenal.

The AI feature needs some fine-tuning or tweaking. They use Microsoft Copilot. I have had courses on and used the AI feature. I find myself having to correct a lot of mistakes that it has made. It is about 75% to 80 % correct when I put things through the AI feature. I have to go for a fine toothcomb. A lot of things are repeated. A lot of videos or pictures are repeated through several pages, and it takes me time to go through them. The AI feature of Articulate 360 is better because I am able to create courses quickly, and their AI feature is almost 100% accurate every single time. The AI feature would be my main criticism. I do not use its AI feature anymore because I find myself having to correct a lot of the things that it puts out.

One thing that I wish was different was that it showed the full title in the catalog when I create something outside, such as in Articulate 360, and bring it in. When you go into the catalog title, it does not show you the whole title. If it is a long title, it will just have three dots. I wish it would just show the entire title, even if it goes into the next line so that people can see the whole title. Currently, they have to click on it to see the whole title. It does not give you enough characters to see the title. People look at the catalog and all these great courses. It says something like, "Dental University, How to ..." You do not know what the rest is unless you click on it. It should allow more characters for the actual title in the catalog so that we do not have to click on the title because most people do not. Most people just peruse through it. If it catches their eyes, they click on it, but if they do not know what the title is, they are not going to click on it to find out.

Additionally, their course creation capabilities are static compared to alternative solutions like Articulate 360 . You can only create very static learning courses. That may be fine for some industries where they want you to read and acknowledge that you took it. You can link to videos on YouTube, Vimeo, etc. However, when the video ends, there are advertisements. There is an application for that for sure. In fact, I was able to use that for this leadership video series that I put on TED Talk through YouTube, but they are still getting clicks and advertisements. The leadership training that we create through Articulate 360 is much nicer looking. We can put the text files, different flashcards, lists, etc. It is a better experience for the learner. This is why for course creation, I do not use much within CYPHER Learning. There is a night and day difference in the courses created in CYPHER Learning versus Articulate 360. CYPHER Learning is not even close. There is a better learning experience for the user in Articulate 360 than it is in CYPHER Learning. A user looking at the courses only in CYPHER Learning would not know any difference, but if you show them Articulate 360, they will find it great. You can put high-resolution pictures and videos. It is just a better experience for the learner.

I have used CYPHER Learning for about ten months. We purchased it and started training with it about nine months ago.

I have never experienced any disruptions or technical difficulties with CYPHER Learning. The solution has been extremely stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

CYPHER Learning handles the capacity well. We have not faced any issues related to scalability or capacity. I have never run into any issues related to capacity or slowing down. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

We have a link that we send to people. We have about 800 people in there right now. Its usage depends on the time of the year and whether we are doing compliance training and things like that. We have an average use of 200 unique logins a month. Sometimes, it is below that, and sometimes, it is above that where we have to pay a little extra because we are set up with 200 logins a month. Although we have 800 people in there, not everybody is logging in all the time.

The customer service and support of CYPHER Learning are excellent. They are very prompt in their responses, often resolving issues within an hour. They are very quick at getting back and very easy to work with. All you do is send them a snapshot of the screen that you have any problem with. Within an hour, they have the solution. Their technical support is top-notch.

Positive

I use Articulate 360 for content creation. I have worked with Articulate 360 in a previous organization, so I am very familiar with it. They have also added the AI feature, so I wanted to go with Articulate 360 for the content-creation tools and bring the content in through SCORM.

I create courses in Articulate 360 and move them over into CYPHER Learning.  CYPHER Learning is a great LMS, but Articulate 360 is a little more fancy. It is more interactive than what CYPHER Learning can offer for the course creation piece. So, we use it as an LMS pretty much exclusively and then bring content from a third party. The courses that you can create in CYPHER Learning are static. You can create paragraphs and put a picture in or add a video from YouTube. The ability to put on videos is huge for me for creating content, but you can only use linked videos to YouTube, Vimeo, or things like that. It cheapens the experience because you click on a video, and after the video stops, you have all these advertisements for other videos. I do not want that. I want just the video. I want people to be able to click on and see a video with no advertisements and no sign that says YouTube on it, so I have been creating content outside. Articulate 360 gives you a beautiful full-page video, and it does not have any advertisements. You can also put a nice picture behind it.

The AI feature of Articulate 360 is better and more accurate. That being said, CYPHER Learning to me is a fantastic LMS. It has been tremendous for me to use. I have been using the Mind Tools videos that are part of our contract. We went with a lot of the Mind Tools videos and a few of the courses. I went through them and corrected the AI mistakes that were in there. There are still a lot of courses out there that they created for us through Copilot, and I just have not had time to go through and vet them all. 

It was very easy and quick. It was going to be an eight-week setup and training, but they cut that in half. Helen Murdoch, who is the trainer for CYPHER, is one of the most wonderful people to work with. I cannot say enough good things about her. With her help, it was very quick. It took about half the time than what it normally would take. We got it up and running within four weeks.

I have not had any maintenance yet. If they do it, then it is usually overnight because I have never seen any downtime where I could not use it. That is another thing I like about it. When they do regular maintenance, they usually do it at a time that is beneficial for us because I have never had anything shut down for any length of time.

The implementation was led by Helen Murdoch, who is an excellent resource and made the whole process seamless. She helped set it up. She helped get us set with our catalogs. She set up the whole thing with us and for us. That was the most seamless setup of anything I have ever done. She is just tremendous to work with. They have a gem with her. 

It has easily reduced the training time by a good 70% to 80%. Previously, everything used to be on paper. We had to sit for hours and train people one-on-one. We used to have them take all these paper tests, and then I had to go through all of them and correct them like a teacher to make sure that they were understanding the material. CYPHER Learning made it so much better. We can just put it on their coursework, and they could take it at their own pace. Literally within a couple of days, they have taken the entire academy, which sometimes used to take over a week or two.

It has not reduced the manpower because we are still fairly small. Even though we have 800 people, a lot of those people are out in the field. It has only been me and my part-timer, but we are spending less time because people understand the material from doing the online course first.

It seems moderate and as per industry standards. In my previous organization, we had to hire an outside company, so I know what companies charge to do just a single course. Considering that, the price of CYPHER Learning is in the typical cost range.

When I was hired, they did not have a learning and development manager. I was challenged to come in and give my opinion on what kind of LMS they should go with because they never had one before. We looked at a few of them. CYPHER Learning was one of them. Dan Trexler, one of the sales guys, gave me a tour of it. He was very easy to work with and answered all my questions. As far as their service goes, it is second to none. That is what caught my attention. The customer service aspect of it was good. You cannot always find that. That is why we went with them, and we have not been disappointed at all. 

I would definitely recommend CYPHER Learning. It is a great tool. It is easy for new and experienced learning and development professionals alike. There is a lot that you can do on the outside and bring it in. I love how compatible it is with any other system that you might use from the outside. However, do not go into it thinking that this is a one-stop shop for everything you need to do with learning and development. It has its limitations when it comes to AI and the way the courses look when people take them. They are easy to take, but they are static. For certain industries, static might be fine, but we wanted people to get excited about it, so I would recommend that people go into it with other options for course creation and use it as an LMS. That is what we do, and it is seamless. It works great, so do not go into it thinking that you are going to create a lot of fancy training. It does not have that capability. The usability, the reporting, and everything else other than course creation are top-notch.

Overall, I would rate CYPHER Learning an eight out of ten.