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.

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.