As online education grows, more and more people are looking to complete a digital course to gain new skills or build upon existing ones. However, there is one big factor that can determine whether someone takes your course or moves to the next one: certification.
That makes sense – after all, people want proof of completion and something they can show to potential employers or clients.
Not offering that option can seriously discourage people from joining and finishing a course. So, if you’re an online course administrator choosing a Learning Management System (LMS), ensure you find one with a certificate functionality.
Completion certificates add a touch of professionalism to your online course and enhance its authenticity, which can further propel your course toward accreditation. Besides a symbol of achievement, a certificate is often the best motivation for students as they have a real, tangible goal they can look forward to.
In this guide, we’ll help you through the process of choosing an LMS that offers comprehensive certificate capabilities and show you why Sensei LMS could be the best option for you.
How to choose an LMS based on its certification functionality
What’s the mark of completion for a learner who has completed an online course successfully?
The answer lies in a credible, customizable, and visually appealing certificate.
However, the process of generating digital credentials effectively can be very different depending on the platform you choose. The right LMS for you will not only make course creation and management a breeze but will also offer an easy way to generate and customize certifications.
Let’s see some of the more important factors you should consider when making that choice:
Certificate customization
An LMS that excels in certificate customization provides editable fields, design elements that can be adjusted through drag-and-drop, and a variety of templates. This allows you to tailor-make your certificates, adding personal touches to improve the learning experience and reinforcing your brand identity.
You have to be able to add the following elements:
- Credentials such as the issuing organization’s name and logo.
- The course name.
- The recipient’s name.
- The completion date.
- A unique verification code (like a serial number or QR code).
- A short description of the course – this is optional but still desired.
Besides the mandatory fields, digital course certificates are also expected to be visually pleasant and ready to be printed in multiple formats. Make sure you use clear typography, branded color schemes, and official watermarks.
Try to strike a balance between visual appeal and seriousness. While a well-designed certificate can enhance the perceived value of your course, an overly-embellished one might distract from the achievement.
Ability to create multiple certificates and link them to courses
Offering a diverse course selection – from specialized series to a broad range of subjects – requires an LMS with the capability to create and assign unlimited, unique certificates. Tailoring these certificates not only increases their value to the student but also enhances the perceived value of your courses.
You have to be able to assign certificates and also customize them, so look for an LMS that offers a user-friendly interface for course certificate assignments.
Ability to issue backdated certificates for completed courses
Issuing certificates is a vital function of any LMS. However, there may be cases where certificates are introduced or updated after students have completed a course. In such situations, it’s crucial to choose an LMS that offers features for retroactively assigning certificates, ensuring that all students receive recognition for past accomplishments through backdated certificates.
Encouraging recognizability and reinforcing commitment toward nurturing a learning community are some of the most important things you can do to enhance the appeal of your LMS for prospective students.
Certificate visibility
Course certificates stand as professional credentials that could potentially enhance a learner’s career prospects. As such, LMS software should feature comprehensive sharing, visibility, and privacy controls for certificates represented to students.
For students, the visible acknowledgment of their efforts can act as a driving force, motivating them to further their learning journey. For the course itself, the showcased credentials augment its credibility and reputation.
The ability for students to save certificates
A robust LMS should allow students to access their certificates easily and download them in multiple formats, such as PDFs.
The students should also be able to directly share the certificate of completion on social media (such as LinkedIn) or embed them into digital CVs. As an online learning platform owner, this is also highly beneficial in terms of promoting your courses. Student feedback is the best possible word-of-mouth marketing strategy you could have.
Sensei LMS: An LMS plugin with complete certificate functionality
Sensei LMS is a user-friendly online learning plugin designed for crafting professional LMS systems on WordPress. With its intuitive user interface and simplified course creation tools, Sensei stands out as an efficient solution for anyone keen on conveniently launching their own online training website.
Users have two options: the free, open-source plugin and Sensei Pro – the paid version.
The latter includes a variety of helpful features, such as:
- A WooCommerce integration: This gives you the opportunity to sell your courses through any of the payment extensions available with Woo.
- AI-driven analytics: These provide insightful data for enhanced course engagement and meaningful administrative decisions.
- The Sensei Hosted Bundle: This includes Sensei Pro with WordPress.com hosting at a special price, allowing you to easily create and launch an interactive LMS from scratch.
Going back to certifications, you can add these to your course through the free extension named Sensei LMS Certificates.
It combines all the essential aspects that one would seek in an LMS certificate plugin.
- By default, Sensei LMS Certificates has a template installed, which makes the initial setup straightforward and effortless.
- You can then customize each section, change their position, or remove them entirely.
- Once you’re done, you can check how it looks on the front end and make the necessary changes.
- If you want to create one from scratch, you can do so by choosing Add New Certificate from the side menu and adding the relevant custom fields with the information you want to include.
- When you’re done with the template, you can choose its visibility on either a completed course page or a learner profile page.
As you can see, Sensei is a tool that combines the practicality of online course management with the recognition of professional certificates. The Sensei Certificates extension, on the other hand, brings in powerful certificate functionalities, making it a breeze to create professional certificates meeting the contemporary learner’s demands.
Creating digital certificates with Sensei LMS
Implementing digital certificates into your course is a simple task with Sensei LMS. The platform allows you to adjust your certificates to best represent your course and then associate them with their corresponding courses.
So if you want to learn how to produce and distribute unique, attractive certificates that add to the credibility of your courses, check out our detailed guide on creating digital certificates.
| 💡Did you know that Sensei was created by Automattic, which is the same team that built WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and more? As a matter of fact, they use Sensei to create corporate training certification programs. |
Getting started with Sensei LMS Certificates
Setting up a trustworthy certificate system for your eLearning platform with Sensei LMS is an easy process.
Here is what you need to do:
- Install the Sensei LMS plugin on your WordPress website.
- Follow the useful setup guide.
- Through that, you can choose your primary purpose for creating an LMS site. For example, if you choose the “Sell courses and generate income” option, Sensei will automatically download and install the WooCommerce plugin.
- You also get to check out Sensei’s online course theme and choose to go with that or go back to the default one.
- When you’re done, go back to the plugin search page, find the Sensei LMS Certificates add-on, and follow the steps to install and activate it.
- Post-activation, you’ll notice a new tab labeled Certificates in your LMS menu. This is where you can embark on creating engaging and valid course certificates.
Before the installation process, it’s always beneficial to ensure your server’s PHP configuration aligns with the plugin’s requirements. One way to do so is by checking that the allow_url_fopen setting is activated in your server’s php.ini. This preventative measure can save you from any future troubleshooting woes.
If you’re not comfortable with adjusting server settings, don’t fret. It’s a typical request for your hosting provider, who can make this change promptly on your behalf.
Discover the best LMS certificate solution with Sensei LMS Certificates
LMS certificates significantly enhance your online course’s value by motivating students internally and adding professional credibility externally. These certificates are not only a token of achievement for the learners but also work as validation of the quality of your online curriculum.
Utilizing an LMS certificate plugin ensures consistent, high-quality certificates across all courses, simplifying certificate management for a large student body. This uniformity accentuates the professional look and feel of your online course, elevating the learners’ experience.
Taking into consideration the essential features outlined earlier, Sensei LMS Certificates and the Sensei LMS plugin emerge as excellent choices for those seeking an effective digital certificate solution. They provide a competent framework to build, manage, and distribute certificates, enhancing the overall appeal of your online program.
Don’t let your eLearning potential go untapped – get started with Sensei LMS today, and issue certificates your students will be proud to earn!
