AdaptiveU

AdaptiveU is a cloud-based learning platform for training employees, customers and students, sold as a free plan and two flat-priced paid tiers. The home page sums it up as a "Free learning platform, which lets you create courses, deliver and track progress," and the site files it under employee onboarding, compliance training, channel training, customer training and online tutoring. It is a builder for the training an organization writes itself: a team uploads its own videos, documents and quizzes, assigns them to staff, customers or students, and reviews what comes back. The pitch is speed and engagement rather than depth of administration, with a points system and a rewards store doing much of the work of getting people to finish.

How courses are built

AdaptiveU organizes training around a unit it calls a challenge or badge. The employee training page explains that "Each individual chapter is called a challenge or badge and each one can include instructions to help complete the badge," and that related chapters are combined into one course, which "can be tailored to an appropriate length." A challenge can carry recorded video sessions, documents, presentations and quizzes; the home page's short version is "Add videos, documents, quizzes in the form of lessons and courses." The same page suggests collecting material from around the web, such as videos, presentations and docs, and including it in courses. The tutoring page adds interactive videos and images and says courses can hold videos, pictures and presentations "without worrying about storage space," because the content lives in the cloud, although each plan does set a storage allowance (see the plans below).

Courses can be grouped into predefined categories so learners can see the theme of a set of courses, and an organization can run separate programs for different categories of employees, "from interns to veterans." The paid plans add tracks, a further level of grouping: Starter allows up to 5 and Premium up to 10.

Authoring can be shared across a team. The employee training page describes setting up a free online classroom, inviting peers to create badges, and nominating them as admins who review the responses of people who completed a challenge. Where order matters, the same page says an admin can "Ensure that the every member completes a step in the challenge and then proceeds to the next one."

What learners and reviewers see

Learners take training on their own devices, at any time and at their own pace, and the site stresses that sessions are available "24x7 for all members of your organization." The point it makes to managers is that nobody has to schedule an instructor for every batch of new hires: recorded sessions and written instructions take that role. Every trainee has a profile showing the badges and courses they have completed, which is the running record of their progress.

Completion is reviewed rather than automatic. In the site's words, "The Admin has the authority to review each trainee's responses and approve the completion of the employee training course." On the tutoring side, tutors approve the completion of a challenge or course based on the student's performance in it. Reviewers can give spontaneous feedback on a response, so a learner knows how they did on a challenge. Feedback also runs the other way: every challenge comes with a feedback feature that lets participants say whether the challenge or course really helped them learn, which gives the author a way to see whether the material works.

Points, rewards and competition

The engagement layer is the part AdaptiveU puts most weight on. An organization can set up a point system in which each trainee receives points on completing a challenge, and those points "can be traded for a real-life gift in a virtual store" that the organization stocks. The tutoring page describes the same mechanism for students redeeming earned points. Peers can also challenge each other to complete a badge, which the site describes as keeping "the spirit of competitive learning alive and kicking." For a sales team or a group of new hires, this turns required training into something closer to a game with a prize table, inside the same tool that holds the courses.

Uses the site names

The home page highlights three audiences. Sales training and employee learning are both pitched at simplifying onboarding with custom training resources. Customer education aims to "Increase retention and LTV of your customer by guiding them with your product features," so the same badges and courses can teach customers how to use a product.

The online tutoring page addresses tutors and schools. It describes creating personalized courses, pre-recording tutoring sessions and making them available to students anytime, and the ability to "Tutor a class unrestricted by size or duration." Lessons are built as challenges, bound into courses and indexed into categories, and the cloud setup lets a tutor gather and store "vast amounts of data for your students." The Solutions menu lists further uses, including an online university, an online classroom, a free online school, compliance training, channel training and employee onboarding, and the site has industry pages for banking, health, manufacturing, warehousing, restaurants, non-profits, real estate, retail and franchise training.

Plans and prices

The pricing table on the home page shows three tiers, each a flat monthly price for the account rather than a fee per user:

• Free: up to 5 users, up to 2 courses and up to 1 GB of storage.
• Starter, $25 a month: up to 50 users, up to 10 courses, up to 5 tracks and up to 10 GB of storage, plus role management and advanced reports ("Advance Reports" on the page).
• Premium, $50 a month: up to 100 users, up to 20 courses, up to 10 tracks and up to 20 GB of storage, with the same role management and reports.

The Free tier is a standing plan, not a trial, and the sign-up buttons offer a Google account or an email address. Role management, which lets an organization give different people different permissions, and the reports both start at Starter. The table shows no tier above Premium; for anything larger, the site offers a demo and lists the phone number 1.800.940.7828.

Two of the feature pages speak in bigger terms than the table. The employee training page says to "Set no limit on the number of trainees that can take the training," and the tutoring page says a tutor can "Create and manage an unlimited number of courses." The pricing table is where the user, course and storage allowances for each tier are set, so those caps are the figures to plan around.

What customers say

Two customer quotes appear on the home page. Jonathan Ehrlich, Vice President, Administration at Central Park Medical Unit, writes that "AdaptiveU is our learning platform for orientation for all new volunteers. They are able to use the system at their own pace, download the required documents, and watch the orientation videos." He adds that the organization has "now expanded AdaptiveU to other training components of our organization." Michael Payne of AnywhereWorks says "Shared learning changed everything for our team growth and engagement."

The volunteer example is a useful pointer: the same mix of videos, downloadable documents and approved completion works for people who are not employees, which matters to non-profits and member groups.

Who it suits

AdaptiveU fits a small organization or team that wants to put onboarding, product or compliance material online with little setup, and that would rather start free and pay only once it needs more than 5 users or 2 courses. The steps from free to $25 and then $50 a month are easy to budget. The points and rewards store gives sales teams, new hires and volunteer groups a concrete reason to finish, and the review-and-approve model means a manager actually sees what each person answered. Tutors running a small online class can use the same tools for pre-recorded lessons with approved completion.

It suits less well an organization larger than the 100 users of the Premium plan, the biggest tier on the table. The approval model is also a workload as well as a strength: someone has to read and sign off responses, which is easy for a small team and harder for a large cohort.