Graduates from top universities in USA, Asia and Europe continue to opt for a career in software development due to increasing demand of software/web applications. Today, many companies offer cutting-edge platforms such as Android and iOS exclusively to their employees so that they can learn technical skills at work. It makes sense to build an LMS using Node js which can be used to train employees and for students for taking online courses.
The LMS which is built using Node js can be deployed on any of these platforms:
Raspberry Pi- a tiny computer board that uses an SD card as storage, you can run it anywhere with a USB power supply.
Chromebooks - inexpensive laptop that has a web-based Chrome OS
Node js is free and open source, hence you can use open source server software such as Nginx/Apache to run the LMS without any cost. It can be easily deployed on cloud servers like Amazon EC2 (used by NASA), Microsoft Azure and DigitalOcean (popular for developers). Since Node js is a very resource-intensive application, it gives better performance when run on cloud servers with scalable resources.
Running Node js applications on these platforms can be done by using:
pm2 - Node server management and monitoring tool (should be used for production)
forever - script that 'takes care' of the Node js application to be run as a daemon even after disconnecting from SSH session
supervisor - a process manager for Unix-like systems. It works by polling pre-configured directories for services and then starts them when they appear.
Benefits of using Node js to build an LMS:
1) Collaboration: One of the best features of Node js is its support for real-time connections; it allows peers to communicate with each other, making it easier for students and teachers to collaborate on their coursework.
2) Code Sharing: Another benefit of using Node js as an LMS is sharing code with other programmers. Since Node js is an open platform, it can be used by anyone to share and reuse code. Special attention should be paid to the license agreement so that unnecessary issues will not arise in future.
3) Scalability: Node js has a very small memory footprint and it allows you to build scalable web applications which can handle huge traffic. Node js has asynchronous non-blocking input/output which enhances its performance.
4) Deployment: Node js is free and open source, so it can be deployed anywhere without any license cost. Node js applications can be deployed on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It helps in faster development as the same code base can be used for all operating systems.
5) Job Opportunities: Node js is the most popular open source JS framework used by many organizations which makes it easier to find Node js developer jobs. A number of companies like Walmart, Ebay, Paypal and Uber use Node js to develop high-performance web applications for their customers.
6) Scalable Resources: Node js provides scalable resources to build enterprise-level web applications which can handle heavy traffic.
7) Collaboration Tools: The collaboration tools available in Node js are very efficient and can be used in creating an LMS to train students, teachers and employees in an effective manner.
8) Security: Finally, Node js has very robust security features and is designed using industry standards such as NSA which makes it extremely secure to use for mission-critical applications.
a support community of over 1 million developers who are willing to help others in their journey of learning node.js. The company also provides services that allow you to build an LMS for educational institutions.
" It is very easy to build an LMS using Node js which can be deployed on any server of choice without paying license costs."
- Basit Ali, Cognizantt
Conclusion: Node js has many benefits of using it for building learning management system, such as collaboration tools and scalable resources. Developers don't need to learn different programming languages for developing applications.
Here is an Example Learning Management System. Build with Nodejs.
https://nearpeer.org/
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