TopHat vs Skillport

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Our analysts compared TopHat vs Skillport based on data from our 400+ point analysis of LMS Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

TopHat Software Tool
Skillport Software Tool

Product Basics

Top Hat is an online teaching platform that offers digital classrooms, discussions, customizable questions, textbooks, lectures, videos, attendance, assignments and more. Learners can get real-time feedback, proctor tests and quizzes and stream lectures. Administrators can track progress and look at overall trends.


It integrates with other education programs and works for students and instructors. Overall, the tools let users design workspaces, create interactive materials, make quick assignments and proctor exams. In many classes, it’s used to replace clickers which allowed teachers to show materials on-screen and students to choose answers via a handheld device at their desk. The resulting answers are shown via a bar graph on the screen for a visual representation of the group’s understanding. Its specialty is helping educators find and publish quality open education resources.
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Skillport, offered by Skillsoft, is a cloud-based corporate learning platform that offers targeted learning to employees at the time and place of their convenience. In addition to helping employees enhance their skill sets and talents, it also ensures delivery of improved business outcomes.It provides choice between various learning modalities to cater to employees with different learning styles.

Other major attributes include easy library access, language filters, reporting and analytics, integrations and more.
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$33 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$19 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
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Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
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Email
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Chat
FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Better Content: The solution can help create and deliver high-quality content. Learners keep access to their materials even after the lesson is over. It also changes up boring PDFs and replaces them with interactive content with embedded videos, questions and graphics.
    • Digital Textbooks: Instructors can create, adapt, share and customize textbooks and other interactive materials for their course. They are always up-to-date. Users can embed assessments right into the material to see how students are absorbing material as they read. The text can also integrate videos and animations for more engaging material. It’s free or low-cost for the students and constantly added to by a community of educators.
    • Marketplace: It provides different integrated applications for coursework and content. Learners and teachers have access to thousands of textbooks, educational materials, question packs and over 20,000 open classroom resources. The subjects include anthropology, arts, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, cultural studies, earth science, education, engineering, ethics, health, humanities, law, math, medicine, physics, religious studies, science and more.
    • Customizing and OER: Users can change up the digital textbooks for intro courses to add and remove relevant information. Content is up to date and easy to modernize in the places where it may be lacking. It can take feedback and give changes in real-time. Through the marketplace, it’s easy to get open education resources from places like OpenStax and Saylor. This makes it easy for the school library to find the OER they need.
  • Greater Student Engagement: Students can receive more encouragement to participate, learn and have a voice. Some tools include a discussion prompt added between slides, awarding participation points and anonymous participation for shy students. Students can vote for responses in a queue, giving teachers an idea of where the group isn’t understanding the material. For creative questions, students can even submit drawings. The solution allows instructors to sync slides with students’ devices while students can’t move ahead of the class. This forces them to pay attention. Educators can share the responses of students in fun, interactive ways with visual graphs, heat maps and word clouds. Upon the end of the lecture, instructors can let their students see slides in review mode so they can study.
  • Better Interoperability: While the solution does some of the same things as the learning solutions, it also integrates with other more complex platforms such as Blackboard, Canvas, D2L and Moodle. For those who already have an LMS and SIS set up, this connects seamlessly to bump up the experience without getting rid of present tools.
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  • Accessibility: Learn anytime and anywhere with on-the-go access to courses, videos, audio books and summaries through a mobile app. 
  • Personalization: Utilize personalized learning recommendations, featured topics and curated learning plans tailored to learning speed and other specifications. 
  • Learning Insights: Leverage course and learning analytics to derive actionable insights, which can be used to create specific learning plans and provide accurate tracking of learning pace. 
  • Diversity: Utilize from a variety of course collections on topics like business, compliance, productivity and collaboration tools as well as technology tools to diversify and improve the knowledge and skill sets of employees. 
  • Collaborative: Facilitate a well-connected and collaborative learning experience for employees across the organization. 
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  • Testing: With built-in security, users can host tests, quizzes and exams in a virtual environment where students can bring their own devices. Tests are easy to build and customize with multiple formats for questions. The fourteen unique question types include fill-in-the-blank, word answers, multiple-choice, numeric answers, click-on-target and many others. Students can also do video assignments, drawings or chemistry questions. Several behavioral algorithms help teachers monitor students and prevent cheating. If they do, they’re immediately locked out. Instructors can also see a real-time report and can offer secure codes so students can get into the proper test. Once the exam is complete, educators can automatically grade and have results show up immediately in the gradebook. This system is compatible with smartphones, laptops and tablets and doesn’t require a separate app. Grades can transfer to an LMS or other solution. Once grading is complete, it’s easy to review results and identify at-risk learners.
  • Attendance: Teachers can verify attendance in several ways. First, they can prompt students to sign in using a unique code and assign grades to reward students who are present. Second, the solution can verify the students’ physical location so only those in class get counted. It sends points for roll call and participation straight into the gradebook. Alternatively, instructors can build options for excused absences.
  • Grading and Reporting: Users can track learner progress, implement weighted grading and track attendance and performance. All of this transfers to the gradebook automatically. Instructors can weigh factors such as questions, participation and attendance. From there, administrators can analyze information and adjust for future lessons. To make sure teachers miss nothing it automatically captures student replies and participation grades in the gradebook.
  • Course Creation: Users can integrate quizzes, tests and other course materials. They can also track through analytics and port results over to other software. The system is FERPA compliant and has extensive support. Some other functions are the discussion tool where students can collaborate, offline mode, multiple file type capabilities, access to the marketplace, design consulting and more. Administrators can include gamification, flip classrooms and use devices to bump up engagement. Teachers can also stream lectures and students can participate in a live chat.
  • Assignments: It provides the functionality to create, personalize and auto-grade homework. Teachers can assign unique questions based on the group or individual and use interactive questions to engage students and reinforce the material. Homework assignments are easy and quick to assemble. Users can time responses, limit wrong answers or show the correct answers. They can also add images, videos and website links and build existing homework right into the platform. When the homework is complete, instructors can provide feedback immediately with comments. For hard subjects, users can create ungraded homework.
  • Institutions: Broader districts or institutions using the solution can acquire support specifically for their needs. The solution provides help with implementation, scaling, onboarding and other resources. Afterward, the company can help administrators review the program’s success. For organizations looking for more comprehensive help, the company manages support and training for the institution. They also offer workshops that follow the pedagogy and challenges of the faculty. A team of 40 instructional designers works to make this happen while a dedicated account manager communicates one-on-one. It integrates with all major LMSs and works with Shibboleth for easy configuration and single sign-on capability. It comes with institution-paid and student-paid options and has a clicker buyback program for the early transition.
  • Cloud-Based: The solution is a Software-as-a-Service and available without additional hardware or installing. It’s designed to scale smoothly and collects student data to ensure the organization is keeping track of student aptitude and progress.
  • Assessments: These deeper level analytics go after not just individual grades or students, but can track performance, completion, persistence and learning outcomes across the organization. It offers both summative and formative analysis so instructions can both correct the overall course and find individuals who need help. This makes it easier to track, identify, diagnose and fix problems when they arise.
  • Content Creation and Course Authoring: For specialized content, the solution provides authoring tools to create the materials. Users can get help with textbook projects. Instructors who want to share their work on the marketplace still own the copyright and earn royalties. It also provides collaborative projects where multiple educators and experts can come together to make a textbook. Creators can import OER or other content and split the revenue among collaborators.
  • Accessibility: It has various options to accommodate different students and learning styles. This includes allowing students to dial-in to a lecture via phone, transcripts of lecture records and videos of class meetings. It also optimizes assignments and textbooks so students can work from their desired device.
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  • Customized Profile View: Stay updated with a customized profile view of community score, overdue tasks, upcoming tasks, learning transcripts and more. 
  • Single-Click Library Access: Access all updated learning content conveniently with single-click library access. 
  • Language Filters: Search learning content based on language filters amongst multiple other filter options available to access most suitable content. 
  • Varied Learning Styles: Access books, videos, audio books and more according to employees’ specific learning styles to enable conveniently paced learning. 
  • Integration: Integrate seamlessly with other business and IT systems for an improved learning experience and productivity in the long run. 
  • Reports Management: Run a report and save it to keep data intact. It also allows downloads of saved reports. Also, enable email notifications for chosen users, whenever a report runs. 
  • Scheduling: Schedule the running of reports at regular intervals. Schedules can be edited, activated or deactivated as per requirements. Delete any schedule conveniently to replace it with a new one. 
  • Make Recommendations: Recommend useful assets to members of the community and have the recommendation displayed in the activity stream. Recommendations can also be changed or removed from an asset. 
  • Instructor Led Training: Schedule instructor led training (ILT) at a time and place of convenience. ILT can be selected from the library or assigned by the training administrator. Can be held at a physical location or as a virtual session. 
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Product Ranking

#31

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LMS Software

#68

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LMS Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 63 reviews
Great User Sentiment 58 reviews
78%
of users recommend this product

TopHat has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 78% when considering 63 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

83%
of users recommend this product

Skillport has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 83% when considering 58 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.0 (22)
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4.17 (58)
3.8 (38)
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4.0 (3)
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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Interactive Features: TopHat offers interactive features such as live polling, quizzes, and discussion tools.
Easy Integration: TopHat can be integrated with other educational tools to streamline workflows.
Improved Engagement: TopHat helps increase student participation and engagement during lectures.
Valuable Analytics: Educators gain insights into student performance through TopHat's analytics features.
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Extensive Content Library: Skillport boasts a vast collection of training materials covering diverse topics such as business skills, leadership development, and technology. This allows organizations to cater to a wide range of learning needs and preferences within their workforce.
User-Friendly Interface: The platform's intuitive design and navigation make it easy for users to find and access relevant learning resources. This ease of use contributes to a positive learning experience and encourages user engagement.
Personalized Learning Paths: Skillport enables the creation of customized learning paths tailored to individual or group needs. This personalization feature ensures that learners can focus on developing the specific skills and knowledge relevant to their roles or career aspirations.
Mobile Accessibility: With mobile compatibility, Skillport allows learners to access training materials on their smartphones or tablets, providing flexibility and convenience for on-the-go learning.
Reporting and Analytics: Skillport offers robust reporting and analytics tools that enable organizations to track learner progress, measure training effectiveness, and identify areas for improvement. These insights help organizations make data-driven decisions to optimize their training programs.
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Cost: TopHat is often more expensive than other LMS options, which can be a barrier for budget-conscious users.
Technical Issues: Some users have reported experiencing occasional technical glitches or difficulties with the platform.
Learning Curve: New users may require some time to familiarize themselves with all of TopHat's features and functionalities, leading to a learning curve.
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Search Function: The search function is often inaccurate and doesn't always return relevant results, making it difficult to find specific content.
User Interface: The user interface can feel outdated and clunky, leading to a frustrating user experience, especially for those accustomed to modern design standards.
Content Library: While Skillport boasts a large content library, the quality and relevance of the content can vary significantly, with some users finding it outdated or not aligned with their specific industry needs.
Mobile Experience: The mobile app experience is often reported as subpar, with limited functionality and a less intuitive interface compared to the desktop version.
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Is TopHat a top-tier learning management system, or does it fall flat? User reviews from the last year reveal a mixed bag. TopHat is praised for its interactive features that boost student participation, such as polls, quizzes, and seamless integration with existing LMS platforms. Educators particularly appreciate its ability to transform lectures into engaging experiences, as highlighted by a professor who lauded TopHat for breathing life into their classroom and facilitating dynamic student interaction. However, some users find the platform's initial navigation somewhat cumbersome and occasionally encounter technical hiccups. A case in point is the "time-constrained attendance marker," which reportedly suffers from lag, impacting user experience. While TopHat's customer support receives mixed reviews, its strengths lie in its user-friendly interface, diverse question formats, and smooth integration capabilities. Its standout feature, the ability to create an interactive and engaging learning environment, makes it a hit among educators. Conversely, the pricing model, which requires students to pay individually, draws criticism for potentially hindering access for some. A user aptly pointed out, "Not all of my students have the means to pay for access (which can really impact their grade if they don't use the platform)." TopHat's differentiating factor lies in its dedication to fostering student engagement and active learning. This is achieved through features like real-time polls, quizzes, and interactive presentations, setting it apart from traditional, static learning platforms. A testament to this is a user's comment, "Top Hat is a great student engagement tool, useful in polling students on the fly or setting up assessments prior to class." In conclusion, TopHat is best suited for educators seeking to infuse their classrooms with interactivity and boost student participation. Its array of engagement-focused tools makes it ideal for educators who prioritize active learning. However, the pricing structure might pose a challenge for students with limited financial resources, making it crucial for institutions to consider alternative funding models or explore site licenses to ensure equitable access for all.

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Skillport receives consistent praise for its user-friendly interface and intuitive design, making it a popular choice for businesses seeking a straightforward learning management system (LMS). Its flexibility and scalability allow it to adapt to the needs of organizations of all sizes, accommodating growth and evolving training requirements. Skillport's robust features, including course creation, delivery, and tracking, streamline the training process and provide valuable insights into learner progress and performance. Additionally, its integration capabilities with other business systems, such as HR and payroll, enhance efficiency and data management. However, some users have expressed concerns about the level of customer support provided, citing occasional delays or difficulties in obtaining assistance. Despite this drawback, Skillport's affordability and comprehensive functionality make it a compelling option for businesses seeking a cost-effective LMS solution that simplifies training management and empowers learners. Skillport is particularly well-suited for businesses that prioritize ease of use, scalability, and value for money. Its intuitive interface and comprehensive features make it an ideal choice for organizations with limited technical expertise or those seeking a streamlined training solution. Additionally, Skillport's ability to integrate with existing business systems enhances its appeal for businesses looking to centralize data and improve operational efficiency. While the customer support experience may vary, Skillport's overall strengths and affordability make it a worthwhile consideration for businesses of all sizes seeking an effective LMS solution.

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