Why study room owners consider an online remote academy
After running a study room or tutoring center for a few years, you are likely to face this question at some point. Local demand alone limits how many new students you can attract, and you sometimes get inquiries from parents who hesitated to enroll because of the distance. In situations like this, switching to an online remote academy comes up as an option.
However, giving up in-person classes entirely and moving fully online is a heavy burden in practice. That is why many directors choose "parallel operation": keeping the existing in-person classes while adding separate online classes. This article walks through the steps to take, and the points that are easy to miss, when expanding from a study room or tutoring center into an online remote academy.
Step 1: Review your registration type first
The first thing to check before expanding into an online academy is your registration type. Whether your existing tutoring center registration is enough to run online classes alongside in-person ones, or whether a separate remote tutoring academy registration is required, may differ by local office of education, so be sure to ask in advance.
In general, preparing the following documents is mentioned for formally operating as an online remote academy.
Domain registration certificate
Remote academy server lease agreement
Report documents for establishing a remote tutoring academy
This process looks like a simple administrative procedure, but it actually affects the whole schedule of starting an academy. Missing documents can delay your opening date, so we recommend starting preparation at least 1–2 months ahead. If you start with small special lectures by subject, such as English video tutoring or math video tutoring, you may be able to run a trial with a relatively simple procedure.
Differences between remote academies for adults and for students
If you are also considering a remote academy for adults, such as civil service exam candidates or working professionals, the class times and curriculum design need to be completely different from your existing classes for students. A sensible order is to focus on online classes for your existing students first, and look at adult courses separately once operations are stable.
Step 2: Run a trial with your existing students
Once your registration type is sorted out, it is safer to go through a small-scale trial rather than moving all students online right away.
Recruit volunteers from your existing students and open 1–2 online classes
Set a trial period of about 2–4 weeks and test how you run your classes
Compare student reactions and learning results to decide whether to switch to regular classes
In this process, the stability and ease of use of your video class software turn out to be more important than you might expect. Frequent disconnections or choppy screen sharing directly affect parents' trust.
Here, using the ClassCanvas live class program lets you check each student's problem-solving process in real time with its one board per student approach, making the close guidance similar to in-person classes possible. Individual mode and one-on-one feedback let you leave careful per-student feedback even during a small trial, which helps in practice.
Step 3: Organize your class tools and learning management system
The part most often overlooked when moving to an online remote academy is learning management. In in-person classes you can see attendance checks, assignment reviews, and test records at a glance, but in an online environment, management easily falls apart without a dedicated system.
Here are the items to check when preparing your class tools.
Video class software: can it run live classes reliably?
Learning management system: are video lectures, assignments, tests, and attendance records managed in one place?
Online lecture platform integration: can you run recorded lectures and live classes together?
The ClassCanvas learning management system is set up so that you can see everything from video lecture uploads to assignment submissions, test results, and attendance status on a single screen, so your management burden does not grow much even as online classes increase. Especially for small teams such as study rooms and tutoring centers, whether the video class software and the learning management system are integrated rather than separate directly affects operating efficiency.
Screen share, one-on-one feedback, and continuity with in-person classes
What directors running online classes for the first time worry about most is whether they can give guidance as close as in-person classes. With the screen share and one-on-one feedback features of the ClassCanvas live class program, you can watch the problems a student solves in real time and add explanations right away, which narrows the gap with in-person classes to a good extent.
Step 4: Tell your existing parents about the change
Communication with parents is a surprisingly sensitive part of expanding into an online remote academy. Sudden changes easily cause misunderstandings, so we recommend informing them in the following order.
Explain the background: why you are adding online classes (practical reasons such as makeup classes for absences or regional expansion)
Guarantee choice: make clear that in-person classes will continue as they are and that online is optional
Share the trial period: let them know you will run a trial for a set period and then inform them again about whether to switch to regular classes
Demonstrate how classes work: if possible, reassure parents by briefly showing the video class software in use
For parents, the biggest concern is whether their child will get the same level of care as before. Letting parents also check attendance and assignment status through the learning management system helps reduce their anxiety about the move online.
Wrapping up: gradual expansion is the key
Rather than switching all at once, the safer way to move from a study room or tutoring center to an online remote academy is to go step by step: review registration type → trial → organize tools → inform parents. If you are still at the stage of thinking about starting an online business or an academy, we recommend testing on a small scale first and adjusting the pace of expansion based on the response.
If you have not yet chosen your class tools, it may be worth taking a look at ClassCanvas, which combines video classes and learning management. It is not too late to start by looking at the actual operating screens and judging whether it suits your academy.
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