Custom LMS
for a Prominent
Media Institute
Media Institute
The Customer
The Media Institute we collaborated with is an educational project within a global media network conglomerate.
With a vast global audience, the educational platform attracted a substantial number of learners.
In response to increased user demand during the 2020 pandemic, the number of registered users reached its peak at 120,000 in May 2020. Moreover, the platform’s growth prompted the necessity for a more advanced, customized LMS.
In partnership with Raccoon Gang, the decision was made to transition the existing eLearning platform to a new learning management system based on Open edX.
Tasks
Challenges
Solutions
The LMS interface has been customized to match the design of the original platform, including the new custom features. The platform is fully adaptive and looks great on any device.
We’ve applied a multistep migration process to make it almost invisible to hundreds of thousands of users. We ranked learner groups by activity and migrated their data accordingly. User data is activated after their first login to the new LMS using single sign-on.
Synchronizing a training user’s history takes a few minutes, so we applied an individual transition. This decision allowed us to save each learner’s progress during the migration but not stop the platform.
We facilitated the hosting for the new LMS, seamlessly integrating it with the Customer’s Azure cloud computing services. The platform exhibited remarkable scalability, capable of accommodating a substantial number of users, as verified during testing.
The Azure PAAS services were utilized for a multitenant deployment in two phases: initially, we established a prototype infrastructure, and subsequently, we executed the deployment process with the updated application code.
We worked productively with the customer’s cloud team to implement our new solution.
We adapted the platform’s multilingualism to the requirements of the customer’s team. We have added automatic display of courses depending on the localization chosen by the users. From the English-language localization, students see only English-language courses. If they choose a different language, courses in both languages are displayed.
We also created an additional field “Full Name” in the Account settings page and Registration form. It allows automatic generation of a full name in a custom certificate. The field is optional.
Open edX already had the localization required by the customer; it was 97% completed. We not only completed the translation, but also edited the text of the entire system in detail in this language in accordance with the preferences of the Customer.
We also replicated and improved the functionality of the language filter field on the Course Catalog.
The Institute is associated with outstanding specialists in the field of media training. This eLearning platform takes pride in assembling a team of renowned industry professionals to assist learners in achieving future success.
Therefore, it is essential to display the trainer’s photo and name under each course and a link to his full profile. Users can easily find courses from their favorite media experts.
We reproduced this element in the new LMS and upgraded its flow (on the Main page, Course catalog and on each Course landing page).
We’ve implemented the “Instructor” course filter and technical solutions to display all courses from a selected instructor on its Instructor Bio page.
“Introductory lessons” from experts are also a powerful incentive to register for a course. The element is placed on the course landing page, along with other building blocks. Each block is optional: if one is empty on the admin panel, it is automatically hidden.
Users are able to add courses to “Saved” section which is displayed on the learner’s Dashboard
We’ve integrated the eCommerce feature with the Customer’s custom CyberSource gateway.
The custom LMS gives the ability to create different certificate layouts for each course.
One can upload certificate templates and placeholder items: a partner logo and QR code.
We also added the ability to set up bilingual or monolingual versions and an optional paid certificate indicator (with the signature of the institute director).
We’ve implemented the GDPR compliance functionality according to the Media Institution’s standards.
The platform is designed to make education and training entertaining and engaging. We’ve set up our RG Gamification tool for the LMS:
Gamification dashboard and leaderboard has been aligned with the general platfrom’s style
Our RG Analytics module added actionable and real-time reports to the LMS. It’s a powerful tool for improving online courses based on learners’ activities analysis and course completion success levels, including ability to connect with a particular learner group (by progress level, by lesson they are stuck in, by assessments they have issues with, etc.)
The corporate package is also one of the off-the-shelf tools developed by Raccoon Gang. It allows the creation of branches of the platform on additional specialized white-labeled subdomains.
The institution can employ subdomains to partner with other companies, granting them access to their preferred selection of courses. This facilitates business-to-business sales of learning materials.
Results
With us, you get a team of eLearning experts, experienced custom LMS developers, and gain a lot of benefits of using powerful open source LMS technology
With us, you get a team of eLearning experts, experienced custom LMS developers, and gain a lot of benefits of using powerful open source LMS technology