Developing a custom Learning Management System (LMS) for a leading Australian Educational Institution

How QSoft helped the company to save valuable time and reduce their workload by acting as a single point of contact to connect with vetted IT talents, making the sourcing process more efficient and effective.

About the Project

Our client, a prestigious Australian educational institution, has long been recognized for its commitment to academic excellence and innovation. With a legacy of providing top-tier education through multiple offline locations, the institution embarked on a transformative journey to digitize its training and teaching operations. The primary goal was to enhance accessibility, engagement, and the overall quality of its educational programs, ensuring that students and educators alike benefit from the advancements in digital learning environments.

The core objective of the project was to develop a custom Learning Management System (LMS) tailored to the institution's unique needs. The envisioned LMS was not just a platform for online learning; it aimed to integrate online, offline, and interactive training methodologies. A standout feature of the proposed system was the real-time collaborative whiteboard, designed to facilitate an immersive and interactive learning experience, promoting collaboration and innovation among students and educators.

Challenges

The need for real-time performance, particularly for the collaborative whiteboard functionality, presented a significant hurdle. It required sophisticated real-time collaboration technologies to ensure smooth, lag-free operation.

The project required innovative solutions for syncing data between the client's offline locations and the central LMS, ensuring consistent, up-to-date information across all platforms.

The client sought for a development partner with solid experience in the LMS platform to help them address these above challenges. They had been frustrated with unproductive previous contractors who had delivered unsatisfactory outcomes and demonstrated poor performance.

Solution

Our team worked closely with the client to conduct a thorough needs assessment, clarifying their functional requirements, performance expectations, and budget constraints.

To overcome the challenge of technical complexity, especially in implementing the real-time collaborative whiteboard, our team decided to leverage WebSocket technology. WebSocket provides full-duplex communication channels over a single, long-held connection, allowing for real-time data transfer between the client and server. This technology was pivotal in ensuring that the collaborative whiteboard functioned smoothly, with immediate response times, thereby enabling a truly interactive and engaging learning experience. Furthermore, we incorporated advanced algorithms to minimize server load and optimize data transmission speeds, ensuring that the system could handle simultaneous connections from multiple users without any degradation in performance.

The solution for offline synchronization involved developing a robust system capable of syncing data between the institution's offline locations and the central LMS. We employed a combination of local caching and periodic synchronization techniques. Each offline location was equipped with a local server that cached the latest data and changes made offline. These changes were then periodically synchronized with the central LMS server whenever an internet connection was available. This approach ensured that the data remained consistent and up-to-date across all platforms, even in scenarios where internet connectivity was intermittent or unavailable.

Result

The custom Learning Management System was successfully developed and implemented within the stipulated timeframe and budget. The real-time collaborative whiteboard became a standout feature, greatly enhancing the interactive and collaborative aspects of the digital learning experience. It facilitated seamless collaboration among students and educators, fostering a more immersive and engaging learning environment.

The offline synchronization solution ensured that data remained consistent and up-to-date across all the institution's locations, thereby enhancing the reliability and accessibility of the LMS. This feature proved particularly beneficial for students and educators in remote areas with limited internet connectivity, ensuring they had access to the latest educational resources.

The successful completion of this project not only met but exceeded the client's expectations, establishing our firm as a leading provider of innovative educational technology solutions. The institution has reported significant improvements in student engagement, satisfaction, and overall learning outcomes since the implementation of the LMS. This case study has since become a key part of our portfolio, showcasing our technical expertise, innovative solutions, and commitment to delivering excellence in the field of educational technology.

Team size: 1 Project Manager, 1 Business Analyst, 3 Frontend Developers, 3 Backend Developers, 2 QA engineers

Project duration: 13 months

Detailed Technologies

  • Frontend:Angular, SASS, HTML5, Typescript
  • Backend: C#, .NET core, MVC, Entity Framework, gRPC, RESTful APIs, RabbitMQ
  • Database: SQL Server, MongoDB, Redis
  • Real-time Collaboration: WebSockets, WebRTC.

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