eLearning and School Management Solution

Project Background

The client turned to Asapy to get assistance in the development of his promising business project. The idea was to create an e-learning solution unique for Central and Eastern Europe and to occupy a very promising market niche. Willing to become a market leader, the client insisted on prompt development of a high quality product that may, in the future, be the one supported by major state departments and organizations.

After a short period of negotiations and consultations, Asapy outlined the basic concept of the future product – an e-learning network that utilizes cloud storage technologies to manage electronic document circulation, communication and distance learning. Asapy business analyst and technical specialists went onsite to get a clear scope of the future work and gather all the necessary business and functional requirements.

Two weeks later, when this stage was completed, Asapy allocated 10 FTE’s for the job. They were responsible for the development and quality assurance of key product modules. Moreover, Asapy subsequently took over the technical support and maintenance of the system, as well as the development of other important components.

Solution

The solution is a massive educational network that forms a unique environment for teachers, students and their parents. The basic functionality of the product is completely free for users.

The project uniqueness has been marked by 22 independent recognition certificates. Another important fact is that the solution complies with the highest governmental personal data security standards.

The system is comprised of three main modules:

E-learning
School documents circulation
A social network

The website offers a multitude of user-friendly services. Here are the most important ones:

Personal page Every user has a profile page where he or she can post information about personal interests, send messages, upload photos, audio and video content. Moreover, users can write blogs, read their friends’ news and post comments. Privacy settings make it possible to restrict access to particular content items. Every user, educational institution, group or event page can upload files and share them with other users. Every file and folder can be dragged and dropped across the UI.
Timetable Timetable supports terms, semesters, trimesters and modules. Classes can be rescheduled, cancelled and assigned a substitute teacher.
Class register Depending on their access permissions, teachers can promptly view and grade students’ works. Statistical data is collected automatically, so the assessment process is radically improved and simplified.
Online record book Students and parents are able to control their children’s progress in studies and analyze the data with the help of corresponding built-in services.
Home assignment The home assignment function allows teachers and students to assign/get tasks and control their progress.
Reports Users can generate school reports, as well as regional reports for managing organizations.
Applications The solution provides access to more than 200 educational applications and games.
School website This function enables public access to profile information of an educational institution. School staff can update the information regularly. If the website is popular enough, it may be indexed by web search engine systems.
Networks Thematic networks are created by our partners to communicate with users, implement various educational programs, online consultations, information and experience exchange. Each network has its own forum, groups and news feed.

Development process

ASAPY suggested using Scrum as the main development methodology. This approach helped to implement the features quicker and adapt to new project requirements in a timely manner.

Before the development phase started, two members of the team went onsite for two weeks to get a better understanding of the client’s needs, their processes and requirements.

Technologies

In the course of development, Asapy utilized the following stack of technologies:

ASP.NET
ADO.NET

Webforms

The following tools were used:

MSSQL
MS Visual Studio
IIS

SVN
Teamcity

Result

The solution won numerous awards:

World Summit Award (UN) in E-learning and education (2012)
Best E-learning project of the year – Runet award
“Your business - your fame” (Best Microsoft Azure applications) – Best B2C project of the year
The most influential E-learning project in Central and Eastern Europe (EdTech Europe 2014)

Number of users (as of November 1, 2014):

31 152 Schools
5 546 338 Students
663 192 Teachers
2 867 409 Parents

The service regularly organizes contests, conferences and other events that help its audience grow.