Client Overview

For healthcare professionals, EduTech is a top source of professional development and continuing education courses. Established in 2008, the organization provides more than 150,000 healthcare workers in the nursing, pharmacy, medical, and allied health areas with more than 500 certified courses. Their business is based on their learning management system (LMS), which provides courses, certifies users, and monitors user completion—all essential for professional licensure and career progression.

The Problem

EduTech's market dominance and future expansion were at risk due to serious problems with its outdated learning platform in the middle of 2020:

• The old technology that underpinned their current LMS was getting harder and more costly to maintain.
• Bad User Experience: Users became furious and support expenses increased as a result of the platform's outdated interface and insufficient mobile support.
• Limited Scalability: During periods of high demand, the system operated poorly and experienced sporadic outages.
• Functionality Limitations: The platform did not include interactive content, social learning, individualized learning pathways, or other modern learning options.
• Data silos: Because crucial information was dispersed over several systems, it was challenging to understand learner behavior and the efficacy of the material.
• Pressure from Competition: EduTech's market share was starting to be eroded by more advanced, younger rivals.

The issue escalated when customer satisfaction scores fell by 18% in a single year and course completion rates started to fall. Jennifer Martinez, CEO of EduTech, points out that "we were at a crossroads." The platform we were using to disseminate our content was limiting us, despite the fact that it was still of outstanding quality. We realized we needed more than minor adjustments—we needed a total transformation.

How We Proceed

In order to modernize EduTech's learning platform with the least amount of disturbance to their operations and users, we devised a staged modernization strategy after carefully examining their technological environment, business requirements, and user characteristics.

Phase One: Planning and Research (two months)

To start, we carried out a thorough research to make sure the updated platform would satisfy both present and future requirements:

• In addition to usability testing, the user research involved in-depth interviews with administrators, content producers, and students.
• Competitive Analysis: To find best practices and areas for differentiation, examine top learning platforms.
• Technical evaluation was done on the current design, integration points, and data models.
• The degree to which the current course library conforms with contemporary distribution methods was evaluated using a content audit.
• Future Vision: worked in tandem with the leadership of EduTech to establish a vision for the direction of education.

To establish clear priorities and bring stakeholders together around a common vision, this phase was essential. Chief Learning Officer Michael Thompson of EduTech remembers, "The discovery process was eye-opening," adding, "We thought we understood the problems that our users were facing, but the research pointed out problems we hadn't even considered." We were also able to determine which aspects will have the greatest influence on the educational process.

Phase 2: Foundation Platform Architecture and User Experience Workshop (4 months)

The following objective guided the development and implementation of the new platform's core architecture:

• Microservices architecture is a scalable, adaptable design that allows for the independent expansion and development of components.
• Cloud-native infrastructure with high availability and auto-scaling was implemented using AWS.
• A comprehensive API layer was created as an API gateway to make it easier to integrate external and internal systems.
• included a contemporary data platform with analytical capabilities and a standardized data model.
• Two components of the strong security framework that was created and put into place were role-based access control and data encryption.

At this point, the new design must be carefully planned to meet both present needs and future expansion. As EduTech CTO David Chen observes, "We were essentially rebuilding the foundation of our business." In addition to solving our current issues, we required a design that would enable us to accomplish our ten-year strategic objective. Our ability to adapt to changing platform elements at varying rates has been made possible by the microservices strategy.

Five Months of Core Education in Phase Three

We concentrated on creating the primary educational experience when the foundation was established:

• created a cutting-edge, responsive learning experience that consistently functions on a variety of devices.
• developed a flexible framework for delivering material that can manage many kinds of interactive features and content.
• The evaluation framework Set up an extensive evaluation system with automatic scoring and a variety of question kinds.
• Personalized learning paths based on duties, hobbies, and past knowledge can now be created thanks to expanded capabilities.
• Progress Monitoring: thorough monitoring and reporting of students' and administrators' progress.

During this phase, we collaborated closely with the content team at EduTech to make sure the new platform would successfully showcase their current courses and promote future learning opportunities. "One of our biggest concerns was the content migration," says Sarah Johnson, the content director. We provided hundreds of courses, each of which reflected years of effort. The team's migration plan preserved our existing content while also incorporating new interactive components.

Advanced Features and the Fourth Migration Phase (four months)

We set up the core infrastructure, implemented cutting-edge features, and got ready for the user and content migration:

• Social Learning: Put in place peer reviews, discussion boards, and cooperative learning areas.
• To boost engagement, gamification components such as leaderboards, achievements, and badges were used.
• A recommendation system dubbed Personalization Engine, driven by AI, was created to offer pertinent courses.
• Content migration is the transfer and improvement of current courses to utilize the new platform's features.
• To reduce the amount of disturbance to current users, a phased migration strategy was developed.

The migration plan was very important to make sure that EduTech's enormous user base had a smooth transition. Jennifer Martinez states that "we couldn't afford any downtime or data loss during the migration." Customers were able to finish past courses on the old system and begin new ones on the new platform thanks to the team's tiered approach. Our users felt it was smooth, despite the backdrop complexity.

Findings and Effects

The platform makeover has revitalized EduTech's operations and put it in a strong position to grow going forward:

The enhancement has produced certain qualitative advantages in addition to these noteworthy statistics:

• The interactive resources and the cutting-edge, user-friendly user interface have greatly enhanced the educational experience.
• To facilitate learning while on the go, the proportion of platforms that use mobile devices has grown from 12% to 48%.
• Operational Efficiency: Automating administrative tasks that previously required human interaction lowers operating expenses.
• The integrated data platform offers useful insights into student behavior and content effectiveness.
• Distinction in the market: Due to the platform's sophisticated features, EduTech is once again at the forefront of the industry.

"Our company is booming as a result of the platform upgrade. Having overcome the limitations of an antiquated technology, we now have a cutting-edge, adaptable platform that gives us a competitive advantage. Our users have given us the highest happiness ratings we have ever seen, finished more courses, and are more involved. The outcome has been astounding. Furthermore, we can now develop and react to market opportunities more quickly than we could in the past from a business standpoint."

— Jennifer Martinez, CEO of EduTech

Takeaways

The following are some insightful observations from the EduTech modernization that can help other businesses undergoing comparable changes:

• A key component is user-centered design: It takes a thorough grasp of user requirements and pain points to develop a platform that encourages participation.
• The platform and the content must both change at the same time. Among the most effective modernization projects are the technological platform and the information it provides.
• Planning is crucial while moving: To lessen the inconvenience to current users, a thorough relocation plan is needed.
• A data strategy is essential. A single data model and analytics capabilities form the basis for continuous improvement and customization.
• When in balance Experience as well as inventiveness: When introducing new features, it's important to maintain the appropriate familiarity to prevent confusion among current users.

The EduTech scenario probably best demonstrates that modernizing technology in education involves more than just upgrading systems; it also entails rethinking the teaching process to better meet changing user demands and expectations.