Modernization and New Features for an E-Learning Platform

The Client

The client is a successful innovator of next-generation courseware established in 2004. Since its inception, nearly 1 million students have come to love their courses in hundreds of colleges across the United States. Their success owes, in part, to the continuous improvement of the platform to keep pace in the competitive and fast-growing $120 billion North American E-learning market.

The courseware consists of several components beginning with their applications enabling students to read and interact with their courses. The platform combines with its own internal content developers to deliver engaging and dynamic multimedia courses for students. The company is also actively engaged in discovering innovative ways to help educators improve their courses in ways to better engage students and learning outcomes.

This is an effective combination as 92% of their students “like” or “love” using the courseware, while 88% agree that their online courses are more effective than traditional textbooks.

Binary Studio is ideal for a company like ours that already has development processes and developers in place but wants to increase its capacity.

E-learning company

CTO

Modernization and New Features for an E-Learning Platform-1 USA

Objectives

The client sought several improvements in their platform’s functionality, accessibility, and ease of use. Their CTO connected with Binary Studio about augmenting their existing team with additional developers and skillsets to achieve four primary objectives:

01

Modernize and add new features to their course composing tools.

The client’s goals included a complete rewrite of the web text content creation tool primarily used by their content creators on behalf of educators to create courses. The aim was to rewrite the legacy tool to make it easier to maintain, and further extend.
02

Develop additional student-facing features for the course builder, including spreadsheet and outline templates.

These tools guide a student along a learning path, so that they can better understand how to apply spreadsheets and outlines when organizing their thoughts.
03

Develop a notifications' system as well as conduct research and development for a tool that educators can use to improve courses and student outcomes.

The client desired to implement messaging for all users and create a functional prototype of a tool to help focus busy instructors on the interventions most likely to help the greatest number of their students using a variety of proprietary processes and data.
04

Improve accessibility for blind and low vision users.

Examine several methods, including enhancements to interactive course components to increase interoperability with screen readers and other assistive technologies.

E-learning Software Development

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Solution and Outcome

Binary Studio carried out a brief discovery phase (Inception) to plan the architecture and roadmap in close collaboration with the CEO and CTO of the client. Once we agreed that Typescript, JavaScript, React, and Redux offered the best integration for the enhancements needed for the Ruby on Rails backbone of the platform, our team matched the requirements with our top engineering talent.
While this project was a priority, their existing team was focused on a variety of other projects requiring simultaneous development. The client’s management relied upon our knowledge and expertise to rapidly onboard and scale Binary Studio’s augmented team to meet tight deadlines in getting their feature specification into production.

TypeScript

JavaScript

React

Redux

Self-organizing with minimal supervision, our engineers initiated development and iterated rapidly in close coordination with their team. We achieved the desired outcomes and deadlines via:

Stage 1
The complete rewrite of the aging Angular 1.3-based course-building tool with React.js was accomplished within 4 months. It served to upgrade a central interactive feature for many client’s products. Along with the rewrite, our team added support in the editing tool for concurrent edits, conflict resolution, and live updating via Web Socket. New features continue to be rolled out according to the release schedule.
Stage 2
The team implemented an interactive and easy-to-use spreadsheet function similar in nature to MS Excel. Concurrently, they created an interactive, guided Outline tool for creating ordered and unordered lists that users can modify, expand, and nest within other lists.
Stage 3
The notifications' system for messaging is active and available to all students. This component laid the groundwork for the team’s R&D effort in maximizing instructors’ effectiveness in targeting student interventions. A functional prototype was produced in 2.5 months. Though not yet publicly available, collaboration continues on improving the ability of instructors to connect with their students.
Stage 4
Enhancements of several interactive course components to better meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards of the Web Accessibility Initiative. Improvements are ongoing, for example, to make geographic maps more accessible to users of assistive technologies.

Ongoing E-learning Courseware Development

Upon completion of the initial projects, the client requested that the same team continue development in conjunction with their team in adding additional functionality in support of their live E-learning courseware. Binary Studio has also provided significant assistance to the client’s developers in advancing their mobile application through to its release and ongoing efforts to achieve feature parity.
We take pride in having met the client’s rigorous technical and academic expectations as reflected in positive feedback from their CTO, who praised our clear communication about the project's progress, next steps, and the team's guidance throughout the work.

About Binary Studio

Binary Studio is a boutique software development company, regularly praised for its unique blend of engineering excellence and product ownership that enables its clients to build robust and scalable software products.
With our development team made up of top 0.5% international tech talent, we build web and mobile platforms using Node.js, .NET, React Native, Flutter, and integrating AI and ML. We also offer full-cycle QA and project management services to ensure the efficient delivery.
Our clients see us as a trusted partner dedicated to turning visions into great products. This is proven by 200+ delivered projects, more than two decades of business excellence, and stellar customer reviews.

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