Online Learning Portal for a British University
Customer
A British university renowned for high educational standards and a large pool of both domestic and international students.
Challenge
The Customer wanted to introduce distance learning as a way to minimize expenses and make education available to a larger number of students. To implement this project, a web-oriented software solution was required. The distance learning web application was expected to automate all educational processes, including tests and exams, as well as facilitate online communication between students and academic staff.
The Customer decided to start with the modules that help create, run and manage assessment tests. ScienceSoft was chosen to do a pilot project with tough deadlines. The University provided no functional requirements documentation, except for several use cases. However, the required modules had to have scalable architecture, localization tools and clear design.
Solution
To meet the Customer's deadlines, ScienceSoft team suggested using the iterative approach with two phases:
The first phase was aimed at implementing the most important functionality: tests creation and execution. The user interface of the web application was developed and joined into one solution, but the main functionality was still in the pipeline. Simultaneously, the functional, technical and QA project documentation was being created. This helped ensure that all the functional requirements would be taken into account and the implementation process would be fast and clear.
The internal demo on the Customer’s site was successfully passed, and the second phase of development started.
During this phase, the functionality was extended with a feedback analysis module. Design and implementation of the remaining functional requirements such as tests creation and statistics analysis was performed in accordance with the architecture designed at the previous stage.
Results
ScienceSoft team successfully developed the web application and helped the Customer meet their internal deadlines. Thanks to the clear architecture backed by the full set of the project documentation, the final version was delivered ahead of schedule. As a result, the Customer saved part of the project budget.
At the moment, ScienceSoft continues maintaining the product with the online training and certification features. The Customer collaborates with other universities using the created software.
