Case Study: eLearning Platform Development for a Startup

Summary

Industry: eLearning
Location: North America
Project duration: August 2020 – Ongoing
Size of the project team: 4 experts
Software product: A desktop application for instructors, a web application for students, a mobile application on iOS.
Expertise delivered: Web Development Services, Custom Software Development Services, Mobile Apps Development Services.

Challenge

A North-American eLearning startup, which was founded by a group of seasoned technologists, was looking to develop their mission-critical application. The CTO of one of our long-term clients referred them to SPD Technology as a competent product development company with the right set of competences.

The client’s platform is an innovative, full-blown eLearning platform, designed to organize and comprehensively manage the eLearning process at universities through the delivery of audio, video, and other content and in-depth learner engagement analytics. The platform comprises a Web-based application for learners, a desktop application for instructors, and two mobile apps – an IOS app and an Android one. The mobile apps provide largely the same functionality as the platform’s desktop app.

The functionality of the client’s eLearning platform is group-centric, i.e. geared toward group communication and group interactions. Instructors can organize a comprehensive discussion and task-related collaboration on various tasks between groups of learners. They can also organize the delivery of targeted content, including both video feeds and other stored content. The application provides live streaming that is similar in quality to that provided by the world’s leading video conferencing platforms.

The system’s Data Analytics functionality allows gauging learner engagement on the individual learner level by using an array of participation indicators. These indicators include:

• The number of times the learner has raised a hand.
• The volume of their chat communications with their instructor.
• The total duration of the learner’s talks in class.
• Attendance indicators, and more.

The solution provides enterprise-grade software security and allows providing advanced user authentication through its integration with external solutions.

The client entrusted SPD Technology with developing their product completely.

Solution

SPD Technology’s project team started working on the client’s project in the first quarter of 2020. It was initially composed of just two software engineers. As the development of the solution’s mobile apps began, SPD Technology’s project team grew to include several more software developers and two QA engineers – a total of 8 team members.

Throughout the project’s duration, our project team has been managed by the client’s CTO.

It has taken our team 12-17 months to fully deliver the planned functionality of the client’s product. The product successfully went live in mid-2021.

In this project, we’ve come across several challenges. Achieving a level of video streaming quality that would be up to par with that of well-known video conferencing platforms was quite challenging in its own right. However, this proved to be all the more difficult to do on the mobile apps during their integration with the Web application. To resolve this, our developers had to make a considerable additional effort to optimize the solution’s code and DB.

Integrating the platform with the LMS solutions currently in use by the client universities has been quite tricky, and, thus, effort-intensive too.

Lastly, we also had to deal with a major staffing and hiring challenge due to the extremely high and rigorous requirements the client had. To become part of the client’s dedicated team, each of the candidates had to undergo 3-4 exacting interviews.

The project is currently ongoing and planned to continue over the long haul. SPD Technology’s project team is engaged in improving the system’s functionality and UI. They are also customizing the solution to the varying business needs of the client universities.

Technical Solution

SPD Technology’s project team has used the following tech stack to implement the project:

• React
• electron
• TypeScript
• WebRTC
• Web sockets
• Node.js
• jest
• Google Cloud
• Swift
• Kotlin
• Android SDK
• SQlite

Methodology, Tools

• Scrum
• Slack
• Jira
• Bitbucket

Result

SPD Technology has delivered all the planned functionality of the client’s eLearning platform on time and on budget.

The client has received a best-in-breed eLearning software solution that has allowed them to establish themselves as a global market player. They’ve been able to  find multiple clients among well-known institutions of higher learning in 4 continents.