African Leadership UNiversity
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African Leadership University is a world-class tertiary education institution that focuses on developing Africa’s future leaders by leveraging peer-to-peer learning, technology advances, real-world project based learning and skills development.
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Project Goal
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Build an efficient learning platform that prioritizes peer-to-peer interaction and social learning, improving students’ online learning process through an enhanced collaborative learning experience.
Overall, contribute to ALU’s ambitious goal of training 3 million entrepreneurial and ethical leaders for Africa and the world by 2060. |
Design Challenges
Build ALU’s
learning portal on an Open edX powered Learning Management System |
Design a more
streamlined navigation to improve usability |
Provide
students with tools to track their learning progress and growth |
Create a
platform more focused on cross-course than course-specific collaboration |
Services Provided
General
Open edX Learning Platform Installation Advanced Software Customization Hosting UI/UX Design Project Management |
Technical
Python Software Development Front-end Development (HTML/CSS/JS) Development Operations Software Architecture Technical Support |
Approach
1. Iterative Process
We wanted to ensure that the product was progressing in a form that ALU had envisioned, so we kept them involved in the iterative product development process. We communicated with them periodically through standup meetings, status updates and collaborative tools such as Trello to gain feedback and direction.
We wanted to ensure that the product was progressing in a form that ALU had envisioned, so we kept them involved in the iterative product development process. We communicated with them periodically through standup meetings, status updates and collaborative tools such as Trello to gain feedback and direction.
2. Open edX configuration with Discourse
With experiences building a wide range of Open edX integrated platfroms, we
observed that Open edX currently does not have a suitable cross-course
collaboration capability and hence, decided to introduce such features into ALU’s learning platform for an enhanced learning experience.
After doing some research, we identified Discourse to be the most suitable platform for ALU’s edX learning integration and proceeded to build Discourse discussion boards for students to learn better through community-based knowledge exchange.
observed that Open edX currently does not have a suitable cross-course
collaboration capability and hence, decided to introduce such features into ALU’s learning platform for an enhanced learning experience.
After doing some research, we identified Discourse to be the most suitable platform for ALU’s edX learning integration and proceeded to build Discourse discussion boards for students to learn better through community-based knowledge exchange.
3. Use of Effective User Experience to encourage Active Learning
Landing Page
Discussion Dashboard
Leadership Dashboard
Results
Despite the constrained schedule, we were able to build an effective Open EdX online learning platform for ALU through several sprints and transparent communication. The platform allowed ALU to deliver its online courses more efficiently towards achieving its vision of creating the future leaders of Africa.
Despite the constrained schedule, we were able to build an effective Open EdX online learning platform for ALU through several sprints and transparent communication. The platform allowed ALU to deliver its online courses more efficiently towards achieving its vision of creating the future leaders of Africa.
Students improved
their learning through Cognitive Presence by engaging in a collaborative learning environment |
Teachers were able
to grade assignments more easily with the customized Staff Graded Assignment xBlock plugin |
Learner Dashboard
enabled students to learn from multiple educational verticals through progress tracking |
Leadership Dashboard
helped students plan their learning in a goal-oriented manner |
A more comprehensive
cross-course learning experience with redesigned theming and navigation |
Perpetual |
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© 2019
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