HOL Cloud Distance Learning Platform

Initial Design Process

Insight to the company processes was paired with an understanding of the educational methodologies and modern pedagogy that is core to HOL’s philosophy.

Mapping out data and processes as well as detailed user flows, allowed the team to understand how the many pieces of the project came together and how users would interact with it.

Wireframes & Visual Design

Detailed annotated hi-fidelity wireframes describe in detail the screens and interactions that users will encounter. These wireframes and design documents serve two primary communication objectives: Collaborate with the stakeholders on what an idea will look like, and to describe to the development team what needs to be created.

Detailed Setup, Management, and Administration

Creating an engaging experience for the many types of every day, behind the scenes users was core to the success of the platform.

Content Authors, Customer Service Reps, Course Engineers, Content Advisors, and Executive Management have all been accounted for with easy-to-use, task-centric design thinking.

A custom content versioning system facilitates course updates while archiving historic course and lesson data.

Content Authoring

The authoring platform streamlines textbook content development, allowing traditional text and image course content to be augmented with audio, video, and interactive elements in an easy to use drag-and-drop interface that mirrors the student experience.

Specific template layouts allow teams of content aggregators to work independently from designers and editors.

Instructor Centric

Providing instructors with tools that streamline their processes in another core component to the success of HOL Cloud. A robust instructor dashboard shows class lists with visual indications of every student’s progress through course lessons.

An integrated Gradebook allows instructors to easily view, manually grade essays, and identify and engage with at-risk students.

The ability to comment directly in the platform allows instructors to communicate with their students directly and to provide class-specific information.

Auto-graded assessments reduce instructor workload and allow students to log in and work at their own pace.

Student Engagement & Learning

Students experience an engaging and robust learning platform. Video content, interactive testing, integrated data tables, image uploads with annotation, as well as essay and interactive question types, all work together to educate and provide the capability to document the progress and lab results.

The ability to quickly and easily process through their lessons at their own pace and on their own schedules is enhanced further with offline access to courses and lessons via tablet apps.

Results

Woodridge designed and developed a full-service distance learning platform for HOL from the ground up. Both instructors and students have given the new distance learning platform rave reviews. HOL is actively adding additional enhancements and extensions for this version of the platform and Woodridge will continue to be their primary development partner.