Prozori Solution

Nation-wide Online School for Ukraine

*National eLearning platform* and mob app backed by *Ministry of Education of Ukraine*

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ukraine (like many other countries) has faced an urgent need for a national distance learning platform that did not exist before.

The state government chose the Prozori Solutions to develop the national eLearning platform and mob app: “All-Ukrainian online school” (“Vseukrainska Shkola Online” - VSO).

The platform was created in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, The NGO Osvitoria, The Ukrainian Institute of Education Development (UIED) with support of Switzerland within the Swiss-Ukrainian project DECIDE

To provide equal and free access to quality educational content in Ukrainian (lessons, videos, tests, and methodological materials), that corresponds to the state program.

To provide Ukrainian learners and teachers the opportunity to study online, especially during quarantine measures.

To develop a modern eLearning mobile application

To do this, deploy a modern government educational platform for distance and blended earning for learners in grades 5-11 and to form reporting documentation on learning outcomes.

Provide high security of the national platform.

Provide high bandwidth of the platform (hundreds of thousands of users).

Provide the most intuitive interface for teachers’ managing courses, so that would be no need for their training (consider the relationship of roles).

Create optimal solutions so that each teacher in the country could lead the course, invite and monitor the progress of learners in their grades.

As it is irrelevant to teach a huge number of teachers in a short time to create courses through the administrative panel in the STUDIO, it was decided to transfer part of the functionality directly to the LMS, creating a platform "Teacher's Office". They can one-time duplicate ready-made "reference courses" to create their own course in the Studio, and track progress in LMS.

This provided methodological support to teachers who received modern materials (videos, PDF lessons, tests, etc.) approved by the state program, and an intuitive system for online learning of their learners.

Instructor of master courses

methodologists VSO who can create reference courses in the STUDIO and have advanced course management functionality

Learner

register in LMS
view the catalog of courses (separately master courses from VSO and courses from teachers)
take courses
view own progress

The teacher

register in STUDIO for duplicate and edit "master courses"
get access to the "Teacher's Office" in LMS, where they can:

invite learners
track the success
review the journal of grades and reports of their course
send emails to students registered on their own course
organize discussions

Administrator

full functionality from all courses

Conducted a detailed analysis of infrastructure, functional and non-functional requirements, determined the software and hardware architecture of the solution, the requirements for system design.

Determined that the best solution would be to use Open edX with customizations.

Developed a platform in accordance with the requirements of the terms of reference, conducted internal testing of the system. Localization in the Ukrainian. Convenient, pleasant, and clear interface.

The platform consists of:

1. LMS - to provide online learning

(Registration page, login page, main page, course catalog, course categories, course, admin panel, journal of assessments, glossary, bookmarks, module for mailing to registered users)

2. Studio - to provide content for online learning

(Registration page, login page, course categories (class and subject), course creation and editing page, media files, system setup module, schedule and details, pages (sections on the horizontal panel), textbooks, certificate)

3. Preview - to provide testing of educational content

The Preview subsystem has the same appearance as the LMS subsystem. The subsystem is used to test the course and its content by teachers and instructors. The Preview subsystem has no other functionality. The subsystem is accessed by an administrator, a master course instructor, and a teacher.

Provided prompt upload of content to the platform. Transferred about 800 courses and data of 5000 users from some old platform to the new one in one week. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, 1,800 lessons in 18 subjects were available.

Provided source code and compiled modules, database models, description of platform architecture, user guide, project management report, and other data and documents.

Provided technical support:

Ensured compliance with the requirements for the protection of information in the system.
Provided advice during the deployment of the solution in order to launch the system into experimental and industrial operation.
Provides support for both the client and the users of the platform.
Ensuring maximum data processing speed. Automatic scaling provides system flexibility.
The role of construction design instructors was performed by the Prozori Solutions team (10 instructors).

90% of Ukrainian learners use smartphones for remote learning, 75% of users of National eLearning platform use smartphones.
It was first developed on Android, as it is used by more than 80% of users of the platform.
Ukrainian Mobile operators provide their users with free access to the mobile Internet
It has access to all courses and materials posted on the platform. Learners can also participate in discussions and communicate with their classmates.

Redis

Elastic stack

EdX

Django REST framework

Celery

PyMongo

Python

Django

The platform holds intense loads and successfully provides distance learning during quarantine activities and online mode of all Ukrainian schools.

About 200,000 users are registered in the first months. The system provides support for more than 10 thousand users simultaneously.

Provides learners with video units, materials, tests, and the ability to track their progress. Helps in quarantine and in the classroom, to prepare homework and for exams, repetition of topics, and consolidation of the material.

Customizations created for course segmentation in the learner dashboard (reference “master courses” and courses from teachers)

The functionality of the platform and mob app will be constantly improved and expanded, which allows teachers to adapt teaching materials to the individual needs of their learners.

"The popularity of the platform and the feedback of learners and teachers about the high quality of lessons at the Nation-wide Online School inspire continued digitalization of Ukrainian education".

Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation for European Integration,
Valeria Ionan.

The platform provided free access to educational content in Ukrainian for children and teachers who live in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine or are abroad but want to study under the Ukrainian state program.

“The experience of leading countries in the digitalization of education, such as Estonia or China, shows that the availability of such national online platforms not only overcomes the limitations of the educational process during a pandemic. But is also a mandatory part of the educational space that helps children and teachers in teaching and learning, as well as increases the level of acquired knowledge”.

Government of Ukraine

Provides teachers with the necessary methodological guidelines and modern educational technologies.

Customizations have been created for advanced course administration capabilities directly from the Open edX LMS.

"The introduction of information and communication technologies expands the capabilities of teachers and forms the technological competencies of learners. This is one of the components of the Ukrainian school reform. That is why the Nation-wide Online School platform is an extremely valuable educational product”

Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Educational Development,
Vadym Karandiy

An official open resource has been created, which unites all high-quality, modern educational content in Ukrainian that has passed the government's review and met state educational standards.

It is planned to transfer online content for the entire state school program of grades 5-11.

Due to the mobile application, official public education in the online format has become even more convenient and accessible.

The platform has strengthened inclusive education in the country. UNICEF Ukraine provides expert support for an inclusive project (sign language translation, audio description tracks). Prozori Solutions is ready to support further initiatives.

The national platform was successfully launched and presented by the Ukrainian government on December 11, 2020. It will be able to be used constantly, not only during quarantine.

“In the context of a pandemic COVID-19, the health of all learners and teachers is protected. At the same time, the learning process does not stop, because they received proper support.

The urgency of creating a national educational platform is due also the strategic need for sustainability and quality of education, as well as the need for equal access to knowledge for all learners in Ukraine, regardless of location and available resources”

Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine

Serhiy Shkarlet