Johannesburg, 15 Feb 2023
Regent Business School has deployed a first-of-its-kind advanced learning management system (LMS) in the AWS cloud that will allow the learning institution to improve the student experience and add more value for students.
Regent, a distance higher education institution providing entrepreneurial, business and management education, prides itself in being a "master of the student experience". In the spirit of this ethos, it has implemented a cloud-based LMS to enrich the experience and add value for students and academics.
Irshaad Doolarkhan, Business System Specialist at Regent, says Regent is believed to be the only South African tertiary institution using the Open LMS platform at this kind of scale.
Regent recently rolled out its full LMS implementation following over two years of testing and expansion of its cloud-based LMS project. Prior to the roll-out, the institution faced significant challenges. “Oftentimes exam seasons were filled with crises. With around 2 500 concurrent users when the students wrote exams, the experience was not optimal. There were reports of the site going down or exams disappearing.”
He says: “The AWS team introduced us to Open LMS, who had a proven track record of handling concurrent scale. Their white labelled version of the Moodle LMS was implemented. This easily handled the full year-end exam, with around 4 000 concurrent users. This exam was the smoothest in two-and-a-half years. Not only was the student experience better, but the solution also included advanced invigilation features with AI monitoring, ensuring the exams remained credible. With this success, I don’t see us going back to face-to-face exams again.”
Regent’s Open LMS Moodle implementation is enabling the institution to add further value for students, supporting the addition of additional short courses and engagement opportunities.
“We have started creating short courses – for example, data analytics, AI, design thinking and 3D printing – which we plug into the LMS. They are self-assessed, with a badging system, giving students access to additional valuable learning that improves the experience and gives them an employability advantage,” Doolarkhan says.
“It also presents a huge opportunity for our academics to think more innovatively. They can introduce chat groups, short courses and quizzes, and they can better monitor student performance, using ‘nudge tech’ to improve student outcomes,” he says.
As a primarily distance learning institution, Regent previously did have certain courses and workshops in-person. However, the cloud LMS has reduced the need for face-to-face time.
He says: “It has reduced the need for students to be onsite as often. Students can now schedule learning at their own pace, which is especially beneficial for mature learners who are already employed. It has also supported the steady growth we are seeing in the number of international students registering with us – we have students registered with our Durban campus from Namibia, Swaziland and even as far afield as Russia, the US and China.”
According to him, cloud-based LMSes are the future of education. “The cloud in general has made a huge improvement. In the old days, if you wanted to implement an application, you had to go through the IT department, get POs and wait weeks to bring in new tin. With AWS, you can spin up new infrastructure at the click of a button and you can test concepts far faster. The only challenges are the mindshift change and cloud computing skills required,” he says.
Regent found that ongoing upskilling and agile approaches are important for success in the cloud environment. “The biggest lesson for us was that a truly agile approach is very important. With so many new technologies available, you can’t be a jack of all trades – you often have to look outside the organisation to find the skills you need, while you take ownership of your core competency. We pride ourselves on being masters of the student experience and we pull the best skills, tools and partners from anywhere in the world to support this,” he says.
Rashika Ramlal, AWS South Africa Public Sector Country Manager, says: “By collaborating with AWS, Regent can shift their focus and give themselves the space to concentrate on their core business and improve the student experience for the future of education in South Africa.”
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