We use a reputable LMS system from Joomla, which reduces build time and ongoing maintenance fees. It provided broad support for documents, media files, and slides and offered helpful reporting screens for teachers.

Student-teacher communication was more challenging as it came with some specific requirements. It allowed teachers to announce homework to students in a particular class; each student could upload their homework privately. Teachers could comment personally on the student's submitted assignment. Students could also ask for help via the Ask a Question form below their assignment or their student dashboard. A live chat facility is also available, providing immediate support and assistance.

We needed a way of allowing students to sign up and access a chosen course for a given duration. The answer was to use a native e-commerce subscription tool as it tied seamlessly into Joomla's access control.

The subscription works by setting the period, cost and then assigns the user to a user group for a said duration. This user group allows for welcome emails and expiry notices, homework and teacher/student communication.

The access control defines what user in a particular user group can access. It allows a user who has purchased the English course item to access the English lesson and support areas. These can also be set across the system in any resource, allowing the system to be versatile and extendable.

A child user needed to be associated with a parent account, and a parent needed to view their child's communication and lesson progress. We developed a component that allowed the parent to switch their user to their child's account. It also allows parents to create and manage multiple child accounts under one subscription. Or like a course administrator, who can buy, view and track team members' progress sitting a particular course. Or to put it another way, a manager can manage their team accounts. Each team can have its own LMS learning data while managed under one subscription.