Case study · Social enterprise — job seeking programme
Delivering free public courses without the cost of an LMS
When an academic organisation needed to offer two courses to the public at little or no cost, their existing LMS was simply too expensive to justify. We found a creative technical solution that removed the platform dependency — without sacrificing the learner experience.
THE CHALLENGE
A platform built for scale — on a budget that didn't support it
An academic organisation had developed two online courses for public audiences using an LMS and a separate eLearning authoring tool. The courses were offered free of charge to a carefully selected group of learners, which made the ongoing cost of the LMS difficult to justify. The challenge was clear: find a way to deliver a high-quality, trackable learning experience without the overhead of a traditional learning management system.
MY APPROACH
Exploring every option before committing to a solution
Rather than jumping straight to a solution, I worked through the available options systematically — testing each against the client's constraints before arriving at the right approach.
01
Reviewed lower-cost LMS options
Alternative platforms were evaluated but ruled out due to complex admin, steep learning curves, and an inability to remain cost-effective as learner numbers grew.
02
Tested Rise Quick Share
Articulate Rise's Quick Share feature was explored but presented limitations around recording course completion, verifying learner engagement, and bookmarking progress.
03
Designed a Storyline wrapper solution
A Storyline wrapper was built around the Rise course content, enabling bookmarking of learner progress — something Quick Share alone could not provide.
04
Built in engagement tracking
A Rise guestbook was introduced to capture initial learner engagement. A two-field form (name and email) was embedded in each module, with navigation controls applied across both Rise and Storyline files.
THE RESULTS
A scalable, low-cost solution that didn't compromise on quality
The Centre for Cross Border Collaboration was able to move away from their costly LMS entirely, while retaining the ability to track learner engagement, verify course completion, and bookmark individual progress. The solution was built to scale alongside the programme — keeping costs low regardless of learner numbers.
KEY OUTCOMES
- Eliminated the need for a costly LMS for free and low-cost public courses
- Learner progress bookmarking maintained across sessions without a platform dependency
- Engagement verified through embedded name and email forms in each module
- Solution scales with learner numbers without increasing platform costs
- Admin burden reduced by removing a complex third-party platform from the workflow
We had a fantastic experience in working with Laura. She not only responded quickly to all our queries, but her responses were extremely insightful, supporting us to get the most out of the course we were delivering. Her expertise allowed us to become much more knowledgeable about those who were accessing our course, which in turn allowed us to refine our messaging in order to attract new learners. All of this was done in a way in which Laura translated what could be highly technical matters into a language that was easily accessible to us, which meant that we could quickly implement the solutions she was providing instead of having to take time in trying to understand what was being said.
Dr. Anthony Soares, Director
Centre for Cross Border Cooperation
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