QuiXilver as Development Platform: Building an e-Learning Application
Recently we were asked by a partner if QuiXilver can be used as a platform for e-learning and distribution of online courses. An educational institution in Japan wanted such a solution that they are now planning to provide as a chargeable service. We didn’t have such an e-Learning application yet, but thanks the strengths of QuiXilver as a development platform and the standard features for team collaboration and communication, we were able to build – together with the partner – a first prototype of what they needed in just a few days.
This is what they needed:
- A web platform to distribute recordings of lectures, so that students can watch a lecture again in case they didn’t understand something or missed it.
- Notes for each lecture, so that students can easily find the portion of the video stream that interests them.
- Chat functionality, so that students can collaborate and discuss on the content, thus helping each other in the learning.
- Authorization: Students should only see those lectures that they have signed up for.
- Enable students to provide feedback on lectures.
QuiXilver already contains most of the functionality by default, like chatting, role-based authorization, file management, and a cloud database to store descriptive information and notes for every lecture. For creating surveys, we had an internal application already in our labs. Thus it was only necessary to mash up the different components into a compelling and easy-to-use e-learning application.
The new File API that another close QuiXilver development partner had asked for in a different context also proved very helpful in order to programmatically access information and meta data about the stored video files.
This is how the QuiXilver e-learning application looks like:
This is what you see: On the left side, all lectures are listed. Of course, only the lectures that a student is allowed to see (e.g., that is part of his or her course program) are shown. Students can select which one they want to see, which is then displayed in the middle – both the video stream as well as a chat board for that lecture. And finally on the left right, the student can see the notes for that lecture.
This e-learning application is a good example proving how easy it is to build develop applications on top of the QuiXilver platform – both for us as well as for partners. We are working with several partners to increase the number of applications for QuiXilver, growing our app store continuously. A prominent example of a co-developed application is “Onboarding swiss+”, which we developed together with our partner HR Campus.
Interested to develop your own application or become a development partner? Please don’t hesitate to contact us!