Lifelong learning

Over the years, the application we created for HOVO Groningen and HOVO Brabant has become a full-fledged student, teacher and course management system. Including links with Mollie and the accounting package Snelstart.

Case Study

The challenge with this web application starts with the simple fact that we are dealing with different user groups that need to be served in a specific way. We define the following groups:

Visitors should be able to easily search (and filter) the course offerings. When interested in participating, the process of registering as a student, registering and paying for the respective course begins.

Students are enrolled and can access their course information in their own locked environment. That includes related course materials, participant lists, invoices and profile information.

Teachers at the academies, like students, have their own environment. Here they can see what courses they are associated with and who the participants are. They can also upload their own course materials here for their students.

HOVO itself, of course, is the administrator of all this. They have full insight and management of the students, faculty and courses. With thousands of students, and hundreds of courses and instructors, insight is key. How many participants have signed up for a course, has person x paid, who wants to receive a newsletter and/or brochure. Which instructors are active and to which course are they affiliated. These are just a few examples. Several reports can be created that provide this insight and can be managed.

Accounting synchronization

Payments are automatically processed by the system in their Snelstart accounting system. After an iDeal payment by a student, through the payment provider Mollie, invoices are automatically generated and sent. A payment is registered in Snelstart and synchronized with the system so that the current payment status can be seen there as well.

Optimization for the target audience

An important fact when developing this application is that the users are mainly seniors, a generation that did not grow up with the Internet. Processes such as registering and paying for a course were therefore optimized as much as possible. Here you can think of validation of data, explanations and notifications in the process but also a logical step-by-step sequence. In this way, any "errors" can be prevented. In addition, HOVO can make corrections afterwards, perform actions (registering for a course) for someone or look into the student's environment if there are questions.

The application it can rightly be called the beating heart of the academies.