Modern Solution for Education Management

Halmstad University needed to upgrade its system for managing education information in a more efficient and user-friendly way. The goal was to transition from their previous solution to a new platform that integrates with Ladok, a national study administration system. In collaboration with Halmstad University, Consid developed a customized and automated solution that synchronizes data in real time, improves the user experience, and simplifies daily tasks.

The Challenge

The client for the project, Halmstad University, previously used an application that retrieved educational programs from its own database. They wanted to change this and hoped to instead use the shared Ladok platform to manage their educational offerings on the website. The challenge was to move from their old system to something new with the requirement that “it should work at least as well as before, if not better.”

Consid had been maintaining the university’s old solution, built in .NET, for several years. This meant that the team had a good understanding of how the previous system worked and could quickly identify areas for improvement.

The Solution

To address the client’s challenges, an automated platform was developed that synchronizes educational data from Ladok to Sitevision. The solution was built using a customized integration in Node.js, where a REST app continuously retrieves and updates educational information in real-time. This made it possible to combine data from Ladok with editorial content.

The design of the educational pages was based on user data collected using the tool Hotjar. By analyzing click and scroll maps, the team was able to understand user behavior and create a more logical and user-friendly structure. An additional improvement was the further development of the AI model Halmstad University used, Rek.ai. The new model optimizes the search on educational pages by providing course recommendations based on the user’s interests and search intentions.

The appearance and overall impression of our educational pages have improved significantly. We now have a more user-friendly content structure, while the pages are visually more appealing and better optimized for smaller screen widths.

Emely Niemi Jonsson, web strategist at Halmstad University.

The Result

The automated solution has simplified the work at Halmstad University and brought several benefits. Thanks to real-time updates of educational information, the risk of errors is minimized while editors save time. The old solution, where course syllabi were presented as PDF files, has been replaced by more accessible and visually appealing web pages. The new pages better support the university’s marketing needs than before.

– The project was vague at the beginning—for everyone. Consid has been a true partner, helping us not only achieve our goals but also driving the project to completion. They have handled our uncertainties and changing needs during the project very well, says Håkan Fasth, coordinator at Halmstad University.

One of the major improvements is that programs and courses are now automatically linked between the Swedish and English offerings using Sitevision’s translation API. This is a feature that didn’t exist before and has made editorial work much smoother.

Despite the project team lacking previous experience with Ladok integrations, they succeeded through an agile methodology and close collaboration with the client in identifying high-value solutions. Many ideas emerged during the project; for instance, the functionality with dashboards was not part of the original plan. The dashboard solution provided editors with a clear overview and the ability to manage educational information directly in the CMS system without switching between different systems.

– We will save a lot of time and money now that we have better conditions for troubleshooting thanks to the dashboard. The communicators now enter the educational texts into Ladok instead of Sitevision, ensuring that the information is up-to-date and giving us the security of knowing that the texts are always saved in the source system, says Emely Niemi Jonsson, web strategist at Halmstad University.

The result is a smooth, modern, and user-friendly solution that simplifies the work for Halmstad University and provides a better experience for visitors.