Bespoke Software, Learning Management Systems & E-Learning - Latest Posts

Here's some guidance on cost for anyone thinking about developing a mobile app. It's based on our own experience of building mobile apps for customers who want to capture data on the move and then sync it back to a database in the cloud.

The guidance is based on two assumptions. Firstly, we build cross platform apps with Apache Cordova. It's a great solution when a client doesn't want to build a separate native app for iOS, Android and Windows Mobile. We build one application that works across multiple platforms - this means lower development costs and significantly lower ongoing maintenance costs.

The new course booking system that SkillsLogic developed for the Education and Training Foundation is a great example of how we work with a client to turn an initial set of broad requirements into a mission critical web application that delivers real value from the day it goes live.

Should you think about building a mobile app to sit alongside your web application? Here are some reasons why it might be a good idea:

DevOps is a way of working that builds closer collaboration between software developers and the team that manages the software after it's gone live. It's related to 'agile development' and is partly a response to agile's tendency to increase the frequency of software releases.

Microsoft Power BI is a great solution for colleges (and other training organisations) that want to build and share business intelligence dashboards.

Moodle's used by a lot of training providers, FE colleges and other organisations to deliver online course material to remote learners. It’s open source so it’s free to download and use - anyone can install it on a server, set up a course and enrol some learners.

The Education and Training Foundation’s new course booking system - ETF Booking - has been designed and developed by SkillsLogic

Detailed financial information about FE colleges is published annually by the Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency. The latest available data - for the 2014/2015 academic year - is here in MS Excel format.

There's a lot of Skills Funding Agency data freely available of the web - much of it derived from the individualised learner record (ILR).

Microsoft Power BI is a good tool for making sense of what can be quite complex data. It's straightforward to build simple interactive visualisations that highlight patterns in the data and make it easier to spot trends. And sharing Power BI dashboards is also easy - at the moment Microsoft lets you share dashboards via a public url for free.

Musgrave Analytics and SkillsLogic have been working together to develop a state of the art performance management framework for Together Housing Group. The end result is a set of dashboards that gives all staff across the Together Housing Group a consistent view of the the numbers that are used to track performance.