Elearning Platform

Business Results

Client

On the NT2 project, we have a partnership client – Enigmatry BV and ThiemeMeulenhoff. 

Enigmatry BV is our shareholder, a Dutch IT company making smart business applications. They invent, build, design, and maintain these applications and constantly work on new software solutions.  

ThiemeMeulenhoff is an established publisher and a well-known name in The Netherlands. The 225-year-old publishing house focuses on education and supplies teaching materials for primary, secondary, and vocational education. ThiemeMeulenhoff also offers courses for adults who want to learn Dutch as a second language, also known as NT2. 

These two companies teamed up for quality investments such as the NT2 project by blending their content, marketing and sales expertise with the best fitting, custom-tailored software solution. 

Challenges

A great deal of ThiemeMeulenhoff's teaching material is offered in an online learning environment. A lot is expected of this online learning environment: 

It was essential to modernize the environment further to develop the online learning environment in the coming years. It soon became apparent that new technology had to be developed to make the teaching material available quickly and accurately. 

Solution

For the teaching methods for primary and secondary education, we, as part of the Enigmatry team, built a new replacement platform on which the teaching methods Zebra+, IJsbreker+, and Code+ are supported. These methods are meant for non-native speakers with a low and medium level of education to learn Dutch quickly and efficiently. 

ThiemeMeulenhoff supplied the teaching methods and updated content. We have implemented an excellent environment for updating existing content and the possibility of creating a new one quickly. The result is a fast, flexible platform with a straightforward interface. 

Content prepared by ThiemeMeulenhoff uses the QTI (Question and Test Interoperability) specification. This specification is a widely used standard for representing and exchanging assessment content and results between different assessment systems. It covers various assessment items, including multiple-choice, gap match, hot text, and more. It also supports audio and video as well as voice recordings. To make QTI questions easy to create or change, we devised the idea to implement a QTI editor based on CKEditor. In this way, people from ThiemeMeulenhoff can easily maintain content without knowledge of QTI specifications. 

In addition to the question manipulation module, NT2 allows teachers to track students' progress and gain insight into their responses to exercises and tests. NT2 has a highly convenient and intuitive system for administration. New institutes with new teachers and students can be easily incorporated into the system at any time, making the initial use of this platform extremely easy.  

The Team

Our team comprises developers with varying levels of seniority and expertise, each bringing unique perspectives and skill sets to the table. Additionally, the team includes dedicated testers who play a vital role in ensuring the quality and reliability of the software. The team adopts the Scrum framework to facilitate effective collaboration and streamline the development process. 

Outcome and Current Status

The first version – NT2Online – was created more than 5 years ago. Because of its success, it was decided to make an enhanced version which development is currently in progress. It implies the usage of the latest technologies as well as the development and implementation of more useful functionalities.  

Conclusion

As part of the Enigmatry outsourcing team on this project, the NovaLite team played an essential role in developing this application. By investing our technical expertise and innovative ideas, we helped our shareholders form a firm relationship, join the co-creation process, and develop a joint project with their partners by investing directly in their product. They were able to make a partnership, thus offering the steady support of our team and a considerable amount of commitment toward their future goals for mutual benefit. 

Testimonials

"Who does not want to learn Dutch? One of our products is a platform to learn our language and understand our culture. Up to a thousand simultaneous users are using this modern web application at peak moments. Novalite is one of our partners for the development and continued improvement of this application. The good-spirited, enthusiastic, and skilled Novalite team is focused on results and helps us deliver a high-quality solution for our customers!" 

Ronald van den Berg, BA Enigmatry, and Aldert De Vries, PM Enigmatry