Author: Dr. Petyo Budakov
While the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally disrupted physical student mobility in Europe, CreatINNES has powered a unique and blended learning environment for all users who want to obtain edge-cutting skills in the entrepreneurship and creativity. The CreatINNES Adacademy aims to facilitate the training process, virtual mobility, continuous learning and cultural exchange across the whole community.
The choice of the Learning Management System (LMS)
Based on the analyses, our research team considered a few learning management systems that reflects the needs and demands that were identified into our research. Finally, based on the LMS deployment options, customer and support types, licensing type and security features we limited the choice between Moodle and Blackboard.
However, Moodle was chosen because of its modular framework which allows any number of users, depending on the chosen hosting. However, Blackboard has a limited number of users which becomes a setback for larger companies and institutes. Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Learning Environment) is an open-source learning campus- a software package for producing internet-based courses and websites.
User Interface Design
Moodle is a template-based by enabling developers to add and customize new content relatively easy which makes its interface very intuitive. The LMS user interface was aesthetically designed in a way that assure smooth interaction between learners and the LMS content. The CreatINNES Academy aims to promote not only sophisticated design, but also user interface that features a high-level of responsiveness, accessibility, and efficiency. In order to achieve these characteristics, an appropriate design of navigation, headers, footers, buttons, icons, search bars, user tour and other interface elements have been developed. It also refers to the right selection of colors, fonts, images and some other visual interactive elements.
European Acknowledgement
The CreatiNNES Academy has been acknowledged by many renowned experts across Europe. However, the very prestigious scientific network Brain City Berlin published an article which is focused on the advantages and all innovative aspects that the CreatINNES campus features (the article can be found here). In addition, the German Hochschulforum Digitalisierung has posted several articles devoted to the unique features and tools that our learning management system offers.
Moreover, the very prestigious European Digital Learning Network has outlined the quality of the learning experience provided by our academy as well as illustrating how complex problems and challenges were solved by employing intuitive UI design.