Springboard Collaborative used Liferay SaaS to build an educational resource site that helps teachers find resources quickly, streamlines asset management, and ensures content gets published in the right way.
NGO Empowers Educators and Families to Improve Literacy Levels at Scale
1500
users
4 GB
ASsets managed
62%
reduced clicks
Outline
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Key Takeaways
- Prioritize the user experience when designing your solution.
Springboard Collaborative carefully designed the resource site down to the information architecture to provide a smooth experience for educators, reducing clicks from an average of eight to three. - Save your internal teams time and frustration.
Content creators and the curriculum team can easily manage assets with automated workflow approvals and enhanced back-end search capabilities. - Pick a technology platform flexible enough for present and future requirements.
Not only does Springboard Collaborative plan on continuing to improve the resource site, but they also intend to use Liferay DXP for additional solutions like an intranet and a new public website.
Background
Founded in 2012, Springboard Collaborative is a non-profit organization that focuses on improving reading gains for traditionally underserved populations in PreK-3rd grade. Springboard Collaborative partners with school districts, educators, and families, providing resources for summer, after-school, and at-home literacy programs.
Liferay Capabilities
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Challenges
The resources that educators regularly access for the 96 available program variations are central to Springboard Collaborative’s success. Managing and distributing those resources effectively, however, had become a major challenge.
Springboard Collaborative was dealing with these main pain points:
Springboard Collaborative was dealing with these main pain points:
- Inefficient processes for creating, editing, and approving resources. The team used Google Drive to house documents, which came from many different places without version control. The team had also developed workflows that never actually got implemented.
- No actionable analytics. Although the team did the best they could by tagging URLs with Google Analytics 4, they still lacked insight into which specific assets were being used, when, and by whom.
- The existing structure made finding the right resources difficult. Finding any resource involved a lot of scrolling and as many as eight clicks just to get to a lesson plan. Many educators grew too frustrated and gave up looking.
Implementation
Realizing they had long ago outgrown trying to manage resources through Google Drive, Springboard Collaborative began the search for a new solution. The team used the Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms report to determine what technology vendors would fit their requirements.
In doing so, Springboard Collaborative discovered Liferay. As Nicholas Layman, the Operations and Tech Leader, explained, “Liferay performed very well against our matrix … and made the most sense from a functionality standpoint, from a cost standpoint. [Liferay] was everything we needed, and then some.” Springboard Collaborative also appreciated the examples of how other educational institutions had implemented their Liferay projects.
After mapping their use cases against Liferay DXP’s out-of-the-box capabilities, Springboard Collaborative decided Liferay was the right platform, also choosing Liferay’s cloud offering Liferay SaaS as a deployment method.
The change involved a large 4GB asset migration from Google Drive into Liferay DXP, with a goal of reducing the eight clicks educators had to take to find a resource down to three. In just three months, Springboard Collaborative was able to roll out the new solution.
In doing so, Springboard Collaborative discovered Liferay. As Nicholas Layman, the Operations and Tech Leader, explained, “Liferay performed very well against our matrix … and made the most sense from a functionality standpoint, from a cost standpoint. [Liferay] was everything we needed, and then some.” Springboard Collaborative also appreciated the examples of how other educational institutions had implemented their Liferay projects.
After mapping their use cases against Liferay DXP’s out-of-the-box capabilities, Springboard Collaborative decided Liferay was the right platform, also choosing Liferay’s cloud offering Liferay SaaS as a deployment method.
The change involved a large 4GB asset migration from Google Drive into Liferay DXP, with a goal of reducing the eight clicks educators had to take to find a resource down to three. In just three months, Springboard Collaborative was able to roll out the new solution.
Results
The resource site enables educators to find the curriculum and associated materials they need more easily while also helping the efficiency of internal teams.
Here’s how the new site addresses the hurdles Springboard Collaborative was facing:
Here’s how the new site addresses the hurdles Springboard Collaborative was facing:
- Automated workflows that ensure both quality and version control. Now, it’s easy to make the most up-to-date and accurate information available to educators through a vetting process with the curriculum team that prevents rogue or accidental publication of documents.
- More insight into site usage. Springboard Collaborative can see how and when educators are using particular assets. This process also helps identify underutilized resources so the team can focus on improving quality and visibility.
- 62% click reduction to find needed resources. The team was successful in achieving their goal of taking an educator from the home page to the right asset in only three clicks. On the back-end, content creators can also search files much more easily using Liferay DXP’s OOTB folder structures.
Since launching the resource site, Springboard Collaborative has received great feedback from educators, who are excited that they can now find everything they need quickly, saving them time to prioritize actually delivering the curriculum rather than hunting for it.
For the future, Springboard Collaborative plans to continue evolving the site, creating microsites for each program that integrate with single-sign-on system Okta and their LMS (Learning Management System) to automatically redirect educators to the right place. Additionally, the team hopes to take advantage of Liferay DXP’s flexibility to build additional solutions like an intranet and public website.
For the future, Springboard Collaborative plans to continue evolving the site, creating microsites for each program that integrate with single-sign-on system Okta and their LMS (Learning Management System) to automatically redirect educators to the right place. Additionally, the team hopes to take advantage of Liferay DXP’s flexibility to build additional solutions like an intranet and public website.
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