Voyager Sopris is an US based publisher of rich learning content. It partners with school districts and overcomes obstacles that students, teachers and schools face. With its vast user base, it aims at developing better content for students so that they learn more effectively and also aims to enable educators with the resources that make their teaching experience more meaningful. They wanted to use a platform which would allow them to create rich interactive content at ease and allow them to distribute it to their existing student and teacher base.

Requirements:

Voyager Sopris wanted to create rich and interactive books for their students and teachers. Since they already had their Learning Management Systems in place to distribute books to school districts, they did not want to switch to a new system for distribution. On the other hand, they wanted to create eBooks that are rich and interactive with assessments and multimedia options. They also needed for teachers to be equipped with analytics that are actually useful to them and that will allow them to benefit by utilizing focused learning with their students.

Solution:

The required solution for Voyager Sopris was delivered entirely through use of KITABOO Cloud by Hurix, and its ability to integrate with LTI supporting LMS’s seamlessly.

Digital Publishing Platform – KITABOO Cloud.

KITABOO made it fully possible for the client to digitize their books and add multiple multimedia elements such as audios, videos, and images.

  • It also allowed Voyager Sopris to add their own HTML5 interactivities and provided the additional capability to create new assessments using KITABOO widgets.
  • Audio Sync was also used to create read-aloud books.

Voyager also wanted to host eBooks on their own server, and as a result, KITABOO was integrated with their content server, so that once an eBook is published, the eBook offerings are hosted on their own server.

Voyager Sopris Reader Apps

KITABOO’s white-label reader apps were customized as per the branding requirements for Voyager Sopris. The reader apps were made available for iOS, Android Tablets, and online flash reader.
Since the client hosted their eBook content server by themselves, Hurix hosted the online reader on the client’s server in order to provide better performance for end users.

EBook Distribution through Client’s LMS

The client already had a Learning Management System in place which was utilized to distribute content to school districts. But since the eBook licensing was to be carried out by KITABOO, Hurix integrated its distribution module with the client’s LMS. KITABOO® Distribution was integrated with client’s LMS for accessing and retrieving Institution details, as well as class rosters. The Institutional accounts, as well as user accounts, can now be created using the LMS. Through the use of LMS, eBooks can be distributed to institutions, as well as end users. Once an eBook is distributed, KITABOO® would then create the necessary license keys which would enable end users to download and view eBooks on the Client’s reader apps.

Collaboration between students and teachers

Based on the role that a user is assigned (Student or Teacher), the client reader app subsequently allows for specific tasks that can be performed by the users for collaborating with each other.

It allows:

  • Synchronizing a user’s notes, assessments, and highlights across all of their devices for an eBook.
  • Students to share annotations (typed or penned) in the eBooks with the Teacher.
  • Teachers to select a specific student in roster and view the notes submitted by the student.
  • Teachers to share information/notes with a specific student or a group of students.
  • Teachers to comment on annotations submitted by a student.
  • Students to share notes with other students or the teacher.

Analytics:

In order to make the teaching experience more personal for students and teachers alike, KITABOO allowed essential eBook analytics to be shared with teachers. This included time spent on reading, number of pages read, notes created and shared, and also what interactive elements have been used. These analytics are available at both the individual student level, as well as at the entire class level. Teachers, on the basis of these analytics, would be able to more accurately focus on specific needs of students.

Result:

KITABOO was able to completely fulfill the requirements of Voyager Sopris, of creating rich and interactive eBooks for their users. Our valued client was able to realize their goals and more without changing any of the existing platforms that they were already using, including their LMS and technological platforms, resulting in savings on both the technological front and the change management side.