Solution description

Eduplace is a project of an innovative multimedia whiteboard platform that enables team management and aggregation of knowledge resources in any subject area. The use of the platform is simplified to a minimum, which will allow non-technologically advanced people to participate in the processes related to the creation and management of knowledge in teaching and projects.

The purpose of the tool is to implement a knowledge management tool. This tool will be oriented on teaching using the SOLE methodology, however, its functionality will allow using it for other purposes, e.g. as a project management Kanban board. Such an approach would be beneficial for both parties using the application, as the teacher would get a simple tool in which he or she would not have to spend a large amount of time currently required to enter course content. On the other hand, the audience would get an attractive tool to support learning, having an additional influence on the form of the content that is presented within them.

The planned application in appearance is to resemble a board with columns (e.g. Trello), in which entries can be nested in each column using a masonry view (e.g. Pinterest). Each entry can be commented on and rated by users of the board. The entries will be able to be nested, which will make it possible to use the board as a form of a mind map. Also, there is the possibility of linking between entries on the whiteboard and between whiteboards. The person creating the board can group them into one topic (course), manage the course participants, and have the possibility to evaluate them and view the course statistics. The whole app will have a simplified form with access to more advanced capabilities through the menu, so that working with the tool will be possible immediately, without special training, even for older people, characterized by high resistance to novelty.

Solution context

As part of research work, the team members noticed that the currently proposed educational solutions are inadequate for modern teaching methodologies and, on the other hand, too complicated for some instructors of classes, workshops, and training. The research showed that the instructors often do not use the tools available at the university, such as moodle, MS Teams, Google Classroom, because their threshold of entry knowledge is too high to use them to their full potential. Some of these people, in order to implement online classes, use simpler tools, often not adapted to educational needs, such as Trello, or Padlet.

Solution target group

Our main target group is universities, where our application could support lecturers in teaching and support students in group work or exam preparation, where they can easily share and edit their notes.  However, we see the versatility of our application and it is also great for brainstorming or planning a new project, so it can be used by project managers.

Solution impact

Make it easier for students, learners, and knowledge seekers to find knowledge, collect materials and work with data. Also to enable knowledge creators to more easily deliver knowledge to target audiences and search for existing knowledge.

Measuring this effect is possible by viewing the statistics of the given boards. Their popularity and the number of hits and positive searches.

Solution tweet text

EduPlace - A place where knowledge gets organized. You can organize your resources, collaborate live with your team. The app helps you find a specific topic with an advanced search engine powered by A.I. algorithms from available knowledge from others.

Solution innovativeness

Our app is a collection of the best solutions from other apps and all in one place. It is a basic asset that allows the user to organize their work in one place.

Competitive solutions are:

Moodle - open-source software for managing online courses is currently the most popular software of this type, with the largest market share in Europe. Open source makes it a success, as it facilitates integration with other systems.

Blackboard Learn - a commercial online course management software with the largest market share in the United States. It is a powerful course management tool and its interface is modern and clear. Nevertheless, it can be difficult for older people to work with it. The tool itself is geared more towards course management than content management.

MS Teams - commercial project management software that allows you to manage online classes thanks to integration with other Microsoft programs. By itself, it does not have knowledge management capabilities, however, other integrating Office applications such as OneNote can be adapted for this purpose. Unfortunately, the OneNote tool is not designed for easy group work. Also, experience with the current pandemic situation shows that despite its high popularity in Universities, much senior staff has not been able to cope with this software.

Google Classroom - commercial web-based software, available as a cloud service. It features great simplicity and currently appears to be the easiest to use. Its functionality can be extended by external applications available in the GSuite Marketplace. However, the existing external applications are not tailored to educational needs, in particular to the SOLE method.

Trello - is a web-based Kanban-style list-making application. Its original purpose is project management, however, it has gained some popularity in use as a place to gather knowledge. From the student side, it is very useful for this, however, it lacks any capabilities from the instructor side.

Padlet - is a more powerful tool than Trello. From the student side, it is very useful for teaching in the SOLE system. In the paid version also has some solutions giving some possibilities for the teacher. The minus of this system is its not very user-friendly look and feel, which can be easily corrected in the future because it is not an extended system.

Solution transferability

Individual parts of our application can be used as a replacement for the programs we mentioned in the section "Can anything similar be found on the market?"

Our boards are ready to be used as "Jira" from Atlassian. So it can help in a lot of companies in creating of their work, especially in IT.

Solution sustainability

Mid-terms - Our application is halfway complete, we plan to conduct initial testing at neighboring universities and project development companies. After receiving feedback, we plan to implement improvements, finalize the app, and make it available for retesting.

Long-terms - Feature extensions that were most requested after early testing of the application. We will take care of marketing, which will allow us to advertise the application on a larger scale.

Solution team work

The teamwork was very good, we had divided work and no one person bothered the other. We got along great in the context of planning and implementation of applications. Each person handled their own area of expertise, and as a result, we were able to complete the project quickly. We have worked together for many years on many other projects, and this situation will be no different.