The online learning platform we built to help young people across Lincolnshire

As many as 25,000 students across Lincolnshire will now able to access digital learning material after First Media managed to develop an online learning platform in record time during COVID-19.

LiNCHigher are an Office for Students (OfS) funded partnership between nine education providers and organisations across Lincolnshire and they required a purpose-built platform where they could share learning resources with young people during the COVID-19 crisis and long into the future.

The Challenge 

To ensure the platform was as simple for everyone to use as possible, they wanted a single platform creating where the students could access the learning material securely, which came from from several different providers, and LiNCHigher could easily track the activity of the young people engaging with the courses.

Also, as the ‘Uni Connect’ partnership for Greater Lincolnshire established in January 2017, LiNCHigher were also targeted by the OfS to develop an ‘outreach hub’ by Summer 2021 that promotes careers, pathways and opportunities available to young people and engages with the key stakeholders in the county.

Our Solution 

Our solution was to use the existing framework of our award-winning eProspectus software and create additional functionality so it could also become a platform for their online learning materials. The team worked quickly to develop the functionality and now the thousands of young people who are associated to the education providers and organisations who make up LiNCHigher can benefit from the vital training resources.

Equally though, LiNCHigher have been able to fast-track the development of their ‘outreach hub’ because the eProspectus already has an ecosystem in place to engage with learners, advisors, schools, colleges, training providers and local authorities across Lincolnshire. It also promotes careers, pathways and opportunities available to young people, including a way for Year 11 students of applying for a place at college. This fed directly into their idea of creating a sustainable platform that was more than just somewhere for students to access online material.

What LiNCHigher said  

Speaking ahead of the launch of LiNCHigher Learning, Jonathan Lidster, Project Manager for LiNCHigher said, “We are delighted to be able to offer such a fantastic variety of online resources for thousands of students across Lincolnshire during these testing times.” He also added, “We are also thrilled to be working with the Lincolnshire-based digital agency, First Media on this project. They have built the online platform and it will allow us to track and monitor how many students are using these excellent resources. It's wonderful to have such a great independent company on our doorstep."

Ian Hargreaves, Education Solutions Director for First Media added, “We have really enjoyed working on this project with Jonathan and his team. We were able to quickly mobilise our team to produce a sophisticated and expandable solution that grows our existing platform to provide a complete solution for them in an incredibly quick timeframe.”

About the eProspectus 

Our eProspectus software is being used by ten Local Authorities around the UK to make people aware of local opportunities, provide important information and support the transition to post 16 learning. If you’d like to find out more about the eProspectus, click here, call us on 01507 607783 or email hello@firstmedia.co.uk.