Company Profile EducaMadrid represents the Madrid, Spain school system, which accounts for over 500,000 students across 1,600 schools. EducaMadrid is sponsored by the Consejería de Educación de la Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid, an organism of the Spanish public administration. Challenge EducaMadrid needed an application which would not only tie together students within a class but also establish relationships between other classes, grades, and even schools. With 500,000 potential users, EducaMadrid required an application that would scale to meet their large user base and best fit their budget. Cost was also a concern as commercial applications often come with a high price tag along with a per user cost. EducaMadrid needed the following from an application: - Ability to scale to the total number of users and students
- Flexible and customizable layouts dependent on the user
- Community resources accessible to everyone
Resolution Germinus, a Liferay partner in Spain, selected Liferay Portal as the framework application for EducaMadrid. Liferay's framework provided the ability to create an extranet comprised of a set of websites with educational news and content, as well as an intranet with websites that were personalizeable based on the hierarchal role of the registered user. By leveraging Liferay's capabilities, Germinus was able to: - Implement a Web builder (creation of websites based on portlets)
- Establish virtual communities (group chat, classroom email, etc.)
- Implement LDAP authentication and user management
- Allow content management
- Integrate with MvnForum
- Integrate with legacy applications made with struts
- Develop specific tools: contextual help system, schools management, etc.
With Liferay's robust UI, Germinus was able to customized the look and feel of the portal according to the user's hierarchal role and/or grade. Teachers have a "desktop" displaying classroom materials while students access a different UI catering to their learning needs. As the students progressed to higher grades, the actual interface becomes increasingly more complex. EducaMadrid saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by implementing Liferay Portal. With each portlet acting as a standalone web application, Liferay provides the means to extend functionality without huge refactoring costs.
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