Acco had a very clear vision. Or rather: they knew exactly what lecturers and students needed. First, an online learning platform focused on interaction and knowledge sharing. Second, seamless integration of that learning platform with the digital learning environments used by higher education institutions. Third, the expertise of iO to bring it all together. Together, we developed Sofia: a digital learning platform that integrates seamlessly with existing higher education learning environments. The result? More than 129,000 active users and 14 million completed exercises.
Custom e-learning platform built on Symfony, Vue.js and Node.js
LTI integration for seamless connection with existing LMS systems
Research-driven UX based on teacher and student surveys
Real-time analytics for student progress and engagement tracking
Scalable single-page application serving 30+ educational institutions
Long-term partnership expanding into webshop and educational tools
The challenge
How do you improve knowledge sharing and interaction between teachers and students when both groups struggle with a multitude of platforms?
The solution
A central digital learning platform with custom LTI integration, enabling teachers to manage content from one place while students work in their familiar learning environment.
Acco x iO: from learning platform to complete digital ecosystem
Acco has been developing and distributing study materials, professional literature and scientific publications across Belgium and the Netherlands for years. Through study days and symposia, they bring knowledge to students and professionals in higher education.
We are their digital partner for the technological backbone of that mission. What started as the development of a single learning platform grew into a long-term collaboration in which we are building a complete digital ecosystem together. Beyond Sofia, we developed a new website and webshop, a course booking tool and a Select & Learn module. This case highlights the core of that ecosystem: the platform that brings teachers and students together.
Why fragmented learning environments hold education back
Acco conducts annual teacher and student surveys to gauge what both target groups expect from their services. The results were clear: both teachers and students experienced the multitude of platforms as problematic.
Students indicated they had difficulty finding online course materials. Every subject, every teacher, every institution used different systems. That fragmentation cost time and energy better spent on actual learning. Additionally, students wanted more interaction: with each other and with their teachers.
Teachers struggled with the same fragmentation, but from a content management perspective. Sharing and updating course materials across multiple platforms was time-consuming and error-prone. A central environment or seamless connection would provide a solution for both groups.
Educational technology that starts from user needs
The survey results formed the foundation for our approach. Rather than building a platform and hoping users would adopt it, we started from the concrete frustrations and wishes of teachers and students.
For teachers, this meant: one place to create and share interactive study materials, with full control over what appears where. For students: an environment that accommodates their own pace and learning style, without forced platform switches.
That focus on usability determined every design choice. Sofia's interface is deliberately flexible and clear, without being intimidating. Learning content takes centre stage and is divided into logical, bite-sized blocks.
LTI integration: bridging Sofia and existing learning environments
Introducing a new platform in higher education only makes sense if it connects with existing systems. That is why we developed a custom LTI integration (Learning Tool Interoperability) that links Sofia with the LMS systems of higher education institutions.
The integration works in both directions. Teachers can determine in Sofia which content they make available in their institution's learning environment. When they modify that content, the change is automatically applied. Students notice nothing of the technical integration: Sofia content automatically adopts the look and feel of their familiar learning environment.
The result is that students never have to switch platforms. They work in one environment, while behind the scenes content from different sources comes together.
Technical architecture for scalability in education
Sofia is built as a single-page application that combines back-end technologies with a JavaScript-based front-end. The key technologies are Symfony for the back-end, Vue.js for the user interface and Node.js for real-time functionality.
This architecture makes the platform scalable to dozens of institutions without performance loss. The analytics module processes millions of data points on student progress and engagement, presenting them in clear reports for teachers.
The choice of Symfony as a framework provided the flexibility to develop both the learning platform and the LTI integration within the same codebase. This accelerated development and simplifies maintenance.
From interaction to insight: analytics for teachers
The classic one-way communication teaching model gives teachers little visibility into how students actually engage with course materials. Sofia breaks that pattern with an extensive analytics section.
Teachers can monitor per student and per group: how much time do students spend on specific sections? Where do they drop off? Which exercises score well, which poorly? These insights make it possible to improve course materials in a targeted way and support students individually.
The platform reports on both engagement and absolute scores. Teachers see not only whether students complete exercises, but also how they perform and where they get stuck.
The numbers
1
Active users on the platform
1+
Educational institutions and partners with LTI integration
1
Available courses
1
Completed exercises
A digital ecosystem for the future of education
Sofia does not just solve the original frustrations: the platform transforms how teachers and students collaborate. Teachers manage their content from one central place and reach students in their familiar learning environment. Students learn at their own pace, with more interaction opportunities than ever.
The success of Sofia led to a deepening of our partnership. Since then, we have also developed for Acco a new website and webshop with 'mini-shops' for educational institutions, a course booking tool for semester planning and a Select & Learn module that allows teachers to combine their own materials with Acco publications. Together we are building a complete digital ecosystem for Flemish and Dutch higher education.
