The recent revamp of the Asociatia Techsoup e-learning platform in Romania is a prime example of how open-source technology — like in this case the Open edX platform — can be tailored to the specific requirements of a large educational community. With over 18.000 registered educators relying on the platform, our primary objectives were to preserve data integrity during a major migration and to enhance performance, user experience and long-term maintainability.

The Migration and Upgrade Journey

The project began with a critical major version upgrade, moving the platform seamlessly from Open edX Lilac to the Redwood release. This transition, which included the full migration of over 18.000 user records, course content, and certificates, was completed with minimal disruption. 

Customizing the User Experience

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To meet the high design standards of the Asociatia Techsoup, we performed a deep customization of the platform's MFE-based architecture. This involved theming every Micro-Frontend (MFE) with bespoke fonts, brand colors, and UI refinements, ensuring a consistent and modern learner experience.

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Beyond aesthetics, we engineered a custom, dynamic registration workflow that makes the onboarding process intuitive and contextual. This included multi-level field dependencies (e.g., country > region > institution) and an adaptive teacher questionnaire that adjusts in real time based on user input. These features not only improved user experience but also showcased the remarkable extensibility of the Open edX platform.

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The workflow is fully adaptable to client branding needs – fonts, colors, and logos are incorporated to deliver a streamlined UI and UX aligned with organizational identity.

These features not only improved the user experience but also showcased the remarkable extensibility and adaptability of the Open edX platform, tailored to the unique needs of Asociatia Techsoup.

The Power of Localization and Analytics

Serving thousands of educators in Romania required a fully localized experience. The entire platform was customized to Romanian, a process that included translating thousands of strings in both UIs, the LMS and Studio, while maintaining a flexible setup for future language expansions.

Additionally, we transitioned from a legacy analytics system to the powerful ASPECTS analytics within the Open edX platform. This provided a significant leap in reporting capabilities, giving instructors and administrators real-time insights, custom reports, and native dashboard visualizations without the need for external business intelligence tools.

Ensuring Operational Excellence

To optimise the maintenance of the Open edX platform, we established modern CI/CD deployment pipelines for both staging and production environments. This streamlined operational setup allows for safer, faster, and more frequent feature rollouts, guaranteeing long-term stability and continuous improvement. We also meticulously validated all existing custom features — from localized certificate generation to role-based permissions — to ensure full compatibility and enhanced performance on the Open edX Redwood release.

A Showca​se of Adaptability and Expertise

The migration and upgrade of the Asociatia Techsoup e-learning environment serves as a powerful case study, demonstrating:

• The flexibility and power of the Open edX platform to meet regional, linguistic, and institutional needs at a massive scale.
  
• The deep expertise of our development team in managing complex migrations and delivering user-centric solutions.
  
• A clear example of how open-source technology, when handled with precision and a forward-thinking approach, can successfully support tens of thousands of users with seamless, custom workflows.

The Road Ahead

The successful migration and architectural revamp of the Asociatia Techsoup  e-learning platform are not the final destination, but a robust new beginning! The foundation of modern CI/CD pipelines and a clean, maintainable codebase has prepared the platform for future-proof innovation. 

• Global Reach 
  Rapidly growing registrations, expanding the platform’s impact across borders.
  
• Deeper Customizations in ASPECTS Analytics
  Leveraging insights from 18,000+ users’ data to unlock richer reporting and more personalized learning experiences.
  
• Enhanced Accessibility
  Improved Romanian language translations to make content more inclusive.
  
• Smarter Communication
  Customized email configurations for streamlined engagement with thousands of educators.
• Continuous Growth with Intelligence
  Built on a future-ready architecture, the platform will keep evolving - scaling globally, deepening customizations, and harnessing AI-driven insights to unlock the next generation of digital learning.

The next phase of our partnership will focus on developing and implementing cutting-edge, AI-powered solutions - such as intelligent chatbots and personalized learning paths. With this, we ensure the platform continues to evolve and lead the way in digital education for the thousands of educators it serves.