Solutions - Higher Education
The LMS that was built for MOOCs. Configured for your campus.
We deploy, host and support it for universities, business schools and research institutes across Europe - for MOOCs, continuing education, extended programmes and full-scale online learning.
Built for Higher Education
One Platform. Every Academic Model.
MOOCs & open courses
Your university wants to offer open, free-at-point-of-entry courses at scale - to applicants, prospective students, alumni, or the public. The platform needs to handle tens of thousands of self-paced learners without per-seat fees.
Continuing & executive education
Paid programmes for working professionals, often with a separate brand from the main university. Fee collection, cohort management, corporate enrolment contracts, and certificates of professional development - in one configured stack.
Blended campus programmes
Existing campus LMS handles the essentials, but you need something richer for flipped classrooms, lecture capture, interactive problem sets, and cohort-based project work. Open edX sits alongside your campus LMS, not replaces it.
Multi-faculty & multi-school
One university, different faculties or schools, each wanting their own branded learning space. Multi-tenant Open edX gives each faculty its own domain, catalogue and admin - all from one platform, one contract, one operational team.
Research & teaching experiments
xBlock and Studio let researchers build custom interactive content types - not just video plus quiz. If you're running learning-science research, educational technology studies, or pedagogical experiments, the platform bends to your design.
Open education & OER networks
Institutions contributing to MOOChub, KI-Campus or other European OER networks. Abstract maintains the MOOChub API integration - we built it originally for the German University of Digital Science.
What we deliver
Precise capabilities - not "everything, for everyone".
Course authoring in Studio
Faculty build courses in Open edX Studio - WYSIWYG for content, drag-and-drop structure, native quizzes, video, interactive problems. Courses are stored in OLX, a plain-text format your team can version-control, export and carry to any other Open edX installation.
Campus identity
Open edX has built-in support for SAML 2.0, the protocol behind most campus SSO. We configure against your Entra ID, IdP, Keycloak or whatever your IT department operates - users log in with their campus credentials.
SIS integration via REST
Open edX exposes 200+ REST and GraphQL endpoints for enrolment, grade sync, user provisioning, and course catalogue. We build bridges to your custom SIS. Enrolment of record stays in the SIS; course activity lives in Open edX.
Third-party tools via LTI 1.3
LTI 1.3 is the open standard for embedding external learning tools. It lets you bring your preferred video, assessment, lab-simulation, H5P, or proctoring tools into courses without custom development. Deep linking, grade passback, and user context all flow natively.
Multi-tenant for faculties
One Open edX installation, many independently branded sites - each faculty or school gets its own domain, catalogue, admin panel, and data boundary. Shared upgrade path, shared infrastructure, separate operational autonomy. Cost effective than running five separate LMSes.
Certificates & learning records
Issue configurable course-completion certificates. Export learner records via REST or xAPI to your transcript or credential systems. If you want to publish to an open badge platform or issue verifiable credentials, we integrate via your chosen provider - not bundled, plugged in honestly.
Typical project shape
What a higher-education engagement actually looks like.
Discovery & architecture
Stack audit, SSO & SIS landscape, tenancy model, branding brief, integration scoping. Outcome: signed architecture document.
Platform & identity
Hosting setup (EU), Open edX configuration, SAML/SSO integration with your IdP, branding applied, test users onboarded.
Content & integrations
Studio training for faculty, pilot courses authored or migrated, SIS bridge deployed, LTI tools configured, analytics stood up.
Go-live & handover
Staff training, documentation, cutover, launch communications, post-launch support tier active. Academic calendar honoured.
Higher education FAQ
Questions we get on discovery calls.
Technical questions from university IT departments, product questions from academic leads, procurement questions from purchasing offices - the honest versions.
Yes. Open edX has built-in support for SAML 2.0, which is the foundation of most campus SSO systems. We configure the integration against your existing identity provider - ADFS, Entra ID, IdP, Keycloak, Okta, or similar. SAML integration is formally documented in the Open edX project, not a custom afterthought.
No. Open edX is a learning management system, not a student information system. It integrates with SIS platforms via REST APIs - it does not replace them. Enrolment of record, academic standing, tuition and transcripts live in your SIS; course delivery and engagement data live in Open edX. We build the bridge between the two, and we scope which system is the source of truth for each data type.
Yes. Open edX supports multi-site deployments from one installation - so your MOOC can sit on mooc.your-university.eu with its own branding, enrolment rules and catalogue, while your internal campus LMS runs on learn.your-university.eu from the same platform. Different domains, different audiences, shared infrastructure, shared administrative console. Each site can even speak to a different SSO provider.
Yes. Abstract maintains the MOOChub API integration for Open edX - we originally built it for the German University of Digital Science. If your institution publishes to the MOOChub federated catalogue, we configure the metadata feed so your courses appear automatically, with the right language, licence and credential metadata attached.
Either works. We run it for you on EU-based infrastructure under a standard DPA, we deploy it on your cloud account (AWS, GCP, Azure, OVH), or we install it on-premise in your data centre for institutions with strict data residency requirements. Many universities start with managed hosting and move to self-managed later - because the platform is fully portable, you are not locked into any one hosting model.
We migrate universities off Moodle, Canvas and Blackboard onto Open edX routinely. Typical timeline is depending on course volume, learner history and the depth of integration with surrounding systems. Courses, enrolments, grade history and forum content all come across. We run migration as its own workstream parallel to the main build.
Bring your specifics. We'll scope honestly.
Book a 30-minute discovery call with an architect. We'll look at your current stack, your SIS, your SSO, your academic calendar - and tell you honestly whether Open edX is the right fit for your programme, or whether something else is.
