Gödel Technologies helps University Hospital South Manchester implement Microsoft Office SharePoint server for Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)

Building a key IT resource on proprietary software is an attractive proposition in these cost-conscious times, but in some cases it can be an accident waiting to happen. All organisations that follow this route need to consider the downside before they invest significant time developing and supporting the application.

Firstly, is the likelihood that such an application will not be able to integrate with other strategic systems within the organisation that are based on industry-standard software. This means that critical data will exist in isolation and will in all likelihood need to be rekeyed if required by other users. Secondly, consideration has to be given to the internal resource that originally developed and is supporting the application. What happens if they were to leave - who will support it then and make the necessary evolutionary enhancements that are the hallmark of a good system? Due to the proprietary nature of the application such resource is likely to be scarce and expensive.

This was a situation that was recently faced by University Hospital South Manchester.

Web-based legacy VLE system

University Hospital South Manchester or (UHSM) is a major acute teaching hospital trust providing services for children and adults at Wythenshawe Hospital and Withington Community Hospital (the latter owned by Manchester Primary Care Trust). It provides district general hospital services and specialist tertiary services to its local community serving a total population of 570,000 people.

Historically, UHSM had provided its staff with a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for their mandatory training. This was a Web-based system that had been developed internally utilising PHP and MySQL technologies. Whilst being regarded as an important training/knowledge assessment tool for staff by Senior Management, it quickly became regarded by the users and administrators of the system as cumbersome and unfriendly to the user, due to the technologies the system was based upon and the general look and feel of the system. 

Mark Wright, Head of Service Management at SMUH said. “We knew we needed to do something about the VLE system going forward and when the person who originally developed and supported it left the Trust, this prompted us to act.”

Integration with existing Trust systems

UHSM had previously carried out a number of surveys and user feedback exercises. This identified that their VLE posed a number of problems which included:

• Not being based on strategic technologies
• Was too complex and difficult for non-technical users to manage
• Was hosted externally to the Trust

• The team who supported the VLE was too small to cope with the demands placed on them
• Lack of functionality (no reporting / auditing)
• No future development roadmap of the system

“While the system had always done a good job for us, we realised that going forward it was not the platform we wanted for our VLE”, said Mark. “We wanted to use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS), as our Trust intranet was based on this and it would make integration of the VLE with our other systems much easier.”

Having looked at the marketplace and rejected a number of proprietary VLEs, UHSM were eventually recommended to use Gödel Technologies to help them implement MOSS within the Trust.

Gödel’s combination of in-depth business knowledge, focused technical expertise, a mature process management model and a pragmatic, delivery-oriented approach ensures Gödel delivers more than just software systems; it delivers unique business solutions that add value to existing business processes or through advanced research and development create new opportunities and competitive advantages for all their clients.

Strategic platform

“Gödel examined our brief carefully”, said Mark. “They were able to understand our requirements and come up with some creative solutions to our problems. They mocked up a number of pages to give us an idea of what the final system would look like and also designed the custom reports that we needed.”

After designing and implementing the new VLE, Gödel worked closely with the Trust to migrate the majority of the courses from the old system and everything went live in May 2009.

“We shifted our requirements a number of times during our discussions with Gödel”, said Mark, “and they were able to handle this with no problems. They were always very responsive and proactive to our needs and despite the number of changes the whole project only took some two to three months from inception to going live.”

Commenting on MOSS, Mark concluded “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is now the future strategic platform for the provision of our VLE to staff within the Trust. Although it is has only been installed for a short time we are beginning to see the benefits of it already with regard to easier management and support.

“The work that Gödel have done in designing and implementing the system has been excellent. I feel much more confident in developing a roadmap based on MOSS, rather than our previous VLE.”