CAPDM LIMITED

CAPDM Courseworker

For universities and colleges seeking to deliver multiple programmes of online learning, Courseworker is an enterprise-level course production and management service. Powerful online tools increase quality and accessibility, and lower costs, embedding an institution's own pedagogies and structures into large numbers of courses which are portable across different learning platforms.

Features

  • Powerful web-based application interface
  • Customisable output formats including Moodle packages and print-ready PDFs
  • Built-in accessibility checking
  • Extensible as new delivery options become available
  • Revision-controlled content management
  • Access to licensable publisher content
  • Built using international standards

Benefits

  • Deliver consistent and high quality learning features across all courses
  • Invest in content independent of any particular VLE
  • Save time and money when creating and maintaining courses
  • Deploy and reuse course content flexibly across multiple platforms
  • Define and manage institution- or programme-level pedagogies and brandings
  • Avoid proprietary lock-in and own your own success

Pricing

£3,500 a licence a month

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at mss@capdm.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

9 5 3 1 0 8 0 4 5 6 8 5 8 2 0

Contact

CAPDM LIMITED Martin Smith
Telephone: 0131 677 2400
Email: mss@capdm.com

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Hybrid cloud
Service constraints
We strive to maintain a 99.5% uptime target, subject to Amazon’s own EC2 service provision and service level agreement: (https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/sla/)
System requirements
Access to a modern web browser

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
We provide a UK office hours 9-5 email ticket (Freshdesk) and telephone support (0131 677 2401) service for a client’s nominated support contact person to use, and aim to respond to all notified service issues within 2 hours during UK working hours. We continuously monitor the Moodle instances operation automatically out-of-hours using StatusCake, and AWS Cloudwatch.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
None or don’t know
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Our cloud support engineers provide our customer's nominated service co-ordinators and administrators support remotely via: 1) Freshdesk email ticket (support@capdm.com); 2) by Teams/Zoom etc. meetings; and 3) by phone support during UK office hours 9-5.
Support available to third parties
No

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
There are three distinct phases to onboarding for Courseworker.

The first is a fixed-fee consultancy process to confirm or establish pedagogical approaches and overall requirements with all key stakeholders.

This leads to a provisioning process which instantiates and customises an instance of Courseworker for the defined users, creating the structures, standards, output formats and course package types and setting up the initial branding options.

The third phase is training and baseline facilities provision. This can be delivered remotely or in-house, and ensures relevant users are equipped to use all of Courseworker's functions.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
  • Other
Other documentation formats
Moodle course
End-of-contract data extraction
Users own their content at all times and can download it in reusable formats (XML for text) at any point.
End-of-contract process
At the end of the contract we will provide a complete set of content to the client. There is no charge for this.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
The interface is designed to be responsive. Beyond that there is no difference between the mobile and desktop service.
Service interface
No
User support accessibility
None or don’t know
API
No
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Customisation is a key part of the set-up phase and is done by CAPDM on the users' behalf. This includes learning pedagogy decisions, course structures and components, and institutional branding and design.

It is common for requirements to change over the lifetime of the service, and structures and branding etc. can be amended, or new types added, at any time.

Scaling

Independence of resources
We use a virtual machine instance for each Courseworker service. We review service metrics and logs monthly to identify possible overloading of CPU, memory, storage or network resources.

Analytics

Service usage metrics
No

Resellers

Supplier type
Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Staff screening not performed
Government security clearance
None

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
United Kingdom
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Managed by a third party
Penetration testing frequency
Never
Protecting data at rest
Other
Other data at rest protection approach
We apply any standard AWS EC2 protection features clients wish to configure their service to use.
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Learning content is available for export or download from the Courseworker interface at all times.
Data export formats
Other
Other data export formats
XML
Data import formats
Other
Other data import formats
XML

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
Other protection between networks
We will apply any standard AWS encryption methods to the server, S3 filestore and data transfer protocols as deemed necessary by the client.
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
  • Other
Other protection within supplier network
By applying any standard AWS encryption options the client wishes to the databases and S3 filestore.

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
We strive to maintain a 99.5% uptime target, subject to Amazon’s own EC2 service provision and service level agreement (https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/sla/).
Approach to resilience
We rely on AWS Data Centre controls for this: Please see: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-center/controls/
Outage reporting
We report outages through our Freshdesk ticket support system and directly to nominated client support managers.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
In agreement with the client we can restrict access to administration features as appropriate.
Access restriction testing frequency
Less than once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
User-defined
How long system logs are stored for
User-defined

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
No
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
No
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
No
Security governance approach
CAPDM has a GDPR and data security policy. Our information security is the responsibility of the Managing Director who is also the nominated data protection and GDPR Controller for the company. Our staff maintain an awareness of AWS system and security guidelines.
Information security policies and processes
We use a centralised Keeper-based secure password and critical data repository shared with senior IT staff. Security incidents or concerns are reported to the Director of Operations and then tracked to resolution through the use of our Freshdesk IT ticket-support system also used in-house. An annual management review of such events identifies any long-term issues for improvement.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
We maintain a configuration and event history with previous versions retained for reference. Changes are only permitted through named responsible persons who assess security and other impacts. Standardised configurations are used when possible to improve repeatability and reduce risk.
Vulnerability management type
Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach
We subscribe to relevant security and platform mailing lists and forums to stay aware of new vulnerabilities and deploy appropriate fixes at the recommended time. We regularly assess and patch services.
Protective monitoring type
Supplier-defined controls
Protective monitoring approach
We have 24/7 site and service monitoring which alerts us to issues as soon as they occur. Potential compromises are dealt with quickly. If sites have to be taken down we aim to restore within one day.
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
We have standard processes for dealing with adverse AWS events. Users use the same ticketing system as is used for support queries to report incidents, and we report incidents to agreed points of contact in the client.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

At CAPDM we are continuing our drive to cut carbon emissions both for ourselves and for those who use our services. Research by The Open University suggests that deploying online teaching can achieve carbon profiles almost 90 per cent lower than face-to-face. Migrating to digital media from paper can help to reduce deforestation, minimise transport requirements and of course cut energy usage. Shifting to online learning can help to reduce pollution from student and staff travel, and this can have an especially significant effect in urban areas where universities are often located. A study by the Stockholm Environment Institute calculated that students who moved their studies online lowered their carbon dioxide emissions from 90kg to 4kg per term.
Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

Migrating courses online and to digital media from paper helps to make learning more accessible and flexible during Covid-recovery.
Tackling economic inequality

Tackling economic inequality

CAPDM's Courseworker services help to improve accessibility to lower cost online education globally.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

CAPDM is committed to encouraging equality and diversity among our workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. The aim is for our workforce to be truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel respected and able to give their best. The organisation - in providing goods and/or services and/or facilities - is also committed against unlawful discrimination of customers or the public. We have an equal opportunity policy statement that is available on demand.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

Connecting with other people and good relationships are important for mental wellbeing. CAPDM enables this through its online learning and support environments. Our own wellbeing policy guidelines are available on request.

Pricing

Price
£3,500 a licence a month
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at mss@capdm.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.