QMUL transforms staff and research student learning with a centralised Totara platform

Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has a long and proud history of providing easier access to learning — as well as of taking innovative approaches to education.

That philosophy extends to the learning shared with the university’s staff and post-graduate research students. QMUL wanted a platform that would be a central hub for all learning resources and seminars available to its workforce of more than 3,500 academic staff, 2,500 administrative staff and 2,500 research students.

The Challenge

We were tasked with creating an LMS to:

• Integrate seamlessly with existing systems, including Power BI, LinkedIn Learning and QMUL’s student information system.
• Save time for LMS admins and, as a result, save money for the university.
• Scale as the university grows and adapt to changing needs over time.
• Generate usable data to monitor the impact of the LMS and predict the need for extended or expanded learning opportunities.

All the elements of a successful LMS.

The Solution

We delivered a customised Totara platform that is tailored to QMUL’s requirements.

Totara Learn’s flexibility ensures that the university can create and manage learning for a diverse range of learners across various learning pathways, including staff, post-graduate students, overseas staff and external contractors.

Learners use the platform to engage with everything from mandatory training and guidance on finding their way around campus to highly specialised, subject-specific courses, such as advice on how physics lecturers can access and use different chemical elements for their research.

The LMS also supports the wide range of online and offline seminars and learning events delivered for QMUL staff. Totara provides all the booking, management and reporting tools for workshops, webinars and other events.

Our consultancy and development teams worked closely with QMUL to create seamless integrations between the LMS and LinkedIn Learning, the university’s student information system, Power BI and other university systems. We developed scalable, user-friendly integrations to handle complex data flows between the various platforms.

Together, these integrations dramatically save administrative time and resources needed to manage the LMS and increase the value of the data it generates. By synchronising course completions, learner progress and other data from multiple platforms, we were able to create a unified view of all learning activities within Totara.

The Result

QMUL now has a centralised LMS that seamlessly integrates and consolidates the array of learning tools and other systems used by its staff. The new Totara platform is already saving valuable time that would previously be spent on laborious manual tasks.

The result is simpler, more streamlined management and delivery of learning programmes.

This is aided by automated and accurate data flows across the various systems, reducing admin workload and improving the learning experience for QMUL staff.

QMUL has future-proofed its investment as far as possible in the fast-paced world of learning technologies. The scalability, flexibility and limitless customisation of Totara means the platform will grow and develop with the university, continuing to match its commitment to academic excellence.