A recent responsive web design project of ours has been for Sun West Distance Learning Centre (or Sun West DLC), an online distance learning program administered by the Sun West School Division. Located 75km south of Saskatoon, Sun West DLC is based out of Kenaston School where they offer a variety of online courses to studentsA recent responsive web design project of ours has been for Sun West Distance Learning Centre (or Sun West DLC), an online distance learning program administered by the Sun West School Division. Located 75km south of Saskatoon, Sun West DLC is based out of Kenaston School where they offer a variety of online courses to students from grades 4 to 12, as well as adult courses.

These courses include high quality instructional videos, live lectures, and course materials which are available 24 hours a day. And by providing such materials they, as Sun West DLC rightly states, “enhance the learning process and provide more interactivity for students.”

Website Project

Prior to our involvement with Sun West Distance Learning Centre, their website was primarily just an online brochure with information on their online courses. Although this was helpful to their audience, the DLC were aware the website lacked any interactivity. This was especially true regarding registration for their courses.

As a website user you would expect a website that offers online distance learning to except online registration and payment. However, the Sun West DLC website lacked this form of functionality. Instead the DLC admin office was manually processing student applications and payments. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, was extremely time consuming AND on top of this the DLC admin were involved in trying to decipher student and parent handwriting.

I know we all like to think we have pretty hand-writing, but if you asked the ladies over at Sun West DLC I’m sure they’d all disagree. When they were trying to process tens of applications on a daily basis, and manually entering this information into a database, a “t” would often get mistaken for an “f”, a “g” for a “y”, etc. Sure, if you spelt someone’s name wrong then it could be easily corrected, but it was more of an issue for the students’ email addresses.

With the majority of the course material being conducted virtually and through email, it was essential this information was correct. Don’t get me wrong, if there happened to be confusion regarding a student’s email then phone calls were made and the correct information was provided. However, again this was extremely time consuming for the Sun West DLC admin office. Therefore, we set about creating a new website that would move their entire registration system online.

Online Registration System

The Sun West DLC responsive web design project involved the design and development of a brand new website. It also included the development of various other modules, such as a “Courses” module, along with 3rd party integrations to Moodle and social media. However, the primary module that we developed was their online registration system.

The system that we created allows students the ability to visit the website, fill out an online application, and then pay for their courses online. Their information is then fed through the website and stored in a database, and therefore eliminates the need for any form of manual processing of student information.

Responsive Web Design

In addition to the online registration database, another important element for Sun West DLC website was the ability for the website to be accessible on mobile devices – such as smartphones and tablets.

As previously noted throughout this post, the Sun West DLC website project was a responsive web design project. This design concept was used for this project because the majority of the DLC audience would be accessing the website using their mobile devices. Therefore, it only made sense to create a website that displays effectively on all platforms and screen resolutions.

I encourage you to view the website on your desktop and/or mobile device to see all the different features the new Sun West DLC website has to offer, as well as how the website design changes according to the screen-size.

And finally, what’s your opinion of the Sun West Distance Learning Centre website? Leave your comments below! from grades 4 to 12, as well as adult courses.

These courses include high quality instructional videos, live lectures, and course materials which are available 24 hours a day. And by providing such materials they, as Sun West DLC rightly states, “enhance the learning process and provide more interactivity for students.”

Website Project

Prior to our involvement with Sun West Distance Learning Centre, their website was primarily just an online brochure with information on their online courses. Although this was helpful to their audience, the DLC were aware the website lacked any interactivity. This was especially true regarding registration for their courses.

As a website user you would expect a website that offers online distance learning to except online registration and payment. However, the Sun West DLC website lacked this form of functionality. Instead the DLC admin office was manually processing student applications and payments. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, was extremely time consuming AND on top of this the DLC admin were involved in trying to decipher student and parent handwriting.

I know we all like to think we have pretty hand-writing, but if you asked the ladies over at Sun West DLC I’m sure they’d all disagree. When they were trying to process tens of applications on a daily basis, and manually entering this information into a database, a “t” would often get mistaken for an “f”, a “g” for a “y”, etc. Sure, if you spelt someone’s name wrong then it could be easily corrected, but it was more of an issue for the students’ email addresses.

With the majority of the course material being conducted virtually and through email, it was essential this information was correct. Don’t get me wrong, if there happened to be confusion regarding a student’s email then phone calls were made and the correct information was provided. However, again this was extremely time consuming for the Sun West DLC admin office. Therefore, we set about creating a new website that would move their entire registration system online.

Online Registration System

The Sun West DLC responsive web design project involved the design and development of a brand new website. It also included the development of various other modules, such as a “Courses” module, along with 3rd party integrations to Moodle and social media. However, the primary module that we developed was their online registration system.

The system that we created allows students the ability to visit the website, fill out an online application, and then pay for their courses online. Their information is then fed through the website and stored in a database, and therefore eliminates the need for any form of manual processing of student information.

Responsive Web Design

In addition to the online registration database, another important element for Sun West DLC website was the ability for the website to be accessible on mobile devices – such as smartphones and tablets.

As previously noted throughout this post, the Sun West DLC website project was a responsive web design project. This design concept was used for this project because the majority of the DLC audience would be accessing the website using their mobile devices. Therefore, it only made sense to create a website that displays effectively on all platforms and screen resolutions.

I encourage you to view the website on your desktop and/or mobile device to see all the different features the new Sun West DLC website has to offer, as well as how the website design changes according to the screen-size.

And finally, what’s your opinion of the Sun West Distance Learning Centre website? Leave your comments below!