“We are pleased to partner with Alibaba Cloud and leverage their Global Accelerator solution, which enables leading universities to deliver online courses, degrees, and micro-credentials through our next generation learning platform with confidence to students in China and around the world.”
Adam Brimo,
Group CEO OpenLearning Limited
01About Open Learning
OpenLearning is a Sydney-based, ASX-listed, higher education technology company that provides a turn-key online learning platform and learning design services to education providers; and a global marketplace of world-class short courses, OpenCreds (micro-credentials) and online degrees for learners.
Founded in 2012, OpenLearning's vision is to improve access to quality education, promote lifelong learning, and future-proof the workforce by enabling education providers to design, deliver and sell transformative courses and degrees worldwide.
Built on proven learning sciences research and a social constructivist learning philosophy, OpenLearning goes beyond traditional instructivist approaches and static learning management systems to deliver authentic, active and connected learning experiences.
With over 167 universities, corporations and government agencies delivering thousands of courses to more than 2.7 million learners worldwide, OpenLearning is enabling organizations to expand into new markets, increase engagement, reduce attrition and diversify its revenue.
02Challenge
The OpenLearning platform is used all over the world with content flowing across regions and the globe enabling students to learn from anywhere at any time. One of the key challenges with this journey is the performance of a network and connected to that is the delivery of the information to where it needs to go. OpenLearning identified this as a potential issue as delivering content from Malaysia into Australia was a key part to its offering in the region.
After identifying this as a critical business challenge the IT team engaged a number of vendors to discuss how best to address it and deliver the best possible service.
03Why Alibaba Cloud
Alibaba Cloud were selected as the best organization to partner with due to the performance of the network and solution. The ability to scale was also a major factor in working with Alibaba Cloud as the Global Accelerator solution is able to actively scale up and down to accommodate variable requirements from clients.
Access to the Alibaba Group ecosystem was also a major factor in working with Alibaba Cloud as OpenLearning is now able to engage with other parts of Alibaba to develop broader partnerships into China and Asia Pacific.
04Architecture
Alibaba Cloud’s Global Application Acceleration Solution helps businesses by providing a simple, agile and secure model for transforming legacy network infrastructure. The solution provides superior network connectivity with global network coverage and smart traffic steering to ensure low latency transmission, optimal route selection, and congestion avoidance. It also provides comprehensive cybersecurity protection by protecting applications against sophisticated DDoS attacks and malicious traffic. In addition, Alibaba Cloud's centralized IT management platform simplifies initial network setup and ongoing management.
05Looking Forward
OpenLearning are looking to partner with more leading universities in the Asia Pacific area to support its entry in to new markets and are exploring commercial partnerships with Alibaba Cloud for China and beyond.