The development of a platform that connects universities, students, and professionals outside the academic sphere is a challenging endeavor. However, with a prototype based on an e-shop offering available courses already created by an internal team at the Czech Technical University (ČVUT), there was a solid foundation to build upon. Thanks to feedback from potential users, the main goals were defined: to create a clear overview of available courses, easily filter them, and obtain basic information and contacts for their providers. From the client’s perspective, a user-friendly system for course management was crucial. Therefore, the team utilized their own e-commerce platform, which could be easily and quickly integrated into existing solutions, ultimately saving time and money compared to standalone development, especially considering the potential for massive e-shop expansion in the future.
The MEET-CINCH consortium decided to join forces with the technological company BOOTIQ at the beginning of last year to develop a system for offering academic and lifelong learning courses. The need arose to build a unified portal for promoting courses and coordinating their provision. By combining efforts and organizing joint international courses, the efficiency of costly education in the narrow field of nuclear chemistry, where student numbers at individual providers are typically low, can be significantly increased. The goal is to create a platform with a European reach that promotes and supports e-learning, connecting not only students and academic staff but also offering courses from third parties. The BOOTIQ team’s assistance in developing the e-shop to its final form was instrumental in achieving this goal.
The MEET-CINCH consortium includes 12 partners from 9 EU countries, comprising universities, research facilities, and industrial companies. Through the NRC Network (Nuclear and Radiochemistry Network), it connects virtually all providers of education, academic staff, and other experts in the field of nuclear chemistry in Europe. This network allows them to enhance education and lifelong learning for professionals in this field, crucial for industries such as nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy, nuclear safety, and various other areas, including basic research.
The Department of Nuclear Chemistry has been collaborating with BOOTIQ on the CINCH VET e-shop since last year, with the live version of the portal launched on July 1, 2020. In the initial phase, all joint courses developed throughout the „CINCH“ project series are implemented on the e-shop. By the end of August 2020, when the MEET-CINCH project concludes, the e-shop will feature approximately twenty comprehensive courses, primarily in the form of blended learning courses combining e-learning preparation with subsequent laboratory teaching at one of the project partners.
The creators of the e-shop are already planning its further development to create the largest e-learning platform in their field, encompassing not only universities and research institutions but also the professional community. In the next phase, this portal is expected to serve not only as an e-shop but also offer registered users a history of completed courses and training (History of User Training – HUT), usable as an alternative or complement to a „training passport“ – evidence of ongoing qualification enhancement.
The CINCH VET portal is built on an e-shop utilizing a modular architecture. The advantage of their e-commerce platform lies in its easy expandability and maximum universality. Each module functions as a standalone application, communicating through a Rest API interface, which can also be integrated with a mobile application, customer interface, or third-party applications. Multiple e-shops can be operated simultaneously and managed within a single system – a multistore setup. The parts can also operate on multiple servers, ensuring high stability and availability.
BOOTIQ is a development company that creates comprehensive IT projects for well-known corporations and emerging startups. With a team of over 300 professional developers, analysts, testers, architects, and administrators, they work on projects that result in smart software or web applications, handling specific tasks such as building large databases or processing and visualizing large data sets. Despite their size, the team still believes in the concept of a „smart software garage“ and operates in various locations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Their services are utilized by companies such as T-Mobile, DPD, Škoda Auto, and many others.
In conclusion, the collaboration between the MEET-CINCH consortium and BOOTIQ in developing the CINCH VET e-shop represents a significant step towards enhancing education and lifelong learning in the field of nuclear chemistry. The platform’s innovative approach to combining online learning with practical laboratory work, along with its potential for future expansion and development, promises to revolutionize the way education is delivered and accessed in this specialized field.