December 10, 2024
The Product Extension Challenge
How do you extend product functionality with minimal disruption?
This is the first blog in a series that addresses key challenges reported by educational publishers and edtech providers.
Today’s topic: when extending product or platform capability, how can a content provider introduce advanced capabilities without risking downtime or costly overhauls to a system already serving active users?
THE PROBLEM
Content providers with established learning platforms typically offer a wide range of digital products, such as eBooks, courses, and curriculum-aligned materials. However, when faced with the need to introduce next-generation offerings—for example, immersive courseware experiences—these platforms often encounter significant challenges.
Introducing a newer product experience often requires extensive changes to the existing platform, which can be costly and time-consuming. At the same time, existing systems must continue to support live users, including students, teachers, and administrators. Features like class management, rostering, grade books, and access to current courses must remain operational.
THE SOLUTION
At Compro Technologies, we solve this challenge by enabling content providers to define the structure, metadata, and business rules needed for more complex and immersive offerings while still leveraging existing learning content elements and assets.
This work is done via a product engine. The product engine introduces a new layer, which allows existing materials to be reassembled into richer, more advanced experiences. For example, publishers can combine existing eBooks, quizzes, and videos into an immersive experience without requiring major modifications to the current platform.
The product engine provides the necessary workflow and tools for assembling and publishing content at scale. It is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing and legacy CMSs. It can then connect to these systems and content libraries, setting up automated pipelines for tasks like format conversion, tagging, etc. This approach allows publishers to continue leveraging their current CMS platforms and vendor workflows.
On the delivery front, the product engine can incorporate a mechanism (via apps) to deliver lightweight, customizable user journeys that can integrate with the publisher's existing learning environment. These apps are designed for interoperability, supporting industry standards for data exchange. As a result, the new immersive experiences can be added alongside existing features and systems, ensuring a smooth integration with no or minimal impact to current users.
Considering all of these capabilities, the product engine—which we call the comproDLS™ Product Engine—enables content providers to extend their product offerings with next-generation capabilities while minimizing disruption to existing services and optimizing the use of existing or legacy content.
If you are facing a product extension challenge, let’s talk. Meanwhile, be sure to follow our blog for more upcoming details on this solution's technical and implementation aspects.