Customer experience: Building a scalable short-course ecosystem at the University of Edinburgh2026-05-14T09:48:24+02:00

Building a scalable
short-course ecosystem
at the University of Edinburgh

How a 443-year-old institution moved its schools off fragmented legacy systems onto a single, learner-first platform, in under a year.

NUMBERS

One seamless learner journey

Since launching shortcourses.ed.ac.uk in June 2025:

THE CHALLENGE

A fragmented experience and missed opportunities

Short courses had been running at Edinburgh for years but they didn’t share infrastructure. There was no central catalogue where prospective learners could browse the university’s full short-course portfolio.

For learners taking more than one course, the journey was disjointed. For administrators, every new programme meant another manual process. And for the institution, there was no clear view of what was being offered, let alone how it was performing.

“Schools have been delivering short courses for many years, but they didn’t all use the same learning platform. That led to a very fractured user experience for learners who took multiple courses.”

Myles Blaney , Senior Learning Technology Service Manager

THE SOLUTION

One scalable system for storefront, enrolment, and learning

Following a procurement process, Edinburgh selected Canvas LMS and Eduframe, pairing a learner-friendly LMS with a continuing-education backbone built to handle the reality of 25 schools with different needs.

Continuing education looks different at every institution. Let’s find what works for yours

We wanted a standardised experience for our users so they could discover short courses on just one website, enrol and pay for a course and then access the content in a dedicated virtual learning environment. We also wanted them to be able to get some kind of accreditation like a digital badge on completion of the course Lauren Johnston-Smith Marketing Manager for Short Courses “ We needed something that allowed us to manage different order scenarios, course types, and flexible payment scenarios. Eduframe gave us that flexibility. And importantly, it was already used by other institutions we could learn from. Myles Blaney Senior Learning Technology Service Manager “ We want to give learners something tangible, verifiable, and transparent, something they can add to their professional profiles.

This year is about getting our foot out the door. Next year is about refining and improving.
Fiona Buckland Learning Technology Team Manager
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ON-DEMAND WEBINAR · 45 MIN

Unifying continuing education at scale: practical insights from Edinburgh

How do you scale continuing education across multiple schools when budgets are tight, systems are fragmented, and expectations for impact keep growing? Edinburgh’s team shares how they moved from fragmented short-course delivery to a single, unified ecosystem.

  • Align continuing education across departments without adding complexity
  • Move from fragmented systems to a more connected, scalable setup
  • Reduce manual processes by redesigning workflows and introducing the right automations
  • Scale CE programs and alternative credentials without increasing staff or workload
  • Improve the learner experience from discovery through enrollment and course delivery

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PARTNERSHIP

Built for Canvas, trusted by Instructure

Eduframe is a proud Instructure Certified partner. Together, Canvas and Eduframe let institutions like Edinburgh enroll non-traditional learners, manage B2B partnerships, and launch stackable programs with speed and clarity. When Canvas and Eduframe work together, learners move seamlessly from catalog to certificate, and institutions get the infrastructure to grow lifelong learning at scale.

Are you interested in scaling your continuing education offerings and boosting enrolments?

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