Replaced LMS at a wide area correspondence high school, facilitating management of 8,000 students through the development of proprietary functions.

Release Date :February 29, 2024

• Schools

Release Date :February 29, 2024

The Renaissance High School Group has established three schools in special education zones approved by the Cabinet Office. The school offers a variety of courses to meet students' needs, including Japan's first e-sports course offered by a high school and a W-school course specialized for studying abroad and preparing for university entrance exams. The school had built the LMS, which is indispensable for a wide-area correspondence high school, from scratch (developing an original system from scratch), but replacing it with learningBOX has brought various advantages. We asked them about the background of the replacement and its advantages.

learningBOX has many functions, but additional functions required are requested to be developed

First, can you tell us about your company's business?

This is the planning and operation of the Renaissance High School Group, a wide-area correspondence and credit system that utilizes the Internet and digital teaching materials. There are three Renaissance High Schools located in special educational zones approved by the Cabinet Office: Renaissance High School (Okomachi, Ibaraki Prefecture), Renaissance Toyota High School (Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture), and Renaissance Osaka High School (Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture). The three schools have a combined enrollment of more than 8,000 students. Since its opening, approximately 20,000 students have graduated from the three schools.

Can you also tell us about the nature of your business?

I am in charge of operating and managing the LMS, the core system for managing students' personal information, grades, etc., and the reservation management system for schooling (school attendance). I am also in charge of creating systems to respond to requests for information from parents and guardians.

What was the impetus for introducing learningBOX?

Initially, we were using an LMS built by another company, but we were having trouble because it lacked the functionality for teachers to correct report assignments. We also needed to add a condition to media learning (video lessons) that students must watch a certain video before they can proceed to the next step.

We decided to develop our own functions with an emphasis on these two functions, and since we had a long-standing relationship with your representative, Mr. Nishimura, we decided to ask him to build a new LMS from scratch.

After learningBOX was released in 2016, we continued to operate our own LMS, but decided to migrate to learningBOX in 2022 because learningBOX had all the necessary functions and we could ask for development when additional functions were needed. We have decided to migrate to learningBOX in 2022.

Scratch development has the drawback that it takes time and money to add and modify functions, but learningBOX has a major version upgrade four times a year, and the fact that function additions and modifications are carried out regularly was also attractive.

API linkage saves 192 hours per year that would otherwise be spent on user registration!

Did you find the transition to learningBOX to be smooth?

Yes, in migrating to learningBOX, we decided to operate the systems to be used separately at the timing of the Courses of Study change in 2022. learningBOX will be used for students who enter in April 2022, and the older grades will use the old system that was developed from scratch. This made it possible for us to proceed smoothly without the need for data migration.

In the transition, we also checked with Mr. Nishimura once a week to make sure there were no gaps in understanding, so no problems occurred.

However, when the students who used the old LMS graduate, they will no longer use that system itself, and we are trying to figure out when to shut it down.

According to the School Education Law Enforcement Regulations, the retention period for instructional records and copies of such records related to student enrollment, graduation, etc., is 20 years. Since our school has moved to a core system that manages students through API integration and stores them, there is no problem in that area, but there may be a need to set a time limit until graduation.

What benefits have you seen since the move to learningBOX?

In the old LMS, the question creation system was created later, so it took time from the time questions were created and uploaded to the LMS until they were reflected in the LMS. With learningBOX, we can preview the questions, so we can see if there are any mistakes and correct them at that point, which improves our work efficiency.

Another major benefit is that user registration can now be automated through API integration. Until now, this was done using macros in Excel. The work, which used to take about 2 hours twice a week, is no longer necessary, and a simple calculation shows a savings of 16 hours per month for 4 weeks x 12 months, or 192 hours per year. Furthermore, since the system operates automatically even on Sundays and holidays, there used to be a waiting period before the registration process was completed on weekdays, even if the registration was done on a holiday, but this problem has also been eliminated.

We have really increased the number of things we can do, including API integration. There are still some functions that are not yet available, though. What has been most helpful is the fact that we can ask them to develop functions for us (*1).

What kind of feature development requests have you received so far?

The first is to create a system to implement the evaluation of the three perspectives ("intelligence and skills," "thinking, judgment, and expression," and "independent attitude toward learning") in accordance with the revision of the Courses of Study starting from the 2022 academic year. When grading report (written) assignments, we have requested that each of the three perspectives be graded separately, even within the 100-point scale. Tag functionThis was made possible by the development of the

Second, there is a desire to give different problems to each student according to his or her level. Since there are students at various levels, the teachers wanted to be able to have students solve problems according to their performance, rather than uniformly giving them the same assignment. Interlocking contentThis allows for a step-by-step approach: if a question is answered correctly, the next step is displayed, but if a question is answered incorrectly, another question is displayed, and if another question is answered incorrectly, a question of reduced difficulty is displayed.

And third, since some of our students transfer in mid-year, we must avoid duplicating content already taken at the previous school. In that case, in certain courses and content, we can exempt users who do not need to take the course from learning.Manage ExemptionWe were also able to respond to the

I think that the full range of functions will help us to achieve an individualized and optimal learning experience. What is the last function?

The last is the batch course import function (*2) and shortcut function. For example, when creating questions, it is often the case that a Japanese question for 2023 is created by citing a question from the previous year, 2022, and then that 2022 question is created by citing a question from 2021. The ability to import courses in batches eliminates the need to duplicate and rename materials from year to year and manage them.

Also, if an error was found in a 2021 question, it was previously necessary to go back to 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively, to correct the error. By using the shortcut feature, the 2021 problem in the source citation will be corrected in the target citation, eliminating the need to correct the problem in 2022 and beyond. In some cases we found errors when citing multi-year problems, but the shortcut solved the problem and saved us a lot of time.

2 For details of the "batch course import function," please contact us.SupportPlease contact us at

The LMS has all the functions required for a wide-area correspondence high school.

How are you actually using learningBOX in your school management?

In order to receive credits, students must complete media learning (video lessons), take a confirmation test on the web, and submit a report on the web. LearningBOX is utilized for all of these activities, and of course, faculty members correct reports and provide feedback on LearningBOX.

Periodic examinations are also administered on the learningBOX. Since we do not have a semester system, we administer exams only once at the end of the school year. Each school has its own rules for taking exams on schooling (attendance) days and test days. At that time, several hundred people are accessing the site at the same time, but we have been able to conduct the test without any problems. The test utilizes a variety of patterns, including multiple-choice, short answer, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

Are there any points that you would like to see improved in the operation of learningBOX?

The various contents are listed on the admin page and it can take a long time to get to what you are looking for. In the case of our school, we would like to change it so that the contents are displayed by year or by subject. It would be easier to understand if the folders and hierarchy could be changed. In the user managementArchive Groupfunction, but it would be helpful if the content could be hidden as well.

Thank you very much. I will consider it internally. Finally, do you have any advice or message for correspondence schools on choosing an LMS?

The good thing about migrating to learningBOX is that everything we needed from the old LMS was included, and we made the system even easier to use by submitting development requests. They really understand our school well, and the transition was very smooth.

In terms of operation to meet high school graduation requirements, I believe that learningBOX is ready to be used immediately after its introduction. We have worked with Mr. Nishimura to create and develop our school's system, and I believe that learningBOX is an LMS with all the features that correspondence schools, not just wide-area correspondence high schools, need. If you are considering replacing your school, why not add it to the list of candidates?

Thank you for your participation
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