British Weight Lifting chose the Arlo training management system for its seamless integration with Moodle LMS, to drive efficiencies in their training business, and expand their course offering to include blended learning.
British Weight Lifting is the UK’s recognised governing body for Olympic weightlifting and Para powerlifting. They support a network of weightlifting bodies, clubs and gyms across the UK, as well as thousands of people actively involved in Olympic weightlifting and Para powerlifting disciplines. From aspiring weightlifters at local clubs, to elite athletes competing on the international stage, BWL delivers exceptional training programmes, educational structures and competitions that create opportunities for people to participate and excel in the sport at every level.
“Our aim is to inspire a nation of weightlifters through industry leading education and expertise. As the National Governing Body, we have a whole wealth of knowledge and experience at our fingertips through which we’ve created a range of different learning pathways. There’s something for anyone who wants to start coaching, whether it’s your first step in your coaching career or as you progress through your journey to coach at International level”, says head of workforce Zoe Kettle-Metcalfe.
Zoe heads up the education team, who creates, develops and runs the education offering for BWL. Part of Zoe’s responsibility is to ensure their software systems are robust and fit for purpose. But with such a substantial base of learners and a wide-ranging portfolio of courses, BWL quickly realised they needed a bespoke software solution to handle their mix of face-to-face training and eLearning.
In September of 2017, they approached Titus to develop a custom Moodle eLearning platform. Titus is a Certified Premium Moodle Partner, offering a complete range of e-learning solutions. From consultancy, theme design and bespoke platform development through to hosting, training and ongoing support.
BWL’s initial requirements for an eLearning platform included on-brand design and a clear, consistent layout for ease of use. As well as support for educational games, tasks, exams, and essay submissions. Progress tracking for groups and individual learners with detailed reporting on demand. And infrastructure to support a substantial user base of learners. They also required proactive ongoing support and training for key BWL staff. Ongoing remote management and maintenance of the platform and support for continuous improvement of user engagement and performance.
From there, Titus helped BWL explore options for training management software. They needed a TMS that would handle everything from registrations and online payments, to integrating with their bespoke Moodle platform to reduce the manual duplication of information between systems.
“When it came to a training management system for BWL, recommending Arlo was a no-brainer. The TMS met all of BWL’s requirements, and we know Arlo and Moodle integrate seamlessly from previous partnership experience”, says Luke Tillotson, Head of Sales at Titus. “The Arlo for Moodle plugin is completely free and well-documented, making the integration task an easy one for our developers”.
BWL staff took advantage of Arlo’s free two week trial to see how it all worked, and to be sure it met all of their requirements.
“We chose Arlo after looking at various training management systems and trialing the software. We needed the system to provide us a way of managing learners from the point of booking to completing their course, as well as streamlining the administration process in house as much as possible. As Arlo integrates with Moodle, it means we don’t have to manually update information between the two systems”
Zoe Kettle-Metcalfe – Head of Workforce
Other key features that influenced BWL’s decision include Arlo’s automatic publishing of courses to their website and the course calendar and filter functionality on the website. As well as group booking functionality and meeting compliance requirements for their awarding organisations. And the ability to assign registrants to specific groups (or “cohorts”) in Moodle, tracking of grades and completion, and automatic email communication to registrants to keep them updated with course information.
And when BWL wanted to expand their course offerings to include blended learning (face-to-face courses with complementary eLearning modules), and virtual classrooms via Zoom to cover additional scenarios and coaching styles, Arlo and Titus worked together to deliver that too.
“Titus supported us by upgrading the platform to allow access to new content creation tools and Arlo provided support for the new Zoom integration. It was turned around quickly and everyone supported us to ensure everything was working correctly by the agreed launch date”, says Zoe.
From the original discovery and build phrase, through ongoing platform maintenance and upgrades, to issue resolution, Zoe and the team at BWL say the support and training that they’ve received from both Titus and Arlo has been fantastic.
“Contacts at Arlo and Titus are really helpful to respond to any issues and work together to resolve them quickly whilst keeping us informed”, she says.
BWL staff took advantage of Arlo’s free two week trial to see how it all worked, and to be sure it met all of their requirements.
“We chose Arlo after looking at various training management systems and trialing the software. We needed the system to provide us a way of managing learners from the point of booking to completing their course, as well as streamlining the administration process in house as much as possible. As Arlo integrates with Moodle, it means we don’t have to manually update information between the two systems”
Zoe Kettle-Metcalfe – Head of Workforce
Other key features that influenced BWL’s decision include Arlo’s automatic publishing of courses to their website and the course calendar and filter functionality on the website. As well as group booking functionality and meeting compliance requirements for their awarding organisations. And the ability to assign registrants to specific groups (or “cohorts”) in Moodle, tracking of grades and completion, and automatic email communication to registrants to keep them updated with course information.
And when BWL wanted to expand their course offerings to include blended learning (face-to-face courses with complementary eLearning modules), and virtual classrooms via Zoom to cover additional scenarios and coaching styles, Arlo and Titus worked together to deliver that too.
“Titus supported us by upgrading the platform to allow access to new content creation tools and Arlo provided support for the new Zoom integration. It was turned around quickly and everyone supported us to ensure everything was working correctly by the agreed launch date”, says Zoe.
From the original discovery and build phrase, through ongoing platform maintenance and upgrades, to issue resolution, Zoe and the team at BWL say the support and training that they’ve received from both Titus and Arlo has been fantastic.
“Contacts at Arlo and Titus are really helpful to respond to any issues and work together to resolve them quickly whilst keeping us informed”, she says.
