Client: The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Service: Learning technology Services, LMS Theme and Template Design, Custom Moodle Development
Sector: Higher Education
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is one of the world’s leading social science universities, renowned for academic excellence and global impact. Regularly ranked among the top universities in the world, LSE attracts students from more than 140 countries and is a member of the prestigious Russell Group. Its alumni include heads of state, Nobel laureates, and global business leaders.
LSE approached Curio with a challenge: students enrolled in its international programmes weren’t engaging with the central Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as much as expected.
Because local teaching institutions delivered the courses, many students relied on local portals instead. Feedback suggested that the LSE platform lacked compelling functionality and visual appeal, giving learners little incentive to log in.
A New Vision for Student Engagement
LSE partnered with Curio to reimagine the Moodle experience. The goal: Increase student engagement by improving both functionality and the overall look and feel of the VLE.
We applied our proven approach to LMS template development:
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Discovery workshop with academic and operational stakeholders to understand goals and requirements
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Iterative design process, beginning with lo-fi wireframes and evolving into high-fidelity, colour prototypes
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Collaborative feedback loops, allowing LSE to shape the experience well before development began
Smart, Custom Functionality
To make the platform more useful and meaningful to students, we introduced new custom-built features, including:
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A progress bar that tracks the number of credits completed by each student—fed dynamically from Moodle's database
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An assessment reminder component that draws on individual student records to flag upcoming deadlines
These additions helped shift the VLE from a passive content repository to an active academic support tool.
Flexible and Scalable Build
Curio’s developers built a suite of custom Moodle plugins to deliver the new design. This provided a high degree of flexibility, allowing LSE to tailor both the homepage and course pages to meet the needs of diverse programs and learners.
A Seamless Rollout, A Stronger Connection
The result was a successful implementation—delivered on time and within budget. More importantly, the redesign is being actively embraced by students, transforming how they interact with LSE’s digital learning environment.
“Curio’s approach was collaborative and flexible, always giving us the time and space to elaborate on our needs as the customer. Their way of working helps us to achieve our ambitious goals for the project.”
— Olly Trumble, Head of University of London Programmes, LSE