Industries · Education & E-learning
We build course catalogues, registration and payment flows, learning platforms, certification tracking and student portals for colleges, training providers and associations. Accessible by design, and yours to own.
You own the code and IP Weekly demos Reply within one business day
Portal
1,284
Members
99.9%
Uptime
0
Access issues
OlDevs is a full-stack technology studio in Vancouver that builds software for colleges, training providers, associations and e-learning companies.The work covers course catalogues and registration, learning platforms, certification and continuing education tracking, student and member portals, and the recruitment marketing that fills seats. Accessibility is treated as a requirement rather than a retrofit, with WCAG 2.2 AA as the working standard. Clients own all code, designs, accounts and IP, and every engagement starts when you request a quote.
Key facts
Education & E-learning
The problems we are asked to solve most often — and how.
Course data lives in a student information system, a spreadsheet and three PDFs, and none of them agree. Every term the public site drifts out of date, and staff re-key the same sections by hand into a page nobody can find.
Prospective students start a registration, hit prerequisite questions, a payment gateway on a different domain and a login they do not have yet. Drop off is highest at the exact point where the seat was almost sold.
Institutions and their vendors get asked hard questions about accessibility, and a course player, a PDF syllabus and a video transcript are all part of the answer. Retrofitting after launch costs far more than building to WCAG 2.2 AA from the start.
Members need credits recorded, carried forward and reported at renewal, and the rules differ by designation and by province. Manual tracking in spreadsheets creates disputes staff cannot resolve without a paper trail.
Students and members sign in to one system for courses, another for invoices and a third for transcripts, each with its own password. The portal becomes a support burden instead of the place where self serve actually happens.
Intake deadlines create short, sharp campaigns where a lead means nothing unless it becomes a registration. Without clean tracking from ad to application to paid seat, spend gets defended with numbers nobody in the room trusts.
Process
Discovery
We sit with registrars, program leads, IT and marketing to map the real catalogue, the real registration path and the systems already in place. Constraints such as procurement, privacy and accessibility get named here, not later.
Blueprint
A written plan covering data model, integrations, portal roles, accessibility approach and release order, tied to your term calendar. You approve scope and sequence before any production code is written.
Weekly build slices
Work ships in slices you can use, with a working demo every week. Catalogue first, then registration and payments, then portals and tracking, so value lands before the whole system is finished.
Launch readiness
Accessibility testing, load checks on peak registration paths, content migration, analytics and tracking, staff training and a rollback plan. Nothing goes live during an intake window without a rehearsal.
Run the terms with you
After launch we support real cycles: intake pushes, renewal periods, new programs and reporting. Improvements are prioritised on what the numbers and the front desk are both telling you.
How we work
Intake dates, add and drop deadlines and renewal windows set the release schedule. We plan the work around your quiet weeks so nothing ships into the middle of a registration rush.
Courses, sections, prerequisites, delivery modes and fees live in one structured source that feeds the website, search, filtering, registration and structured data at the same time. Staff update once.
Eligibility questions, account creation, payment and confirmation belong in a single flow with clear steps and honest error messages, so a learner never has to guess what happens next or where their money went.
Keyboard paths, focus order, contrast, captions and accessible documents are part of the definition of done. We test as we go against WCAG 2.2 AA instead of booking an audit and hoping.
Your student information system, learning platform, CRM and payment provider usually stay. We build the layer that connects them and gives students, members and staff one place to sign in.
Registrars, program leads and marketing see the real thing on a fixed weekly rhythm, so feedback arrives while it is still cheap to act on and nobody signs off a document instead of a product.
Recommended
WCAG 2.2 AA
Accessibility standard we build to
Since 2014
Building software for education clients
One business day
Reply to every enquiry
FAQ
Usually, yes. Most projects integrate rather than replace: we connect to what you already run, whether that is a student information system, a learning platform such as Moodle, Canvas or Brightspace, or a member database. Where an API exists we use it, and where one does not we agree a safe import and export path with your team.
We build to WCAG 2.2 AA as a working standard, test with keyboard and screen reader, and treat video captions and downloadable documents as part of the scope rather than someone else's problem. Where AODA or provincial requirements apply we design to meet them, though the compliance decision stays with your own legal advisers.
That is a decision we make with you early. Canadian hosting is available where policy or procurement requires it, and we map which systems hold personal information, who can see it and how long it is kept. PIPEDA and provincial rules such as Quebec Law 25 shape the design, and your privacy office signs off on the final approach.
Yes. We have bilingual EN and FR capability and build the language switch into the structure rather than bolting it on later, so course titles, registration steps, emails and receipts all follow the learner's choice. Translation workflow is agreed up front, including who approves French copy and how new courses get published in both languages.
It depends on how much of the catalogue, registration and portal work is in scope, but the rhythm is the same either way: you see a working demo every week from early in the project. That means you can judge progress for yourself instead of waiting for a reveal, and we can plan releases around your intake calendar. Request a quote and we will scope it properly.
Yes. Recruitment marketing runs alongside the build: search and content for program pages, paid campaigns timed to intake deadlines, and analytics that follow a prospect from first visit through application to a paid registration. The aim is to report on enrolment rather than clicks, with one accountable team behind both.
You do. Clients own all code, designs, accounts and IP, and we hand over repositories, hosting, documentation and staff training at the end of the engagement. There is no licence to keep paying us for, and nothing that stops another team picking the work up. If you want us to stay on for support, that is a choice, not a requirement.
Let’s connect
We’ll reply within one business day with next steps and a tailored quote — no obligation.