Samoo and Open LMS: A Certified Services Provider That Shapes Groundbreaking Digital Learning

Educational technology partnerships lead to innovative solutions. For this reason, Open LMS eagerly looks forward to forming strategic partnerships with solutions that share the same mission—helping educational institutions and corporate organizations achieve meaningful educational and training experiences through creative and innovative technologies. Samoo is an Open LMS partner taking a leading role in helping institutions and organizations enhance their online learning platforms.

Samoo originated in 2006 as an eLearning-specialized area of its parent company Pentec, a leading Spanish IT company founded in 1996. Since its founding, Samoo has worked to provide high-quality educational solutions, becoming a reference-grade provider in their country’s eLearning market. Their team of experts has implemented large learning and training projects, both with corporate institutions and schools or universities.To learn about the experience of being an official Open LMS partner, we talked to Sol García, Director of Samoo, analyst, project manager, and consultant specialized in eLearning.

García has a multidisciplinary profile in the world of digital learning. For over 20 years, she has worked to innovate in online training from a functional, technical, and technological perspective. Garcia joined Pentec as Director of their online training department in 2015, leading the development and analysis of training solutions for customers in different sectors.

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Samoo: The Origins of an Exceptional eLearning Solution

Samoo began life as open-source software in 2006. Their learning solution utilized both Sakai and Moodle™ (fun fact: the name Samoo came from merging the names of the two LMSs). The solution was eventually moved to Open LMS in 2015. For Samoo, Open LMS offered the best of Moodle™, but with several essential and innovative improvements over the basic platform.

"Renato Luna (CEO of Pentec) and I saw it very clearly: Open LMS was a product that we had to bring to Spain because we knew very well that it was going to work with both small and large entities," says García.

The director mentions that from the first moment she discovered Open LMS, she considered it a product built in the right way. People who use Moodle™, like García, recognize its shortcomings in usability, reporting, navigation, and integrations.

"Open LMS is a product that we always show to our customers. Most of the customers end up buying it because they don’t have to worry about the technical part of the platform such as updates, maintenance, or security patches. People focus on their job, which is teaching. They’re always accompanied by Open LMS so that they have the best on the market,” states García.

An Essential Partner for Samoo's Digital Transformation

The joint work between Open LMS and Samoo’s technical team (comprised of over 40 people) has brought user experience improvements such as:

• Analytical dashboards customized by profiles
• Enhanced graphics in the platform
• Shortened and user-friendly navigation
• Usable, accessible, and innovative calendar views

All of the aforementioned improvements are guaranteed by Open LMS-certified plugins, as they’re scalable tools that can be implemented in future updates without problems.

Among the technological improvements, Samoo highlights the use of the Personalized Learning Designer (PLD): "For me, one of Open LMS’ star tools is PLD, especially because we’re talking about a tool that helps education. I have sold Open LMS licenses thanks to PLD—the fact that you can automate learning paths is unique. It’s a very well-thought-out tool from a functional, pedagogical, and technological point of view," shares García.

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Experienced in Various Industries

Open LMS has proven itself as a versatile tool for every type of Samoo customer, regardless of volume or nature. These customers have realized that they get a faster digital learning evolution with Open LMS. From among the customers Samoo has partnered with in the last seven years, García highlights the following as particular highlights:

• Universidad Pontificia de Comillas. Samoo implemented Open LMS in UPC’s business school, the university itself, as well as in their online school launched in 2022. They developed an improved and enhanced user experience as well as a fully integrated learning environment.
• EUDE Business School. EUDE previously used Moodle™ but experienced constant maintenance and update problems. They switched to Samoo and Open LMS five years ago. With the maintenance and update issues behind them, EUDE has quadrupled student enrollment
• AstraZeneca. The multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company partnered with Samoo to develop a project for over 2,000 doctors in Spain, training them in topics related to diabetes.
• Spanish Ministry of Defense. The Spanish MoD’s work with Samoo provided coverage to over 100,000 users.

Samoo: Transforming Agent of the Digital Future

Garcia concludes: "We’re aware that in 2020 all of the changes in learning models and methodologies had to be rushed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At Pentec, we have high-volume clients who work on-site. However, they had to move online (at technical, functional, and pedagogical levels) overnight".

Samoo has demonstrated that they have the flexibility to adapt to change in record time. Pentec has an annual budget allocated for innovation. They keep their technicians informed in different areas in order to stay ahead of the curve. The following are some of the functions that Samoo offers in order to guarantee an innovative service:

• Learning consulting
• Content digitalization
• Standardization and accreditations
• Customized training
• Encapsulated content
• Personalized development
• Implementation of tools
• Support and technical assistance
• User experience (UX)

The partnership between Open LMS and Samoo will continue to provide creative and innovative technologies to educational institutions and organizations in Spain, in order to expand their training ecosystem.