Inside Imperial’s Digital Learning Hub: 1,600+ Students, Sensei Quizzes & BuddyPress

Project Background

Imperial College London’s Business School had run a private digital hub for nearly two years to support programmes like Strategic Marketing. It was built on WordPress with custom code handling course listings, user roles, and basic lesson tracking. As the volume of online course materials grew, staff wanted quizzes, file uploads, and automated tracking of lesson completion. The team evaluated alternative LMS plugins and even considered moving to a dedicated platform. In the end, Sensei was the best fit because it offers a native quiz engine, lesson steps, and a clear roadmap of upcoming features. They needed a system that could serve over 1,600 students and around 250 lecturers securely.

Core Plugins and Architecture

To create a modular, maintainable site, the team relied on several key plugins and wrote custom code for the rest. The main plugins include:

• Sensei: provides the base courses and lessons framework.
• Sensei Modules: groups lessons into named sessions.
• BuddyPress: handles programme and course groups.
• bbPress: adds a forum for each group.
• Posts 2 Posts: links users to programmes, courses, forums, and news posts.
• Custom Metadata Manager: stores extra fields on courses and programmes.
• WooSidebars: shows context-aware widget areas site-wide.

Each plugin plays a specific role in linking users, content, and interactions. Posts 2 Posts glues together the site’s building blocks, while BuddyPress and bbPress power social engagement.

Automated User Onboarding

The command-line approach runs on WP-CLI so heavy tasks do not hit PHP time or memory limits. A simple cron job kicks off a PHP script that reads a CSV provided by the registrar’s office. It creates or updates WordPress user accounts, then uses Posts 2 Posts to attach each student to their programme and courses. Next it adds them to the corresponding BuddyPress groups and forums. Finally, it auto-starts their courses in Sensei and logs an activity entry. This pipeline cuts out manual steps completely and allows large cohorts to be enrolled in minutes instead of days.

Design and Frontend Experience

The theme was built for speed and flexibility. Designers kept CSS minimal and moved logic into a site-specific plugin. The layout adjusts from widescreen desktop down to smartphone, keeping module navigation and lesson progress front and center at all times. After login, a student sees only the programme they’re enrolled in; the main menu updates to display courses for that programme. Once a course is selected, a horizontal nav bar appears listing each module and its individual lessons. The nav bar also includes a complete button that toggles to reset when needed, plus next/prev arrows, so the main content area stays uncluttered.

Custom Sensei Tweaks

Sensei handled most of the LMS features out of the box, but a few tweaks were necessary for an enterprise use case. They modified the multiple-choice question type to accept more than one right answer, opening up group selection and check-all scenarios. They also enabled gap-fill questions to be graded by simple string comparison, making text-entry exercises instant and reliable. The patches were submitted upstream to WooThemes, so they avoid forking core code and can merge official updates smoothly. These contributions have since been merged, so other Sensei users can benefit as well.

Programmes Content Type

The standard Sensei setup groups content by courses, but Imperial needed a top-level container. They registered a new custom post type called Programmes that holds collections of courses, acting as degree paths. A single course, like Accounting Primer, can belong to multiple programmes such as Strategic Marketing or Finance. Students typically enroll in one programme, while lecturers may teach across several. Each programme also gets its own page, news posts, and a dedicated BuddyPress group with a bbPress forum. The system filters archive pages, the My Courses list, and the single course templates to only show content linked to the active programme.

Results and Impact

Since rolling out the new hub, Imperial College London has streamlined course delivery for over 1,600 students and about 250 faculty members. Forums are active hubs for peer-to-peer and student-to-staff discussions. Quizzes and lessons grade automatically, and BadgeOS feeds achievement updates into the BuddyPress activity stream and user profiles. Administrators save hours each week by automating enrolments and group setup. Running imports via WP-CLI avoids PHP limits and frees up web servers. Overall, the system offers a secure, personalized experience that matches each student’s programme requirements.

Future Directions

Looking ahead, the team plans to refine the Hub by adding more action hooks and filters to Sensei so custom logic lives outside core files. They can then upgrade major versions without forking. Mobile access is next on the list, with a responsive React-based interface under consideration. They also want deeper analytics dashboards that tie into their central reporting systems. With the core architecture solidly in place, new features can be added quickly to support evolving teaching needs.