Developing a Global Alumni Social Network
About the client
Pragmatic Evaluation in Physical Activity and Health is a global initiative to improve the evidence base on how real-world physical activity programmes are implemented and evaluated. A registered charity in Aotearoa New Zealand, PEPAH works in partnership with ISPAH and ISBNPA, led by internationally recognised thinkers in evaluation methodology.
Its intensive training courses — hosted by the University of Edinburgh, the University of British Columbia, Sport England, Sport Ireland and Sport New Zealand — have built a worldwide alumni network of researchers, policy officers and practitioners who now carry pragmatic evaluation into their own organisations.
The challenge
Karen Milton, Justin Richards and Paul Kelly — The Pragmatics — have delivered their Pragmatic Evaluation course internationally since 2015, to hundreds of participants. They came to us wanting to bring the organisation up to date digitally and streamline the whole course-attendee journey. During discovery, they set out a clear vision for the new system.
Key features required:
- A responsively designed front-end website
- A companion alumni social network, so course attendees can keep in touch and network professionally
- Custom-designed member profile pages
- An attendee dashboard that adapts to each person’s status — applicant, course attendee, alumni
- A five-part application system that lets applicants save progress on their own device and submit when ready
- An assessment system that auto-calculates scores from two assessors, with automated follow-up actions
Our approach
This was exactly the kind of challenge we enjoy. We have spent years refining how we define user experiences and use advanced dynamic data to build complex forms and feedback systems. For this project we combined a membership management system, a social networking layer and a custom post type architecture — with consistent UI as a governing principle throughout.
The user dashboard displays information specific to each person’s stage in the process, so nobody sees options that do not apply to them. The social network itself stays locked until a user completes the course:
Demand for the Pragmatic Evaluation course is high, and the coordinators run a rigorous application process to select the most suitable applicants. We devised a way for applicants to complete it across multiple sessions, with clear indicators of which stages remain and a final, editable review before submission:
And the social network forum — easily the most distinctive and most complex part of the build. Members post text and images, like and comment, rate their course coordinators, chat live, and connect with like-minded professionals — all within the same familiar interface they have used since registration:
Automation underpins everything. Welcome emails, payment instructions and receipts, community engagement and course communications all run behind the scenes — so Karen, Paul and Justin can focus on delivering excellent courses.
What we delivered
Project details
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