Honoris Case Study
Reimagining digital education with AI-powered course creation
Honoris United Universities is a pan-African network of private higher-education institutions. For the last two years, a new centralised team has been tasked with expanding digital education opportunities across the network.
The vision:
The small digital team had a focus on using innovative technology to build a portfolio of high quality online courses, efficiently and cost effectively. With Al as a collaborator and humans providing creative and thoughtful input, the rich bank of learning materials owned within the network could be leveraged and transformed into digital learning experiences that are easily adaptable for an ever-evolving target audience.
Honoris began its digital journey with Nile University of Nigeria, which, until recently, operated only as a physical institution. It became the launchpad for Honoris’ online expansion, starting with offerings such as:
- Online MBAs
- Short courses
- Undergraduate Degrees (in development)
The challenge
Creating online courses is labour-intensive, and the Honoris Digital Division is a small team. They work with academics at institutions that are traditionally focused on classical education to reconceptualise programmes in an online format.
“We saw an opportunity for automation. Transforming learning materials from traditional to digital formats was an excellent candidate for AI assistance, and we wanted a process that was simple and repeatable, with our team’s learning design expertise baked into it.”- Susan Brock, Technical Product Team Lead, Honoris Digital Division.
To achieve scale without compromising academic integrity, Honoris needed a partner with both technical expertise and a proven track record in EdTech innovation.
Let’s take a beat to break down the course creation process using an executive MBA as an example:
The programme consists of 30 courses, each with several modules. The process of turning traditional academic material into engaging online courses is highly laborious. A small digital education team was faced with weeks, sometimes months, of effort to transform PowerPoint slides, lecture notes, and academic writing into a single online module. The need for efficiency and scale was clear.
Goals & Objectives
- Enable faster creation of high-quality online courses without sacrificing academic integrity.
- Free up the specialised Learning Designers from repetitive tasks so they could focus on creativity and pedagogy.
- Explore how AI could augment, not replace, human expertise in course creation.
The solution
Honoris identified an opportunity to leverage AI to accelerate the course creation workflow. The vision was to use AI to handle the first draft: outlining courses, learning outcomes, and structures, so that Learning Designers could apply their expertise to refining, contextualising, and improving content.
“Instead of doing the laborious work, we’d much rather have our team review an AI-generated draft and apply their expertise to improve the student experience and maximise the learning opportunity. That’s where human nuance and creativity matter most.” says Susan.
After deciding against an off-the-shelf solution, Honoris began the process of identifying a partner for a custom-built platform. Kim Westcott, Director of Technology, had previously collaborated with Platform45 on projects in the EdTech space, making them a strong contender for this initiative.
The Process
- Proof of Concept (POC): Platform45 facilitated a discovery phase to align on pain points and explore potential solutions.
Collaborative Design: Together with Honoris’ digital education team, Platform45 co-designed an AI-powered course creation tool.
The Future
The first version of the tool was about creating new course content, but there is so much potential to branch out. The Honoris team plans to extend the tool to more institutions across Africa. Next on the roadmap:
- Content re-use: Transform long courses into micro-learning formats.
- AI evolution: Explore image generation, adaptive learning, and more advanced AI integrations as the technology matures.
Scaling reach: Position Honoris as a leading force in accessible, high-quality online education across Africa.
I really enjoyed the process of working with the Platform45 team. It is very productive and collaborative; we worked closely together, and the team was incredibly competent. The technical architecture was very sound, ideas were flexible, and it was a really positive experience. Coming from a software development background myself, it was amazing to work with such a strong team. I would happily recommend Platform45.
