Alina: Since when have you been using ILIAS for your internal vocational, further and continuing education?

Tobias: We have been actively using ILIAS since April 2019. This was preceded by an intensive project phase in which we prepared our installation, which we call 'LEOS', for use, together with our service provider, CaT Concepts and Training GmbH. LEOS stands for 'Lern-, Entwicklungs- und Organisationssystem' (Learning, Development and Organisation System). It is the SV SparkassenVersicherung's central platform for further education.

We now have around 32,000 user accounts in the system. These are made up of members of staff from sales, office and IT, as well as members of staff from the individual Sparkassen, our cooperation partners. We use LEOS to map the requirements of the different areas. We also use LEOS to carry out mandatory training courses, such as those on data protection, and to map regulatory requirements for the further training of employees working in insurance sales.

And what lead the SV to becoming a member of the ILIAS society?

After successfully using ILIAS, we thought it was important to show that ILIAS can also be used extremely flexibly in business scenarios. Via our membership in the society we want to bring across a more corporate perspective. Additionally, we would like to set an example for the use of open source software in businesses.

I read a bit on your website about your trainee programme - a comprehensive training programme. Could you tell us what you exactly use ILIAS for?

ILIAS, or as we call it, LEOS, is our central system for recording and documenting further training courses in a wide variety of formats. That extends far beyond the trainee programme. We organise, plan and document both online and face-to-face seminars as well as various professional qualifications (which includes the trainee programme).

Via LEOS, we also provide a wide range of online self-study courses to offer our learners attractive educational opportunities that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. In addition, ILIAS supports us with the implementation and documentation of compulsory courses, such as those on data protection and information security, with the help of the study programme.

So as you can see, we have a large spectrum of topics that we cover with our system.

That does indeed sound comprehensive. What do you see as the advantages of using ILIAS for your  business?

The extensive customisation options are an extremely large advantage. With the huge number of user accounts and various user groups, it is important to be able to make things attractive, easily accessible and also tailored to specific target groups. ILIAS's SCORM functionality is therefore very important for us, especially for professional further education. Using this, we have extensive customisation options and can integrate our courses, which we both produce ourselves and purchase, and make them available in the appropriate places.

In addition to this, we also appreciate the possibilities offered by the roles and permissions system. Given the diverse range of target groups we have, it is important that we are able to roll out our learning content and seminar offerings in a way that is tailored to each specific group. Each of our target groups therefore has different global and/or local roles in the system. This way we can offer our learners a personalised and attractive range of educational opportunities. With ILIAS we can use one system for all educational formats and all target groups. That and the fact that ILIAS can be extended with plugins are a huge advantage.

Do you have other projects in the pipeline using ILIAS?

Yes, there is quite a lot coming up in the near future. We are planning, for example to incorporate another target group: insurance brokers. For this we are currently in the preparation phase and will go live in the coming year.

But this year too, we have several things coming up: as well as updating to a new ILIAS version, which will be carried out by our service provider, CaT, we will be busy optimising the existing system. Important for us is that we don't just tread water, but rather that we invest our energy into providing an improved user experience. The feedback from our learners speaks for itself.

What sort of feedback have you received from your members of staff regarding ILIAS? How do you manage the balancing act with 32,000 users?

During the introduction phase in 2019, there was a certain degree of initial scepticism and we received mixed feedback. Since then, the feedback we have received has flowed continuously into the further development of the platform. Sometimes it is only small improvements in the page editor that make all the difference. That's how we managed to get the platform firmly established. I am particularly happy when I hear that new members of staff see our learning platform as a simple, easily accessible resource for further education. The feedback shows, I'd say, how important it is to always keep the learners in mind.

Thank you Tobias for having shown us how LEOS has changed learning at SV SparkassenVersicherung. From compulsory courses to individual learning paths. It really shows the strengths of ILIAS and how well-thought-out digital training can be implemented within a corporation. 

Would you like to use ILIAS in your business for further and continuing education, but don't really know how to get started? Our official service providers can help you - from hosting to the individual customisation of your learning platform. An overview of service providers can be found here: