Frequently Asked Questions

About the Platform

What is TalentSprint's digital platform?

iPearl.ai (Interactive Platform for Experiential and Remote Learning) has been created by TalentSprint’s engineering team–a group of talented software engineers, led by our Chief Technology Officer who is an IIT Kanpur alumni. The platform integrates best-in-class open source technologies and SaaS services, and has been perfected over the last seven years. When this platform was built, the intent was to offer it to our partners and customers for digital learning and delivery. Since 2013, the platform has been extensively used by IIM Calcutta, IIT Kanpur, IIIT Hyderabad and IIT Hyderabad, and many more of our customers and partners. Till date, more than 300,000 students have used this platform, which is reputed for user experience, quality and scale. This feature rich platform has become so popular that some of our partners are now using it for all their academic needs.

What are the key benefits of the platform?

Our tried and tested direct to device platform enables 24 x 7 learning for its users. Some key benefits of the platform are:

Intuitive student experience through a user friendly LMS
Seamless faculty experience through state-of-the-art Studios
Highly Interactive Online Classes
Effective group/peer learning / projects through Breakout Rooms
Proctored Online Assessments with detailed analysis
Insightful Reports on student engagement and performance
Flexible integration with other components, as needed

How does iPearl.ai compare with other solutions?

A comparative study of iPearl.ai against Canvas, Impartus, Moodle, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom was conducted. Features in the following categories were compared:

Instructor-led Learning
Self-paced Learning
Assessments/Evaluations
User Experience
Customer Support
Scalability and Performance
Integration and Customization
Others

Can you quantify the R&D effort that has gone into the platform? How often is the platform upgraded and why?

Till date, over 100,000 person hours of R&D have gone into building, testing and enhancing our platform capabilities. Our engineering team continuously upgrades our platform based on two factors:

Emergence of new open-source technologies and SaaS solutions
Evolving needs and expectations of customers and partners

Over the years, we have added several important features to our platform including Proctored Exams, AI Powered Video Archives, Attendance Tracking, Auto Evaluators, Bots, and so forth. which have significantly enhanced the learning experience and substantially increased learner as well as faculty delight. All upgrades we make to the platform are done in a non-disruptive manner, ensuring seamless business continuity of our partners and customers at all times.

Does the platform support integration with other components?

Because of its open architecture, our platform can easily integrate with external systems, legacy systems. and third party components, in order to enable a highly effective learning experience for users. For example, integration with Active Directory and Google Collab is feasible.

Learning

How are the Interactive Online Classes delivered?

Delivered from Studio: Faculty can deliver live and interactive classes directly from a studio to the devices of the students. These digital classrooms allow high Interaction between the faculty and students. Faculty can show reference videos, make presentations, share screens, write on a tablet or white board, and so forth. Students and faculty can interact in real time through chat, voice, and screen share. Teaching from the studio provides an outstanding experience for the students.

Delivered from Home: In situations when teaching from a studio is not an option, faculty can also conduct interactive online classes from the safety or comfort of their homes using their laptop and touch screen tablet. This option also provides a reasonably good learning experience for the students.

How does the platform support Peer/Group learning?

Peer learning is a core feature of our platform. During an online class, students can be divided into different groups and each group can be assigned a breakout room to collaborate for their group work. Breakout rooms allow the group members to interact with each other over video/voice, share their screens, annotate and work as a group.

After a stipulated time, all the breakout rooms can be merged into the main online session where groups can showcase their presentations to the entire class.

Groups can also connect among themselves at an appointed time for group work, outside the synchronous classes. This feature comes in handy during group projects, capstones, hackathons.

Students can also use the platform 24 x 7 to engage and learn from their peers using our interactive discussion forums available under each module of the program.

How do students experience the platform?

Student Experience is driven by a state-of-the-art LMS tested for scale and comprehensiveness. Built on the OpenEdx platform, the LMS is the single authoritative source for students to learn and handle all their academic requirements for the program.

Many upgrades have been made by TalentSprint to the basic OpenEdx LMS to make it suitable for the challenging demands of high-end programs and courses.

What learning materials can be shared during the interactive online class?

Faculty can share presentations, white boards, pre-recorded videos, documents, computer screens during the interactive online class. Also, students can share their screens and make presentations to the entire class. Guest speakers (from a different geography) can be invited as a co-host into the online session to deliver a collaborative lecture/discussion.

What are the benefits of AI-Powered video archives?

Our video archives have AI-generated TOC to help easy and smart navigation within the videos. Students can click on the items under TOC to directly jump to the relevant section in a video. Video archives also have a Phrase Cloud of keywords/phrases used in the video. Students can click on a particular keyword/phrase to find yellow markers, indicating the points where the selected keyword/phrase was covered on the video timeline.

How can 1-on-1 mentoring be done on the platform?

Students can seek 1-on-1 mentoring on the platform and book a slot, as per their convenience, with their mentors or TAs. Students can choose from the available slots and provide details of the topic/question they want to discuss with the mentor. Both the mentor and the mentee are notified through email once a slot is booked and their calendars are blocked. They can connect with each other and interact through video/voice/screen share, using the link shared in the email/calendar, at the scheduled time.

How can the platform help engage students with industry speakers/alumni?

The platform is fully equipped to meet this requirement. Our Interactive online class feature allows us to have multiple panelists (industry speakers/alumni) in a common session which can be coordinated by the host (faculty). Panelists can be from different geographies.