Sambruk Leverages NocoBase to Ensure Digital Learning Resources in Sweden Comply with GDPR

Originally published at Sambruk Leverages NocoBase to Ensure Digital Learning Resources in Sweden Comply with GDPR - NocoBase.

About Sambruk

In Sweden, half of the municipalities are members of Sambruk, and 61% of Sweden residents live in municipal areas participating in Sambruk's cooperation.

Who is Sambruk? Sambruk is a non-profit organization based in Sweden dedicated to driving and supporting the digital transformation of municipal departments nationwide. Its primary mission is to help municipalities in Sweden digitalize more efficiently through collaboration and sharing of resources.

Sambruk's scope of work includes collecting and managing digital solutions developed by various municipalities in Sweden, then rolling them out to other cities in need, and maintaining and improving the system through co-financing. In addition, Sambruk organizes and leads the development of new digital solutions. Sometimes, Sambruk also open-sources some of these digital solutions.

For example, Bibblix, a digital library app designed for children aged 6 to 12 in Sweden;EGIL– an automated system for managing students' digital accounts for schools; and Tillarbetslivet, a system to manage pupilswork experience programes.

These projects are all developed or promoted by Sambruk.

How to Ensure Digital Learning Resources Comply with GDPR?

In present-day education, schools rely heavily on digital learning resources like e-books, online courses, educational software, instructional videos, and interactive courseware. These data resources must adhere to GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) requirements to protect students' data.

About GDPR

The GDPR, implemented by the European Union in May 2018, is a significant privacy and security regulation that applies to all organizations processing the personal data of EU residents.

For the education sector, GDPR brought particular challenges in the following ways:

1. Data Minimization Principles: Schools can only collect and process necessary student data, requiring a rigorous data collection review of each digital learning resource.

2. Informed consent: Schools must ensure that explicit permission from the student or their guardian is obtained when using digital learning resources.

3. Data Subject Rights: Students have the right to access, correct, and delete their data, and schools need to ensure that the digital learning resources they use support these features.

4. Data Protection Impact Assessment: Schools are required to conduct a Data Protection Impact Assessment for high-risk data processing activities.

5. Vendor management: Schools must ensure that all digital learning resource suppliers are GDPR compliant.

About the Project Tjänstekatalog

The project Tjänstekatalog aimed to collect data as a basis for assessment of GDPR compliance for digital learning resources. Sambruk, along with 27 Swedish municipalities, kicked off the project in 2023.

The project had three main objectives in particular:

1. Information Collection and Compliance Assessment: The system collected information about digital learning resources to help school managers assess GDPR compliance with data use.

2. Resources Sharing and Decision-making Support: School managers can share assessment results in the system for other users to refer to, reducing duplication of effort and improving efficiency.

3. Supplier Information Enquiry: Suppliers were requested to answer approximately 100 questions in the system and provide the necessary information for the school to evaluate.

However, to implement the project, they encountered several technical obstacles:

1. Large data volume and high complexity: Managing large amounts of digital learning resources requires efficient management and evaluation.

2. Strict compliance rules: Ensure all resources are strictly GDPR compliant, especially regarding student data handling.

3. Multi-stakeholder involved: Multiple municipalities and schools need to be coordinated to ensure that the system is designed and implemented to meet the needs of all parties and enable effective information sharing.

Sambruk sought a technical solution to address these challenges, meet project requirements, and be cost-effective and scalable.

A Quick MVP with NocoBase

Sambruk initially assessed the cost and time required to develop the solution using traditional coding methods. The project team concluded that the cost was too high. Therefore, Sambruk began searching for other alternatives. The team partnered with a low-code platform company in India. While the team had made some progress, the platform failed to meet their needs fully.

In 2023, the team heard about NocoBase and decided to try it.

"We developed the core of the solution over a couple of weeks while learning the platform itself. NocoBase turned out to be very intuitive and easy to learn; we really apricated the "no bullshit" approach with the platform. We had an MVP in place quite fast and have continued to develop from that base."

—— Thomas Wennersten, Sambruk CTO

Thomas Wennersten explained the reasons for choosing NocoBase to implement the project after trying it out:

1. Data Model-driven: NocoBase's focus on establishing a data model first facilitated smoother subsequent development for Sambruk and made creating various interfaces tailored to different roles' needs simple.

2. Self-hosting: Sambruk can host the applications developed with NocoBase. Self-hosting is a critical project requirement because it enhances data control and fulfills data security and privacy protection needs.

3. User Friendly: NocoBase offers a user-friendly experience without sacrificing functionality, making it an ideal platform for teams developing CRUD applications due to its low learning curve and fast development speed.

4. Rapid Delivery: With NocoBase, Sambruk can rapidly develop and launch a minimum viable product (MVP), which is extremely helpful for quickly validating and iterating on projects.

System screenshots of the project Tjänstekatalog:

Result: Immediate Benefits From the Trial Phase

"Our experience with NocoBase, the no-code platform, has been fantastic. It's incredibly user-friendly, and our development process is smooth and efficient. The streamlined approach allowed us to develop a complete system in just a few weeks suitable for use in hundreds of organizations.

NocoBase dispels the misconception that powerful systems take months or years to complete. I highly recommend it to any organization looking for a quick development cycle without sacrificing quality."

—— Thomas Wennersten， Sambruk CTO

The project's development, based on NocoBase, is progressing steadily, with core functions of the project going live successfully. The project team efficiently leveraged NocoBase's capabilities to develop and launch the MVP within weeks. Throughout the process, the Sambruk team significantly reduced development time by about 30% and slashed the budget by nearly 40% compared to traditional methods.

Municipalities and schools highly recognize NocoBase for its ease of use and flexibility. They appreciate its straightforward data processing and interface generation capabilities, allowing quick application development. Some schools have benefitted from NocoBase during the trial phase, especially regarding data management and decision support.

We expect the project to be fully deployed and rolled out more broadly in the upcoming months. As the project advances, the Sambruk team will continue to improve and expand NocoBase's capabilities with plugins to better meet the needs of all parties involved, bringing tangible benefits to more municipalities and educational institutions in Sweden.