NelsonictNG — Intelligent School Learning Management System

Nelsonict is an all-in-one digital learning, school CBT, and ICT services portal built for students, schools, teachers, and growing organisations.

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Inspiration

Many students preparing for computer-based examinations lack personal email addresses, smartphones, or digital payment methods. Most CBT platforms assume every learner has these resources, creating unnecessary barriers for secondary schools. We built NelsonictNG to remove those barriers. Instead of requiring every student to register individually, teachers can create student accounts using familiar examination numbers, fund approved CBT access from a school wallet, and monitor each learner's progress from a central dashboard. This school-first approach gives students a simple way to practice while giving schools full control over access, payments, and performance.

What it does

NelsonictNG is an integrated Learning Management System (LMS), Computer-Based Testing (CBT), and school administration platform designed for African schools.

Students can

  • Practice timed CBT examinations
  • Take JAMB-style mock examinations
  • Review previous attempts and performance
  • Access structured online courses
  • Earn certificates after completing learning programs

Teachers and schools can

  • Create student accounts using examination numbers instead of email addresses
  • Fund student CBT access through a centralized school wallet
  • Monitor examination attempts and performance
  • Grade submissions and provide personalized feedback
  • Manage students from a dedicated teacher dashboard

Administrators can manage

  • Users and roles
  • Examination centres
  • Courses and lessons
  • Question banks
  • Certificates
  • Products and services
  • Events
  • School activity
  • Wallet transactions
  • Platform configuration

The platform also includes user verification, password recovery, role-based permissions, and an integrated Naira wallet for managing educational services.

How we built it

Frontend

  • React 19
  • TypeScript
  • Vite
  • Tailwind CSS
  • shadcn/ui
  • Framer Motion

Backend

  • PHP
  • PDO
  • MySQL ## Infrastructure The platform emphasizes security, scalability, and maintainability through:
  • Role-based authentication
  • Fine-grained authorization
  • Teacher-specific dashboards
  • Company staff separation
  • Relational State/LGA data model
  • Wallet transaction auditing
  • School-funded CBT authorization
  • Secure password hashing
  • Session management
  • Email verification
  • Password recovery
  • Two-factor authentication (2FA) for administrators and staff
  • Device login protection
  • Rate limiting
  • DDoS protection

How Codex accelerated the project

Codex acted as our AI software engineering partner throughout development. Rather than generating isolated code snippets, it helped us understand and evolve an existing production codebase by tracing dependencies across React, PHP, MySQL, and API layers. Codex significantly accelerated development by helping us:

  • Design and implement the complete school-managed CBT workflow
  • Build teacher profiles and examination-number student access
  • Separate teacher permissions from internal company staff
  • Migrate user locations from free-text values to relational State/LGA foreign keys
  • Build an advanced campaign email system with delivery analytics, recipient tracking, and resend-to-unopened functionality
  • Refactor backend APIs and frontend routes consistently
  • Generate database migrations
  • Run PHP syntax validation
  • Verify TypeScript builds
  • Perform production smoke testing
  • Validate application behavior after each major change This allowed us to spend more time solving educational problems instead of repetitive implementation work.

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was designing an authentication model for students who do not have email addresses or phone numbers. The solution needed to remain simple for learners while allowing schools to retain ownership of payments, account management, examination access, and results. Another major challenge was migrating thousands of user location records from free-text State/LGA values into normalized relational tables without disrupting existing users or breaking dependent APIs. Maintaining a single platform that serves individual learners, schools, teachers, administrators, and company staff also required careful permission design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a school-managed student access model that removes the need for minors to provide personal email addresses or phone numbers
  • Implemented a complete teacher workflow covering student creation, funding, grading, and feedback
  • Combined a CBT platform and Learning Management System into a single application
  • Secured the platform with password hashing, sessions, email verification, password recovery, 2FA, device protection, rate limiting, and DDoS protection
  • Migrated to a normalized relational location model using State and LGA foreign keys for improved reporting and consistency
  • Used AI-assisted software engineering to accelerate development while maintaining production quality # What we learned We learned that accessibility goes beyond user interface design. Educational technology should also reduce barriers created by assumptions about identity, payment methods, and device ownership. Designing around school-managed examination numbers fundamentally improved both the user experience and the platform architecture. We also learned that database migrations should be treated as product features rather than backend maintenance. Updating schemas, APIs, interfaces, and reporting together results in a much more reliable system. Finally, we discovered how AI coding assistants like Codex can dramatically improve developer productivity by helping engineers understand, refactor, validate, and extend complex production applications.

What's next for NelsonictNG

NelsonictNG roadmap includes:

  • Native Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS applications powered by our existing API
  • Offline and low-bandwidth CBT support for schools with unreliable internet connectivity
  • AI-powered learning recommendations and personalized study plans
  • Class-level analytics and downloadable performance reports
  • Larger curriculum-aligned question banks
  • Bulk question import tools for educators
  • Production-ready payment gateway integrations
  • Real-time operational monitoring and analytics
  • Expansion into a complete digital education ecosystem serving schools across Africa

Built With

  • codex
  • cpanel
  • flutterwave-integration-endpoints
  • framer-motion
  • monnify
  • mysql
  • payee
  • paystack
  • pdo
  • php
  • react
  • shadcn/ui
  • tailwind-css
  • typescript
  • vite
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