When you’re supporting tens of thousands of students across hundreds of faculties, your learning platform can’t just work—it needs to scale, perform, and grow with you.
That’s exactly what Universitas Indonesia (UI)—one of Southeast Asia’s largest and most respected public universities—set out to do. With over 55,900 active students, 2,450 lecturers, and 2,490 staff, UI has been using Moodle for years to power its learning platform, EMAS. But as usage grew and needs evolved, it became clear: it was time for a major upgrade.
And that’s where Moodle 4.4—and a strategic partnership with Moodle Certified Partner PCMan—came in.
The challenge
Universitas Indonesia had been using Moodle since version 1.9, originally rolled out within the Faculty of Computer Science. Over time—and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic—usage expanded rapidly, becoming the university-wide platform for online learning under the name EMAS.
Each semester, more than 13,800 new courses are created automatically, and all students are mass-enrolled. As EMAS became critical to day-to-day teaching and assessments, several challenges emerged:
- Performance issues, especially during exam periods, affecting access and reliability
- Increased demand for academic integrity tools to support secure online assessments
- Limited infrastructure scalability, risking slowdowns with 55,000+ active learners
- Lack of advanced reporting tools to track student learning progress
The university needed a solution that could not only address these issues but scale sustainably as demand continued to grow.
The solution
Rather than shifting to a proprietary platform, Universitas Indonesia decided to double down on Moodle’s flexibility and open-source strength.
With the support of Moodle Certified Partner PCMan, they upgraded from Moodle 3.9 to Moodle 4.4, modernising their LMS both technically and functionally. The project included:
Infrastructure optimisation
In collaboration with the Directorate of Information Systems and Technology, the LMS backend was strengthened to handle surges in traffic, particularly during examination periods.
Secure online exams
Key features like Safe Exam Browser (SEB) and online camera proctoring were implemented to ensure exam integrity.
Anti-plagiarism integrations
Assignments were fortified with plagiarism detection services to support ethical academic practices.
Peer-review tools
New capabilities were introduced to accommodate collaborative assessment in select courses.
Advanced analytics
The rollout of LearnerScript Reporting & Analytics enabled the university to track student progress, identify trends, and support data-driven academic decisions.
“Working with PCMan allowed us to redesign EMAS based on best practices and real user needs,” said Dimas Septian Saputra, Head of E-Learning Systems & Facilities.
The results
While full impact metrics will be assessed in the coming months, the immediate benefits are clear:
- Improved performance during high-traffic periods like exams
- Increased confidence among faculty in using Moodle for secure, high-stakes assessments
- Enhanced visibility into student engagement and progress
- More scalable and flexible architecture, allowing future innovation
“Upgrading Moodle allows us to deliver better services through EMAS, with a modern interface and advanced features,” said T. Ahmad Danial, Head of the Learning Resources Sub-Directorate.
Looking ahead, Universitas Indonesia is exploring Generative AI integrations and expanding programs such as MOOCs and Open Videos UI (OVIS), all supported by Moodle’s open foundation.
“Moodle supports our mission of equitable, high-quality education—at scale,” said Dr. Gatot F. Hertono, Director of Academic Development and Learning Resources.
