How Plone powers a German state's education platform

Plone 6 and Volto as the foundation for an accessible, AI-powered education platform serving 1.5 million students in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg.

Client

State of Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Sector

Government / Education

Audience

1.5M students, 140K teachers

The challenge: When three become one

The State of Baden-Württemberg faced a critical infrastructure challenge: three separate educational platforms had reached end-of-life, creating a fragmented user experience and mounting technical debt. The stakes were high, since rebuilding this volume of curated educational content from scratch was not feasible. The state needed a robust migration strategy that could transform legacy content into a modern, accessible and future-proof platform.

Files
250,000
content objects
migrated
Systems
3
legacy systems consolidated
Education
494 GB
educational content migrated

Mobile view of the BSBW platform

Why Plone? Open source as a strategic mandate

Following a Europe-wide public tender process, Plone 6 with Volto was selected as the foundation. For public sector institutions in Germany and the EU, open source isn't just a preference; it's increasingly a requirement for:

Digital sovereignty

Independence from vendor lock-in

Transparent security

Open code review

Long-term sustainability

No licensing dependencies

Compliance

Public procurement regulations

Educational Features - Built for learning

Content creation & distribution

  • H5P interactive content support for engaging learning experiences
  • LTI integration connecting seamlessly with Moodle and other LMS platforms, transforming the platform into a central content hub
  • Sodix integration for governed content distribution across the educational network
  • Automated document workflows: Mass upload of Office documents with virus scanning and conversion to structured Volto blocks
  • ePub exports providing flexible content delivery formats

AI-enhanced capabilities

  • AI-generated video subtitles improving accessibility and searchability
  • Platform prepared for semantic search and AI-assisted metadata enrichment
  • Future-ready architecture for emerging educational technologies

Advanced customizations

  • Custom Volto editorial templates
  • Dynamic listing and filtering views
  • 3D model rendering capabilities for STEM education
  • Extensive Plone workflow customizations for complex QA processes

Migration Transforming complexity into structure

The iterative migration process showcased Plone's flexibility in handling complex content transformations:

  • Unified three disparate content structures into a coherent information architecture
  • Transformed legacy styling and broken markup into clean, maintainable Volto blocks
  • Implemented comprehensive pedagogical metadata schema for educational resource classification
  • Redesigned site structures to leverage modern UX patterns while preserving content relationships
  • Continuous feedback loops with stakeholders ensured quality at every migration phase
"This wasn't a 'lift and shift'. It was intelligent content transformation that improved data quality while preserving institutional knowledge."

Multi-Tenant Architecture for Educational Diversity

Built as a multi-portal platform, the solution manages diverse educational sites under a single Plone installation, providing:

  • Centralized governance with decentralized editorial control
  • Shared infrastructure reducing operational overhead
  • Consistent user experience across all portals
  • Scalable architecture ready for future expansion

Compliance

Accessibility (WCAG Compliance)

  • Full compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Additional compliance with German federal and state accessibility regulations
  • Independent external accessibility audit validating implementation
  • Ensures equitable access for all 1.5 million students and 140,000 teachers

Security & Privacy

  • BSI IT-Grundschutz compliance - the German Federal Office for Information Security's standard for government IT systems
  • Independent penetration testing validating security posture
  • GDPR/DSGVO compliance with comprehensive data protection assessment
  • Hosted in certified German data center ensuring data sovereignty

Why This Matters

Compliance certifications aren't checkboxes, they're evidence of enterprise-grade security and accessibility that makes Plone viable for sensitive government applications.

Case study video

In this deep dive at the Plone conference 2025, Jan Mevissen shares the journey of building BSBW the official education platform for the state of Baden-Württemberg (Germany)

Looking ahead - Go Public 2026

bsbw logo

The platform is already live for editorial teams, with content workflows and the new information architecture fully operational. A phased public rollout follows: the first tenant goes live in March 2026, with the full system launching across all institutions in August 2026 – aligned with the start of the new school year. By then, Baden-Württemberg's entire educational community will be able to find it at schule-bw.de, benefiting from a modern, accessible user experience, robust content management workflows, AI-enhanced capabilities, and a future-proof technical foundation with enterprise-grade security and compliance.

"This project demonstrates that Plone scales to meet the demanding requirements of large government education platforms, handling massive content migrations while maintaining the highest standards for security, accessibility, and user experience."

Provider information


Based in the Cologne region, Interaktiv stands as the largest Plone online agency in the DACH region, renowned for advanced web solutions and innovative approaches. Boasting over two decades of expertise, the 26-member team melds creativity with meticulousness to forge digital products that are not only functional but also tailored to the user experience.
Their methodology is rooted in design thinking and lean UX, placing Plone at the core of their technological prowess. Leveraging the sturdy and flexible Plone framework, alongside Python, Interaktiv has consistently delivered complex web projects for their global customers from the outset.

Interaktiv GmbH, Germany
Website: www.interaktiv.de