Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA and web and mobile experience management vendor Jadu have partnered to implement a single online experience for students and staff, consolidating portal and CMS system into a ‘single campus engagement platform', Jadu’s ‘Content Portal’.
Dickinson, a highly selective college, is home to 2,400 students from across the nation and around the world. A nationally recognised liberal-arts institution, Dickinson is dedicated to global education― at home and abroad—and the study of the environment and sustainability, which is integrated into the curriculum and the campus and exemplifies the college’s commitment to providing students with the skills relevant to 21st century careers.
Dickinson consolidated Campus Portal and Web Content Management requirements into a single web platform from Chicago-based Jadu. This platform integrates with the college’s student information system (Banner by Ellucian) for student and employee authentication and identification.
The platform replaced the college’s previous CMS and legacy portal with a system that is available on any mobile, tablet, or desktop device. Students and staff now have a single point of entry for locating important information and functions that are vital to the operation of the college and its day-to-day business transactions. Integration with the college’s CAS authentication services also provides personalisation, so students and staff have access to real-time information on courses, academic resources, and other college-related content that is specific to an individual user’s needs.
The content in the website portal is personalised based on roles and profiles that exist in the college’s student information system. Jadu Content Portal can also co-exist with an institution’s existing Web CMS system by leveraging seamlessly designed templates. It can be integrated with the college’s enterprise systems such as Student Information Systems (SIS), Document Imaging Systems (ECM) and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
The college’s new website and integrated portal is now live. The web site can be viewed at www.dickinson.edu. The integrated portal is accessible to those with valid access credentials.
Dickinson is now beginning ‘phase 2’ — implementation of the Online Forms capability of the Jadu Content Portal. The Online Forms product will significantly advance how the college delivers online services, especially during times of high-volume activity such as first-year orientation and student organisation registration.
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When it comes to foreseeing the future of digital technology, there is no crystal ball. Yet developers in the education technology sector do have ways of predicting upcoming trends. By interpreting and utilising the raft of information available to them, they are able to combine insight with innovation to develop the products of the future, says John Butler, VP Europe at leading technology provider Ellucian
With changes in digital technology moving at an accelerated pace, valuable intelligence can be gained by monitoring the evolving habits of the whole population as well as education-specific trends in other countries, particularly the United States, which help to show us the way.
An international Google Report which analyses IT usage among the 18–25 population shows us the importance of mobile technology as well as the importance of ‘context’ when the time of day, goals, attitudes and location of the user influence the choice of device. The same trends apply to higher education.
According to a recent EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) study, students are now bringing three or four devices to university, with the expectation that they can access all information from all devices.
To meet this requirement, institutions will continue to invest in a fully integrated portal and mobile application which utilises cloud capability. Five years ago, when the cloud was discussed it was in the future tense, as something visible but on the horizon. Now, it is no longer a trend to analyse but a reality to embrace, providing users with the ability to access and share information at any time, from multiple devices.
Global trends also reveal a move away from IT-centric management, with decision-making responsibility devolving to executives who are not responsible directly for IT. This is because IT is no longer the exclusive domain of the technology professional. Staff across all areas of the institution are becoming increasingly involved in the decision-making process as they grasp the benefit that integrated technology solutions can provide.
Technology never stands still, however. Innovation and expectation are constantly evolving and our experience at Ellucian demonstrates the unprecedented pace of change. Our technical teams have brought out five upgrades of Ellucian Mobile in just 16 months since March 2013. Each enhancement illustrates new areas of development, many of which were mapped out in response to engagement with existing users.
For example, one of the early upgrades of Ellucian Mobile introduced a range of new features including Arabic language support and the brand new version includes registration notification support for students. Forthcoming upgrades (currently in the planning stage) are likely to include enhanced recruitment options, Google Analytics and a checklist for new students.
For real progress to be made, however, technology providers cannot simply follow; they must also lead. The final element that influences the future of digital technology is innovation. It is the value-added ingredient that creates the framework to accommodate future trends, opening up more possibilities. It is always worth remembering that no one thought they wanted an iPad until the first one had been developed and manufactured. In a similar way, product developers need to come up with the improvements no one had realised they wanted, until they became a reality.
As for the crystal ball: it seems certain that we will see further developments in cloud technology and that we will embrace mobile technology even further. As whole campus mobile systems become ubiquitous and universities continue to develop satellite campuses at home and abroad, single portal systems, based in the cloud, will become a more integral part of everyone’s lives.
[post_title] => Future tech trends in HE [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => future_tech_trends_in_he [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2014-10-27 14:17:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => [menu_order] => 5587 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10169 [post_author] => 14 [post_date] => 2014-01-21 15:43:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2014-01-21 14:43:00 [post_content] =>The acquisition furthers Ellucian’s strategy of bringing innovative technology solutions to the higher education community. It also now makes Ellucian one of the largest providers of solutions for higher, further, and vocational education in the UK and Ireland.
CampusIT, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, builds cloud-based student management and recruitment systems for progressive educational institutions. CampusIT works with customers who are eager to embrace new and emerging technology for managing student interactions.
“The flexible design of CampusIT’s solutions accelerates our ability to respond to the evolving and varying needs of our global community. By leveraging the experience of its employees and its innovative customer software, we are strengthening our ability to support the growing number of non-traditional and non-degree educational programmes,” said Mark Jones, chief product officer, Ellucian.
Ellucian’s strategic investment in its current core administrative systems: Banner® by Ellucian, Colleague® by Ellucian, and PowerCampus™ by Ellucian is unchanged. The company also remains committed to its Ellucian Extensible Ecosystem, a flexible and open foundation that spans its administrative systems to make deploying and updating solutions faster, easier, and at a lower cost of ownership.
“We are excited to welcome the customers of CampusIT to Ellucian,” said Toby Williams, senior vice president, corporate development, Ellucian. “They are joining an engaged and collaborative community of users. And they are now supported by a global company with deep expertise in higher education and an extensive portfolio of solutions and services.”
“Ellucian is a highly respected and visionary company with a long history of providing technology solutions that meet the most pressing needs of higher education institutions throughout the world,” said CampusIT CEO Tony Sheridan. “The company is a strong strategic partner for our customers and a good cultural fit for our employees. We are excited that we are now part of Ellucian, now one of the largest provider of solutions for higher, further, and vocational education in the UK and Ireland and the largest globally.”
CampusIT is a software company based in Ireland serving the further, higher, and continuing education markets in the UK and Ireland. The company delivers web-based student recruitment and student information systems to customers on-premise and increasingly from its secure cloud hosting facility.
Ellucian delivers a broad portfolio of technology solutions, developed in collaboration with a global education community, and provide strategic guidance to help education institutions of all kinds navigate change, achieve greater transparency, and drive efficiencies.
[post_title] => Ellucian acquires CampusIT [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => ellucian_acquires_campusit [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2014-01-21 15:43:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => [menu_order] => 6153 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [3] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 10206 [post_author] => 14 [post_date] => 2013-12-30 12:22:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2013-12-30 11:22:00 [post_content] =>At a time when higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide must ensure they offer an exceptional student experience to continue to attract students, they are presented with a dichotomy. In order to compete with other institutions, it has never been more beneficial for them to collaborate to ensure cost savings and efficiencies.
Institutions in Ireland are already aware of the advantages of shared services - a formal co-operation whereby the implementation and cost of ICT developments - and improvements in other areas - are shared between institutions.
A successful example of shared services is An Cheim, founded and funded by the Irish Department of Education and Science with a remit to establish a set of sector-wide standards, and implement connected information systems at all the Institutes of Technology in the country. An Cheim provides a common platform for applications including the student information system, Banner by Ellucian, and supports shared services in 13 Irish Institutes.
Other European countries also have centralised systems agencies that follow some form of shared services model within their higher education sectors. France has AMUE, Spain has Sigma, Italy has CINECA, Sweden has Ladok and Germany has HIS, all fulfilling a similar function and providing structure for collaborative ventures.
Shared services are not, therefore, a new or uniquely Irish idea but the Europe-wide trend leaves us in no doubt that collaboration is the way forward. There are significant financial benefits of outsourcing services to the private sector: it enables collaborating institutions to build stronger joint business cases to bring to potential funders. The concept of shared services has therefore become increasingly crucial to the rapid development of HEI back office functions in this age of austerity.
It was certainly a hot topic at the recent HEAnet Conference in Athlone with HEAnet announcing plans for provision of new services and the showcasing by universities of the new Shared Services Framework which is coordinated through the Irish Universities Association (IUA). The framework has the support of the Higher Education Authority and seems likely to offer Collaborative applications a more successful route to funding than would be the case for stand alone projects.In spite of this level of official support, it is important, however, to be clear that in this context the use of the word ‘sharing’ does not mean that all Universities must participate. Rather it conveys a collaborative and optional partnership which delivers the maximum benefit to participants in a way that makes sense and does not mean duplication of effort where investment has already been made by an institution in a particular area.
The shared services arrangements that will fall under the framework are anticipated to be fluid and sophisticated, made only between institutions with specific requirements and on a case by case basis. Working with like-minded institutions can be beneficial in terms of negotiating shared service deals on software, reducing licensing costs through bulk buying and shared implementations and providing universities with a much more flexible approach to managing IT software across their estate.
However, the bigger picture is that this is all part of a process of modernisation, facilitated by a move towards Cloud computing. It will ultimately see students and institutions benefitting from the ability to orchestrate services that see bureaucratic back office activities being replaced by services that are not only well designed, but are initiated by students or tutors - or the occurrence of events - and work effectively. The efficiencies this modernisation brings means that students will not feel that their own administrative burden has increased, but rather that they will benefit from improved student experience.
For its part, Ellucian is investing heavily in Banner and other solutions to facilitate this move that will see the demand for more sophistication being met with fewer resources, much of it from the Cloud.
The message from the HEAnet Conference was clear: shared services is the way forward. It will be increasingly important as institutions prepare for the future because a structured sharing arrangement takes advantage of technologies that deliver excellent student experience; but, by building upon advanced student information systems, technologies are implemented with the capacity to be updated whenever they have outlived their purpose - or as better approaches become apparent - and supported by a clear view of business benefit. Through shared services, Irish universities and institutes will be able to deliver an outstanding experience and continue to attract students from around the world.
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Since the beginning of the 21st century the rate of change within the world of higher education has been rapidly accelerating.
Agile and responsive technology capabilities that were first offered to large corporate organisations have been tailored specifically for universities and colleges and, to a greater or lesser extent, this technology is being adopted. With such sophisticated technology it is possible to address the most important issue of the day: putting the needs of increasingly demanding students at the forefront of the HE experience.
The foundation for delivering student-centered services is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
These solutions can positively impact the front end services that are most visible to students as well as the back office processes that also contribute to creating a better overall university experience. For example, today’s ERPs give students anytime, anywhere online access from any device to the resources they need, like registering and paying for classes, and to important information like their grades, course timetable and tutor. HEIs also can leverage the data within their ERPS to build stronger and more seamless relationships with students and other constituents from recruitment and retention through to employability, alumni relationships and large scale fund raising.
ERPs also automate and streamline the unseen administrative processes, which in turn help staff deliver much improved service to students and free them up to spend more personal time with those who need it. For example, higher-education-specific forms and automated workflows reduce the amount of data entry and steps required to process applications. This allows staff to respond more quickly to applicants. Also, counsellors have easier access to student records so that they can provide more helpful guidance to students. ERPs, like Banner by Ellucian, are built on best practices that can require considerable internal re-organisation of an HEI’s business processes; however when adopted, they support new operational efficiencies and help institutions deliver a much improved service to students and other members of their education community.
Comprehensive and modern ERP systems also provide an institution with tools for more personalised advising and more effective assessment, so that staff can help more students be successful. For example, staff can relay information on individual performances, and send alerts about those who might be falling behind. Students, in turn, can have personalised and direct contact with their tutors, and easy, intuitive access to information and services that can help them improve their course work.
In the post graduate environment, an ERP system which provides the capacity for personalised reporting and inter-departmental communication is a significant asset. A well-run department is instrumental in attracting high calibre research students and staff and equally crucial in retaining them. The establishment of good quality research departments in turn helps with undergraduate student recruitment and, perhaps even more importantly, research departments often attract prospective donors.
For financial and fund raising decisions, the data within ERPs can help institutions make informed decisions and respond more quickly to changes in trends and requirements as they develop. For example, institution leaders can monitor changes in enrolment and demand for different degree courses, the effectiveness of recruitment activities, and the success of fund raising efforts. These data-informed decisions ultimately make the institution stronger and better able to support its students.
Web-based ERP platforms also provide the foundation for HEIs to bring on new and extended capabilities like linking to UCAS, leveraging mobile technology and enabling distance learning and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), if they choose these paths. Not all HEIs have understood the opportunity ERP systems provide, perhaps imagining that with bolt on applications so readily available they do not need to invest heavily in a large central system. These institutions prefer to run several different systems in parallel thanks to the ingenuity of their IT departments.
Admittedly, the investment in both finance and energy to implement ERP software is significant. However, most institutions find that, in addition to the improvement in mission-critical processes, a modern ERP requires less maintenance, freeing up IT staff to focus on bringing on new technologies and providing better support to students and staff. Also, the ability to deploy ERPs and their related technologies on-premise or in the cloud gives institutions the flexibility to choose the model that best suits their IT resources.
The institutions that still resist the change will be likely to find that, over time, the lack of an integrated ERP built on a modern technology platform will limit them from embracing new capabilities and make it difficult for them to keep abreast of the competition that is delivering higher levels of student experience. The right ERP can ultimately make for a much better institution: one that is lean, agile and responsive to today’s students.
Martine Carassik is a forward-thinking IT professional with over twenty years’ higher education and commercial experience. She has provided strategic and operational management to large organisations and higher education institutions (HEIs.) She currently provides consulting services to Ellucian®, a global technology and services company. Martine organised the international dinner for Women of Influence in Higher Education, hosted by Ellucian on 24th October.
[post_title] => Enterprise resource planning the future [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => enterprise_resource_planning_the_future [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2013-12-17 11:57:00 [post_modified_gmt] => 0000-00-00 00:00:00 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => [menu_order] => 6201 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) ) [post_count] => 5 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 9098 [post_author] => 14 [post_date] => 2015-06-04 00:00:00 [post_date_gmt] => 2015-06-03 22:00:00 [post_content] =>Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA and web and mobile experience management vendor Jadu have partnered to implement a single online experience for students and staff, consolidating portal and CMS system into a ‘single campus engagement platform', Jadu’s ‘Content Portal’.
Dickinson, a highly selective college, is home to 2,400 students from across the nation and around the world. A nationally recognised liberal-arts institution, Dickinson is dedicated to global education― at home and abroad—and the study of the environment and sustainability, which is integrated into the curriculum and the campus and exemplifies the college’s commitment to providing students with the skills relevant to 21st century careers.
Dickinson consolidated Campus Portal and Web Content Management requirements into a single web platform from Chicago-based Jadu. This platform integrates with the college’s student information system (Banner by Ellucian) for student and employee authentication and identification.
The platform replaced the college’s previous CMS and legacy portal with a system that is available on any mobile, tablet, or desktop device. Students and staff now have a single point of entry for locating important information and functions that are vital to the operation of the college and its day-to-day business transactions. Integration with the college’s CAS authentication services also provides personalisation, so students and staff have access to real-time information on courses, academic resources, and other college-related content that is specific to an individual user’s needs.
The content in the website portal is personalised based on roles and profiles that exist in the college’s student information system. Jadu Content Portal can also co-exist with an institution’s existing Web CMS system by leveraging seamlessly designed templates. It can be integrated with the college’s enterprise systems such as Student Information Systems (SIS), Document Imaging Systems (ECM) and Learning Management Systems (LMS).
The college’s new website and integrated portal is now live. The web site can be viewed at www.dickinson.edu. The integrated portal is accessible to those with valid access credentials.
Dickinson is now beginning ‘phase 2’ — implementation of the Online Forms capability of the Jadu Content Portal. The Online Forms product will significantly advance how the college delivers online services, especially during times of high-volume activity such as first-year orientation and student organisation registration.
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