When Quinnipiac University's aging door readers had outlived their usefulness, Sandip Patel, financial systems specialist, and John Meriano, associate vice president for auxiliary services, knew they had reached a turning point with its QCard campus card system. "The door readers basically made the decision for us," said Patel. "They were coming to end-of-life and we […]
Over the years, college applications have become increasingly similar, with seemingly generic questions and check-boxes that often leave prospective students to wonder, "What does this have to do with me?" That's part of what the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success aims to change. The goal is not just to revise a few forms, but for […]
Handling tuition payments and donations for an institution with 15,000 students can be a complicated process that is time consuming for finance staff—especially without an integrated electronic system. Before 2011, that was exactly the situation at Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU), the largest private institution in the state. "Because of the lack of an integrated system, […]
The online education world is becoming accepted by more institutions than ever, and for good reason. It has the attributes desired to grow an organization's influence and positive impact without the historical linear rise in costs. This business model is reserved not just for the for-profit, office park-type campus operations, but also for long-standing renowned […]
The number of forms at the University of Delaware, just like at any other higher ed institution, is large. From course withdrawals for students to facilities requests by staff, a stakeholder is often required to fill out a specific form deep within various web applications in order to make a business action happen on campus. […]
Frequent downtime. Lengthy change processes. Complicated pricing structure. These were just a few of the issues with Brescia University's phone system that was in use prior to 2014. The western Kentucky institution—which serves just over 1,000 students—had aging, IP-based hosted solution. "Calls would drop all the time," says Chris Ford, Director of Information Technology for […]
Picture this: sticky notes on every screen. And if there are none on the monitor, lift up the keyboard. Nothing there? Try opening the pencil drawer. Unfortunately, it's not hard for the wrong person to find these notes, and it's the passwords written on these innocuous slips of paper that worry IT administrators at every […]
For all the advantages of online learning—flexibility, personalization and affordability among them—there can be downsides for some students. Traditional, on-campus students can take advantage of a wide variety of social and extracurricular opportunities, but online students may feel isolated and disconnected from their peers and from their college or university—and risk losing the engagement so crucial […]
In an era when prospective students and their parents can learn about hundreds of schools from the comfort of their homes, the in-person campus tour offers a golden opportunity to tip the scales in your favor. The tour is also the most influential factor in enrollment decisions, according to a 2012 Noel-Levitz study. But too […]
Without a doubt, social media has become one of the, if not the most, effective and efficient way for colleges and universities to communicate. Connected institutions can conduct "digital conversations" while sharing and collecting thoughts, ideas, information, opinions, images and video. The implications for higher education marketing, public relations, admissions, alumni outreach and development operations […]
