Where: Grosvenor House Hotel, London

What: CampusIT will be attending the Times Higher Education Awards in London.  If you are interested in meeting a CampusIT representative at the event please email info@campusit.net.

CampusIT is sponsoring the award for Outstanding ICT Initiative of the Year.

• New product is a cloud based software platform for managing online and mobile student interactions throughout the student lifecycle
• CampusIT chosen by Oracle as a case study of best practice deploying large scale student management systems in the cloud using Oracle Technologies

At Oracle OpenWorld, San Francisco, US, – CampusIT (www.campusit.net), the education management systems provider, will announce the US launch of its cloud based student interaction management product, CampusIT Interact. CampusIT is also announcing that it is to be showcased by Oracle at Oracle OpenWorld as an organisation that has shown best practice for deploying its large scale student management systems in the cloud using Oracle Technologies.

CampusIT Interact is one of Europe’s leading student management software solutions and is currently being used by 61 education institutions around Europe. It enables universities and colleges to transform complex and resource hungry back office activities into convenient and easy to use online and mobile services to connect students, academics and support staff.

CampusIT Interact is a web-based platform to speed and simplify student interactions, streamline administrative processes and reduce costs. It enables universities to provide a more convenient, personalized and ubiquitous service that builds better student relationships by handling all student transactions entirely online, from first inquiry through enrolment, graduation and alumni.

CampusIT has been growing throughout Europe over the last two years, and forecasts revenue growth from $4.8m in 2010 to $6.8m by 2013. It recently announced that it is now helping higher education institutions serve the needs of more than 400,000 students in the cloud, and is the backbone of some of the largest student management systems in Europe

Tony Sheridan, CEO, CampusIT said, “This is a great achievement for us to be highlighted by Oracle as an example of best practice. We have been working hard for the last number of years and based on our specialist higher education knowledge, we have developed a unique platform that is creating value and cost savings for higher education institutions.

“Today’s students are used to the service convenience and quality of the likes of Google, Facebook or Kindle and expect the same convenience when it comes to their higher education provider. We have developed CampusIT Interact with the needs and expectations of these students and their higher education institutions in mind to deliver a simple and easy to use student interaction solution.”

CampusIT Interact allows business users to configure and deliver web-based student-centric services using simple-to-learn methods, or by editing pre-built applications from CampusIT. Its value is realized when frontline staff can configure and deploy new online and mobile student services without the need for IT intervention or specialized training.

CampusIT Interact works alongside university’s’ existing technology investments, as it integrates with, rather than replaces, any student records system or back-office system already in place. This allows higher education institutes to easily and quickly implement an online student interaction solution with minimum disruption.

Where: Manchester, England

What: CampusIT plans to attend UCISA’s CISG in November, to arrange to meet with a CampusIT representative please email info@campusit.net.

For more information on the event please click here.

Where: San Francisco, California

What: CampusIT is delighted to be exhibiting at Oracle OpenWorld with Enterprise Ireland.  If you are interested in meeting a CampusIT representative at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 email info@campusit.net.

Please click here for more information on the event.

CampusIT’s cloud-based student interaction software provides higher-education institutions with online and mobile solutions to communicate with their students in a simple and timely manner. It enables universities to engage with their students as active partners throughout their college lives, from student recruitment to discussion forums and graduation registrations.

Higher-education institutes are under pressure to increase overall efficiencies due to an increasingly complex and competitive education landscape, changing student demands and funding cuts. This, coupled with an increase in storage and archiving requirements, and demand for computing power, is driving the move towards the efficiencies of cloud computing. Cloud computing is allowing higher-education institutions to easily and cost effectively manage these large resource requirements.

“Universities are leading the way in the move to cloud computing as they need computing power on demand and to provide resources to their ever-growing student populations,” Tony Sheridan, CEO, CampusIT, explained.

“Today’s students who have grown up with Amazon and Facebook now expect the same on-demand, convenient services from their education providers.

“In the UK, the Higher Education Funding Council for England recently announced an investment of stg£12.5m in cloud computing to help universities save costs in terms of their IT provisioning. Our cloud platform allows universities to achieve some of these efficiencies and cost savings and provide students with the collaborative communication they have come to expect from their universities.”

Taken from Silicon Republic’s article, click here to read the full article.

But the college had a problem – as it grew the systems which it had developed in its early days were becoming inefficient, difficult to manage, and expensive to maintain.

Problem

• Large number of users
• Located across the UK
• Established but ageing IT system
• Dynamic course content

Results

• Full data control
• Massive cost reductions
• Improved communication
• Precise & up-to-date data capture

The Issues Faced

Data management is a challenge for all institutions but for The National College this was immense, the college has a user base of 150,000 people, in 23,000 schools across 40 programs.  The college needed a smarter way to interact with its participants and teachers.

This was made even more challenging as the details and content for many courses needed to be frequently updated.  This was an administrational headache and, thanks to the need for expensive IT consultants and programmers, a costly process.

The college had become a victim of its own success and needed a system to ease communication with its thousands of users.  It also needed a system that could be easily scaled to manage future changes and institutional growth.

The Solution

CampusIT’s CampusInteract provides the college with accesses to hundreds of pre-built web services which allow it to easily manage all interaction with its users, from handling initial applications, automatically administering timetables, and providing location and course update alerts to thousands of users across multiple courses.

“Because CampusInteract is an online solution it means we can easily and effectively communicate with our potential audience. People can easily see what is available, when and where.  [...] All of our application processes are now online. The solution manages on average 40,000 applications a year. Each program has different application processes and demands different information but CampusInteract gives us the flexibility to deal with that.”

CampusIT’s Process Studio allowed the college to seamlessly edit the finer details of course management, such as start dates or content updates.  But it also does the larger tasks; it now only takes a few short weeks to launch a new course rather than the four months previously needed.

Outcomes

CampusInteract is now the backbone of The National College’s IT infrastructure.  The benefits to the institution are immense, programmes are run more efficiently, students have complete control over their data, admin staff are now free to concentrate on key tasks, and all participants have access to the latest course information.

These benefits have also been seen directly by the college itself, it can now launch new programs in only a few weeks and no longer relies on expensive IT consultants. At the same time it can be sure its institutional memory is accurate, up-to-date, and trustworthy.

Problems

• Inefficient data capture
• Complicated application process
• Lag between application & offer
• Overloaded admissions department
• Loss of applicants
• Cumbersome manual reporting

Results

• Increase in applicants
• Offers made faster
• Precise data capture
• Vastly reduced application enquiries
• User-friendly application process

The Issues Faced

DIT was using an obsolete paper-based application process which slowed applicant assessment, making it difficult to quickly process the thousands of applications the institution received each year.   In addition the institution identified that the application forms themselves failed to adequately capture all necessary data and were overly complicated.

This lead to thousands of enquiries from applicants by phone, email, and post requesting more information and clarifications which further slowed the process of evaluating potential new students.  It was frequent for applications to be delayed by up to three months, during which time many ideal students would receive offers from other institutions.

DIT needed to reduce inefficiencies and to free overloaded admissions staff to concentrate on core tasks, without the need to ‘rip-and-replace’ its current IT infrastructure.

The Solution

CampusIT’s solution focused on the root of the problem – the inefficient and complicated paper-based application process.  CampusIT moved the application process online which allowed for the creation of customisable forms for each course.

To greater increase applicant retention CampusIT integrated online and email alerts into the solution to inform students of the status of their application.

To ensure efficiency in the process an early warning system was designed to highlight where applications are being delayed before bottlenecks appeared.

To ensure the long term value of the solution CampusIT built a bespoke content management system which gave office and academic staff complete control over the application form data and evaluation systems.  It also provided all DIT stakeholders with access to a central, up-to-date, database of applicants.

By moving the application process to the cloud Campus IT was able to create a clean and customisable structure which met the needs of staff without imposing additional financial or IT infrastructure overheads on the institution.

Outcomes

The results from CampusIT’s solution were immediate; the institution saw an increase in the number of applications across the board.  In addition the lag from student applications to offer was reduced to a maximum of 14 days.  This led to a greater number of quality students confirming offers.

Thanks to CampusIT’s solution DIT is now able to process a greater number of applications in a shorter length of time.  With the streamlined applications process admissions staff are fielding fewer enquiries, allowing them to concentrate on core tasks

The investment has come from a number of sources, including the BDO-managed Davy BES fund and Enterprise Ireland.

The money is aimed at helping the firm to develop and launch its CampusIT_Interact product, a web-based platform targeted at universities and colleges.
CampusIT has been growing strongly over the last two years, and is expecting its sales revenue to rise from €3.5m in 2010 to €5m by 2013.

Where: Dublin, Ireland

What: An annual European wide conference held for IS/IT Directors.