More than two-thirds of households now connect to the internet via mobile devices, with a growing number of students using these devices to complete their coursework. To meaningfully connect with students, higher education institutions must provide all the information students need in an accessible and attractive format that is compatible with mobile devices. The right campus portal offers everything on a single app or mobile-friendly website. Many schools struggle with clunky, unattractive websites, hosting issues, and a piecemeal approach that leaves critical information spread between various sites. Outdated technology can hinder student engagement, waste time, and require staff to spend resources addressing queries that the right application could have handled. It’s time to embrace a 21st-century campus portal.
How App Integrations Benefit Higher Education Institutions
A fully integrated campus portal is more than just a convenience or gimmick. It facilitates the delivery of campus services to increase engagement. Fully integrated campus portals can achieve the following:
- Improve student performance: Students can access the information they need to choose the right classes, manage enrollment, track progress, and move steadily toward graduation.
- Promote greater faculty and staff satisfaction: Faculty and staff will no longer spend time and energy posting information to decentralized online locations, only to have students who cannot find it endlessly emailing or coming to office hours. A centralized portal solution streamlines information, making it easily accessible from one location.
- Increase student retention: Greater engagement and a more profound sense of connection to the campus community may help more students persist and graduate.
- Reduce student support costs by automating many common questions and queries: Students will require less support and fewer instructor and administrator resources.
- Offer a smooth transition to remote learning: A remote learning strategy can be a powerful marketing solution in the wake of COVID-19, promoting retention and better grades during a crisis.
The Role of Integrated Portals in Student Engagement and Retention
Modern, integrated portals improve students’ campus experience, connecting them to the campus community and encouraging them to seek help when they need it. Some benefits of an all-in-one portal include the following:
- Easier access for students to resources: Students can connect any time, from anywhere, and on any device.
- A stronger sense of belonging: Not all students feel comfortable talking to instructors, attending in-person events, or seeking out administrators for help. When these students can access information on their own time and in their own space, they may feel more connected to the campus community. A stronger sense of belonging promotes student retention and may also improve academic performance.
- Early access to help: Students who feel anxious about seeking in-person help, who have tight schedules, or who tend to procrastinate may be more likely to look for answers online.
- Critical campus alerts: Reach students with prominent attention-getting alerts and announcements, as well as tasks specific to cohorts of students.
- A smoother financial aid process: Financial aid can be a significant source of stress for students, especially when their enrollment depends on receiving a specific award. The right portal gives students access to the details they need as soon as the information becomes available.
- Fewer information bottlenecks: With outdated systems, students may waste hours looking for the resources they need, submitting tech support tickets, or trying to find the right administrator to email. An intuitive, user-friendly system eliminates the frustration of information delays and wasted time.
- Improved connectivity: Best in class campus portal solutions will utilize RESTful API to support connectivity and integrations to all systems and applications that a higher education institution utilizes.
Students deserve an exceptional higher education experience. Faculty and staff deserve to make the most efficient use of their time. The right portal helps achieve both goals. For assistance choosing a portal, identifying the benefits of effective integrated systems, or comparing a current system to newer options, visit our comprehensive checklist.
OneCampus has more than 20 years of history serving post-secondary organizations. OneCampus is proud to serve over 1 million students and is trusted by campuses across North America, including Texas A&M - Central, University of Hawaii, Notre Dame, Citrus College, and many more.