Everyone involved in higher ed ultimately has one goal – helping students succeed.
In fact, it might be better stated this way – helping as many students succeed as possible.
That means truly supporting every single student currently attending your institution, as well as making the top-notch education you provide available to as many new, incoming students as possible, too.
But of course, this is a mammoth task.
And the difficulty of this task is borne out by the data.
Could have been grades, could have been financial issues, could have been family situations, could have been behavior…
But so many of those ‘could have beens’ could have been a different story, if only there had been a better way to support them when they were still enrolled.
Then too, there are the potential students.
How much support is your institution really able to give, to help as many potential students from as many different backgrounds as possible enroll in your school in the first place?
And I’m not talking financial support, though that’s a part of it.
I’m talking strategically targeting specific high schools in your recruiting efforts…giving counselors the tools and info they need to help guide students through a successful application…offering flexible options like online classes so more students can afford and fit your college education into their lives.
There are only two ways to offer this intensive level of support for new and existing students – hire more people, or use new tech.
But either option seems to require more money than the budget allows.
But what if your institution could make a change in the level of support you’re able to provide both of these demographic groups – and without a huge financial outlay?
What if you could easily, quickly, and affordably implement a whole host of new apps that would help you provide exactly the type of support students need to succeed?
Apps for student use to make navigating college easier…software to enable better analytics reporting, and thus more strategic outreach and recruiting…student success software to better identify current students at risk…platforms to offer online courses…any app or platform that makes college access and college success more of a reality for more students.
The answer is N2N’s Illuminate.
Integrating all those apps and platforms into your existing SIS ecosystem yourself would be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive.
But once you have the Illuminate application, it becomes a simple matter of plugging their APIs into our platform, no custom coding required, for quick, seamless integration with every part of your existing SIS set-up.
At N2N, we believe a college degree should be accessible to all.
So we’re doing our part to help colleges and universities make that dream into a reality.
Have you noticed how the generation wars have begun to heat up on social media lately?
Poor Millennials have been picked on for their generation’s perceived failings for years, but the newest up-and-coming generation, Gen Z, has suddenly come into its own and seems to be spoiling for a fight.
With the rise of the dismissive comment “OK, Boomer,” and their unflattering nickname for Gen Xers – the Karen Generation – Gen Z has managed to start an all-out generational frenzy online.
Of course, it’s the exact same angst that every preceding generation has gone through – it’s just that this generation has the tools and the know-how to get their thoughts and feelings out there like never before, as well as the expectation – and reality – of being listened to by a limitless online audience.
And it’s precisely that difference that colleges and universities need to cater to, in order to attract this new generation to their institutions.
Boomers were still completely analog in college, and Gen Xers first experienced the internet as young adults. But Millennials were digital natives, growing up with the internet, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that campus IT changes made for them would still apply to Generation Z.
But you’d be wrong.
Gen Z takes being a digital native one step further. They were born into a world of smartphones, social media, and remote workers, and they’ve been using smartboards, tablets, flipped classrooms and other online learning environments since they started school. They are used to being constantly connected, and to having instant access to any and all content or tools they need, no matter where they are. They have grown up within a completely seamless tech landscape, in which real-world interaction and online interaction are interchangeable.
As they make the transition to college, they expect the tech on campus to keep pace with what they’re used to – and not only to keep pace, but to outstrip whatever their local high school had to offer.
What does that mean for your institution?
It means every app, tool, and platform your students need to access must be mobile responsive.
It means you need platforms that make it easy for professors to share the content from their classes – from syllabi and lecture outlines to actual live streams or audio recordings of classes for those who are absent.
It means your school needs to meet the expectation of this generation that everything they need to succeed is always at their fingertips.
Of course, universities have a much more complex IT ecosystem than your students’ old high schools. And that can make some of these asks seem impossible, or at least impractical – especially when you take integration needs into consideration.
But that’s where N2N’s Illuminate platform comes in.
Illuminate makes it easy for you to integrate any new apps, databases, or platforms with your existing systems, so that adapting with agility to the demands of the next generation is a snap.
No custom coding needed. You just point Illuminate to the new app’s APIs, navigate the configuration forms, and get seamless communication with your entire SIS ecosystem – seamless being the key word here. Exactly the experience Gen Z expects – and exactly what you need to affordably, quickly, and easily ramp up your campus IT.
We’ve all got our own ways of dealing with stress.
Some of us try to prevent it with morning rituals like yoga, meditation, or journaling.
Some of us mindlessly binge on our favorite comfort foods when stress and overwhelm hit.
And some of us break out the adult beverages at the end of a long, stressful day.
But there’s one kind of stress that is so severe, so unbearable, that it can’t be handled with any of those.
And that kind of stress is… University Staff Back-To-School Stress.
We can see by the wild look in your eyes right now that you know exactly what we’re talking about. You’ve probably just come through it yourself, sanity barely intact.
It really is too much, you know. Too much for any mortal to endure.
The last-minute rush to get everyone enrolled, to get everything in place, to make everyone happy, and to ensure everyone’s data is correct and available everywhere it needs to be.
And yet…it happens every year.
Recent research studies have shown that each Fall, 5 years is shaved off each university employee’s life expectancy (well not really, but those studies should be there!), purely because of those first few weeks of back-to-school stress and overwhelm. Veggies, vitamins, Valium – none of it makes a difference.
So what can you do?
There is one way, and only one way, to eliminate the stress and counter the ill effects of high volume processes like Fall enrollment.
And that is to call us here at N2N as quickly as possible.
Here at N2N, we like to think we’re the gurus of enrollment zen, and the prescription for back-to-school panic.
We take a process that until now has been a universally dreaded, overwhelming mountain to scale…
…and turn it into a simple automated flow.
Our integration platform, Illuminate, allows us to set up an entirely automated process for your college or university, so that when students apply online, their data is seamlessly and automatically checked against your database for duplicate prevention, and then posted into your SIS.
In fact, Illuminate can integrate every single app and system your institution uses. All that data, double-checked for quality assurance, flowing in real-time to every place it’s needed.
By itself.
No manual data entry or quality assurance processes necessary.
No custom coding necessary, either.
It’s all done for you, as simply and quickly as snapping together a few puzzle pieces.
You and your entire staff can take a deep breath and truly relax, knowing we’ve got it handled.
Just imagine – no more nervous breakdowns, no more caffeine-induced hallucinations, no more recurring nightmares about August…
The horror is over.
You don’t have to fear Super Enrollment anymore.
It’s going to be okay.
Just give us a call today, and we can walk you through a free demo, explain how it all works, and then give you a virtual hug – because we know you probably need it, after the August you’ve had. There, there. You’re gonna be just fine.
You know, we may be tech nerds here at N2N, but what people often don’t know is that we’ve got an artistic side, too.
And since our integration solution, Illuminate, is specifically made for the higher ed market, and that’s the world we come from and spend our days immersed in, it might not surprise you too much to learn that we’re a bunch of history and literature buffs, as well. (Which you can probably tell by taking a look at our blog posts referencing Beowulf and the Odyssey!)
It occurred to us the other day that while on the one hand, what we do is wrestle with data and numbers and code – on the other, it’s a lot like weaving a medieval tapestry. Dubious? Let me explain.
We both provide instant, accessible communication: Those gorgeous hand-crafted tapestries told stories – conveyed information – that was important to a culture. They made that information intelligible to anyone at a glance, instantly accessible to peasants and kings alike.
And that’s a lot like what we do here via our Illuminate platform.
Now, we’re not calling anyone a peasant – but our API Management Platform makes data that’s vital to your institution instantly and easily accessible by any app, program, or system you use. It integrates every piece of your IT puzzle and enables seamless communication and data transfer between them all, quickly and easily, without any coding involved. Well, maybe a bit of SQL for some systems, but that’s it!
We both make a bird’s eye view possible: When you stand back to look at an entire medieval tapestry, you can see an entire story, from start to finish, at one glance. You get the big picture, literally! You can drill down any time to get more granular and look at individual scenes, but there are unique insights to be gained from understanding a story as a whole.
In the same way, the Illuminate platform gives you the ability to see the complete picture that your institution’s data paints. (Sorry for mixing metaphors…) With real-time access to every piece of data from every department, you can glean new insights into overall trends and needs you might not have noticed from a ground level view. And then you can respond accordingly.
We’re both things of beauty: OK, OK, not to brag or anything… I mean, medieval tapestries are beautiful – no argument there, right? They represent a unique art form of their time period that incorporates meaning and beauty and skill all at once.
Well, Illuminate is definitely a product of our times, allowing institutions to draw meaning and insight from the endless streams of data they collect. Our highly skilled N2N customer support team works with institutions every step of the way to implement and customize it as needed. And it’s an elegant solution to the complex and often tangled integration webs that colleges and universities are dealing with – plugging everything in to our platform allows every single app, database, and program to communicate seamlessly.
So, the next time you’re strolling through a museum and see a gorgeous medieval tapestry on display – think of N2N. Even better, give us a call right now, so we can start weaving a thing of beauty for your institution today.
As Provost, it’s your duty (and often a pleasure!) to attend education conferences, learn about the latest and greatest in edtech and higher ed in general, and then bring that newly acquired knowledge back to your university to support the growth and development of your institution.
But has the following scenario ever happened to you?
You head to a conference and learn about all the exciting new trends in education, the new technology that will create a much richer experience for the entire university community, from students to professors to staff to administration.
You meet with the tech companies there, hear all about how they can help you with the exact issues you’ve been struggling with, and speak with others who have already implemented them and are seeing great results.
On the flight home, your head is buzzing with excitement at the future, and once back at work, you immediately hold a meeting to share your information and your excitement with everyone.
Of course, everyone agrees that the new tech would be a game changer – but there’s one issue.
Your IT department doesn’t have the time or resources to implement the new solution and integrate it with all the other apps, systems, and databases you currently use.
It would be an enormous and expensive undertaking to take your IT team away from the necessary work they’re doing right now, or to outsource the project to outside programmers.
So, your enthusiasm dampened, you make do with the status quo, and forego the benefits that new tech would have brought.
If this scenario is familiar to you, then have we got great news for you!
The next time you attend one of those conferences, you can feel free to get completely caught up in all the excitement, certain in the knowledge that whatever new tech tools you’d like to try out on your campus, it’s all possible – and not only possible, but simple and affordable.
How is this possible?
With N2N’s API Management Platform, the Illuminate app.
The Illuminate platform allows even non-IT personnel to easily, quickly, and affordably integrate apps by snapping together ready-made APIs.
But calling N2N to get you set up with Illuminate at your institution not only helps you integrate new apps – it also streamlines and automates data transfer between all of your existing apps, databases, and systems.
It’s an elegant solution to the integration problem – and it’s worth getting excited about in its own right, too.
Illuminate enables colleges and universities to innovate in ways that wouldn’t be possible without it.
We’ve helped entire state college systems integrate all of their institution and student data in order to build massive platforms for students to find and register for the courses they need to graduate in one seamless experience, no matter where their home campus is and where the courses they need are offered.
And we can help you implement any new apps you’d like to try from the latest conference, or develop any brand new interface you can dream up, quickly and affordably – all without taking your IT team away from their work or outsourcing any custom coding.
So give N2N a call today, try a free demo, and put the excitement back in edtech conferences again!
