Modern Campus, the higher education industry’s leading provider of solutions for driving student enrollment by attracting, engaging and converting students, today recognized eight colleges and universities for excellence in website design and management.
These eight winners were chosen from over 700 postsecondary institution websites powered by Modern Campus Omni CMS, the only content management system purpose-built for higher education. The winning websites were recognized for their effectiveness at providing students with informative content and engaging user experiences, driving conversions, maintaining interest, and improving enrollments.
In no particular order, the Best Higher Education Websites of 2022 are: Alvin Community College Ferris State University Florida A&M University Hobart and William Smith Colleges Ohio Wesleyan University SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University University of Arkansas Monticello University of North Texas
Since the website is the front door to an institution, it plays a crucial role in driving student enrollment by attracting, engaging, and converting students. It’s one of the first places that prospective students visit and serves as an important touchpoint in their enrollment decision.
Modern students expect higher ed websites to be optimized for their phones, deliver personalized experiences, and showcase the return on their higher ed investments upfront. They also prefer to experience the campus virtually before applying for it, found a recent study of higher school students conducted by RNL.
“Colleges and universities have been leveraging their websites in innovative ways to improve their prospective students’ digital experiences,” said Kimberly Prieto, vice president for product at Modern Campus. “On behalf of Modern Campus, I’m really excited to recognize the institutions that are leading the innovation and accomplishing specific goals with their websites. These websites share the very best of what the institution has to offer in a highly engaging manner.”
A More Personalized Experience for Learners In an era of falling enrollments and high skepticism from students and parents alike, the website plays a critical role in helping to define and establish the importance of postsecondary education.
Omni CMS by Modern Campus enables colleges and universities to design and build websites to meet modern leaners’ expectations and increase enrollments. Each of the recognized institutions are attracting and engaging students by delivering personalized experiences, showcasing career pathways, providing virtual campus tours and more.
“The tools that Modern Campus is bringing out now are allowing us to show instead of tell in a way we haven’t been able to before,” stated Eric Hazen, director of digital marketing at Ferris State University. “We’re able to create an experience similar to the one our students get here. And knowing that all our prospective student journeys start on the website, the ability to personalize the website is critical.”
To find the full listing of the Modern Campus Best Websites of 2022, with screenshots and insights into the factors that make them truly excellent, visit https://moderncampus.com/blog/best-higher-ed-websites-of-2022.html.
Modern Campus Angela Tuzzo 732-758-1100 www.moderncampus.com
Modern Campus, the higher education industry’s leading modern learner engagement platform, today announced the launch of the Modern Campus Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector. The connection between Modern Campus’ continuing education and conversational text messaging solutions is designed to transform student communication in the non-traditional space by propelling enrollment and credential completion.
The Modern Campus Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector will create an automated flow of data between the two solutions for timely and effective learner communication. This is the first in a series of connectors Modern Campus will launch to help colleges and universities efficiently communicate with key demographics of students through conversational text messaging.
Through the pandemic—and against the backdrop of a higher education industry in crisis—continuing education (CE) and workforce development units have evolved and gained prominence within their institutions. Across the board, 56% of institutional leaders said the role of their CE units grew since 2019. Staff are being challenged to better support their learners’ academic, professional and personal growth, helping colleges enroll more diverse audiences and retain those learners through credential attainment. With this expanded scope, program staff need to engage learners in more meaningful and impactful ways.
It’s clear that the work of continuing and workforce education units is more important than ever. But most of these providers are still using outdated tools to connect with their busy students. In many cases, communication happens over email and is difficult to track.
With the Modern Campus Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector in place, divisional staff can seamlessly leverage SMS text messaging to communicate with students. They’ll be able to nudge learners to take the actions needed to earn their credentials, and prompt learners to enroll in courses and programs that may be of interest or required to complete their chosen programs.
What’s more, the Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector will help continuing and workforce education staff deliver the experience modern learners expect. By leveraging the core functionality of Modern Campus Signal Vine, staff efficiency increases as inbound requests are automatically triaged. Common questions receive pre-defined responses while more complex requests are routed directly to staff for specific follow-up.
The Modern Campus Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector:
· Enables staff to leverage AI-based Blended Messaging® to build long-term engagement with targeted learner demographics so the right students receive the right messages at the exact right time. · Connects learners with critical support, leading to increased retention, degree and certification completion, and re-enrollment rates. · Streamlines the transfer of data between Signal Vine and Lumens, driving efficient and effective engagement campaigns.
“Building connections between our Modern Campus solutions helps build the kind of ecosystem today’s higher education institutions need,” said Modern Campus Chief Product Officer Reuben Pressman. “Learners and leaders alike demand systems that work and a seamless experience that makes life easier. The Signal Vine + Lumens SMS Connector shows our commitment to delivering on that expectation.”
For more information, visit: https://moderncampus.com/signal-vine-plus-lumens.
About Modern Campus
Modern Campus is obsessed with empowering its nearly 2,000 higher education customers to thrive when radical transformation is required to respond to lower student enrollments and revenue, rising costs, crushing student debt, and administrative complexity.
The Modern Campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result: innovative institutions can create a learner-to-earner lifecycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner engagement movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Modern Campus Angela Tuzzo 732-758-1100 www.moderncampus.com
The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) and Modern Campus, the higher education industry’s leading modern learner engagement platform, today announced a partnership that will enhance interoperability between Modern Campus Destiny One—the most-used student information system for continuing and workforce education—and the ARUCC MyCreds™ | MesCertif™National Network.
MyCreds™, powered by Digitary, is a Canadian shared service and platform that provides students and graduates access to a secure, online, password-protected learner credential wallet, with official documents issued by their institution. Modern Campus plans to build an API connector with MyCreds™, to launch in November 2022, enabling institutions on the MyCreds™ platform full interoperability for badges with their Modern Campus Destiny One local environments.
Today’s learners need flexible access to their academic credentials and documents, so that they can share evidence of their knowledge, skills, and abilities whenever—and with whomever—they want, on demand. The collaboration between MyCreds™ and Modern Campus will support learners’ unique education experiences across the full learner lifecycle.
“We’re passionate about supporting institutions in their effort to deliver modern experiences for learners—no matter where they are in their journey. Our focus on helping learners share their skills and personalized badges on any social platform is just one example of that commitment,” says Chad Rowe, vice president of product at Modern Campus, “The MyCreds™ Connector enables colleges and universities to easily issue digital credentials stored and managed externally. This will increase learner engagement, and potentially help to drive subsequent enrolments.”
Any institution’s system administrator can link MyCreds™ to Modern Campus Destiny One in minutes. Once linked, institutions will be able to search or enter IDs for, and associate, any of their existing MyCreds™ badge templates to a Destiny One (Modern Campus’s purpose-built Student Information System) course section, certificate, conference, or ISPM program. With this collaboration, institutions using Destiny One will have the ability to share badge data and load MyCreds™ badges directly to their course catalogs. This feature will be available as an add-on for institutions as they onboard to the MyCreds™ platform.
“MyCreds™ is excited to partner with Modern Campus,” says Charmaine Hack, ARUCC board director of ARUCC MyCreds™, “Establishing strong ties with key student information system providers remains a core interoperability goal of MyCreds™. With this new arrangement, schools will have needed supports between their Modern Campus Destiny One local environments and MyCreds™, which will enhance efficiency and increase the access for onboarding and sharing of data for badges in a streamlined fashion. We are looking forward to the anticipated launch of the supports in late fall 2022.”
“Humber College has been using Destiny One for our learners and their digital credentials for many years. We are looking forward to the Destiny One software connector as it will allow us to automatically send our learner credentials to MyCreds™,” says Ruth Butlin, ITS director of enterprise applications, Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, “The new functionality will improve our learner mobility as they will be able to store all their academic credentials in one digital wallet, including their micro-credentials.”
About ARUCC The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) owns MyCreds™. ARUCC provides leadership in the post-secondary education field and service to its member institutions nationally and internationally, helping foster the advancement of registrarial practices and learner focused service delivery in Canada.
About MyCreds™ MyCreds™ is a national, shared service and platform that provides students and graduates access to a secure, online, password protected learner credential wallet. This virtual wallet allows them to view and share their verified and official transcripts, credentials, and academic documents in a digitized format on a 24/7 basis – anytime, anywhere. Secure, cryptographically signed documents can be sent conveniently and require no further verification. MyCreds™ is the first and only national bilingual system of its kind in Canada. Visit www.mycreds.ca for more details or contact ARUCC’s Executive Lead, Joanne Duklas at info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca.
About Modern Campus Modern Campus is obsessed with empowering its 1,800+ higher education customers to thrive when radical transformation is required to respond to lower student enrollments and revenue, rising costs, crushing student debt, and administrative complexity.
The Modern Campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result: innovative institutions can create a learner-to-earner lifecycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner engagement movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
About Digitary Digitary provides the underlying engine powering MyCreds™. Digitary was launched in Dublin, Ireland in 2005, and has grown to become a leading online platform for certifying, sharing, and verifying academic credentials. Learner-centric since the very start, Digitary enables millions of learners to share their verified academic achievements online, securely, quickly and easily. Digitary is now used by organizations in over 135 countries. For further details, visit www.digitary.net.
Modern Campus Angela Tuzzo 732-758-1100 www.moderncampus.com
Modern Campus, the higher education industry’s leading modern learner engagement platform, today announced the integration of Modern Campus Career Pathways with Modern Campus Acalog, enabling colleges and universities to tie education to career outcomes and demonstrate the value of their courses and programs directly in their academic catalog.
Student debt is at an all-time high and so are the number of job applicants for high-paying job openings. With tuition costing more than ever, today’s learners make enrollment decisions based on the expected ROI of their education investment, and 64% of Americans are skeptical that additional education will help secure a job. With 58% of students enrolling in higher education primarily for career outcomes, the ability for institutions to offer students insight into the career opportunities associated with their course choices delivers exceptional value.
The integration of Acalog and Career Pathways enables higher education institutions to showcase job market data for relevant careers by displaying relevant labor market data—including salary, job postings and projected growth—on course, program or certificate pages. Career Pathways also allows students to take action at the click of a button by encouraging them to enroll or meet with an advisor.
“Making Modern Campus Career Pathways available in Acalog is critical to the success of our higher ed partners,” said Reuben Pressman, chief product officer at Modern Campus. “Building tight, thoughtful integrations between the solutions across our product family—like we have with Career Pathways and Acalog—ensures our customers are positioned to deliver the best experience possible to the learners they serve.”
The combination of Acalog and Career Pathways empowers students to learn about salaries, job postings, or career trajectories right from the college website—allowing them to quickly make informed decisions about their education. For schools, Career Pathways is easy to configure and embed on pages without the need for IT support.
“Learners today have more choices than ever about where they’re going to spend tuition dollars. To guide that decision-making, they’re looking for clear information about the impact any education investment will have on their career path,” said Peter DeVries, president and chief operations officer at Modern Campus. “At Modern Campus, we’re designing solutions that enable our customers to deliver personalized and informed student experiences. At the same time, we’re making it easier for staff—who are often stretched thin—to bring these modern experiences to life.”
Modern Campus Career Pathways also integrates with Modern Campus’ market-leading solutions Omni CMS, the purpose-built, web CMS for higher education, and Destiny One, which enables highered institutions to grow and manage the business of continuing education and workforce development. These integrations provide Career and Program Explorer, a powerful search tool for learners to research specific careers, and Persona Guides, which allow prospects to choose one of the common personas or objectives, to guide their educational or career directions.
About Modern Campus Modern Campus is obsessed with empowering its 1,800+ higher education customers to thrive when radical transformation is required to respond to lower student enrollments and revenue, rising costs, crushing student debt, and administrative complexity.
The Modern Campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result: innovative institutions can create a learner-to-earner lifecycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner engagement movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Modern Campus Angela Tuzzo 732-758-1100 www.moderncampus.com
Modern Campus, the leading engagement platform for higher education, today announced the appointment of Jessica Phinn as chief people officer. In this newly created role, Phinn will lead all aspects of human resources, from recruitment through onboarding, employee engagement and beyond. The announcement aligns with the wider focus of Modern Campus continuing its terrific growth, maximizing the potential of its over 400 team members to transform the higher education industry.
Phinn joins Modern Campus with a wealth of experience across more than 20 years of progressive human resources leadership at multiple large organizations, including Pepsi Bottling Group and Loblaw. Before joining Modern Campus, Phinn held the position of senior vice president, people and engagement at Nelson Education, Canada’s leading K-12 education company.
“Maintaining our rapid growth requires creativity and passion at every level of the organization,” said Brian Kibby, chief executive officer at Modern Campus. “Bringing in Jessica as Modern Campus’s Chief People Officer positions us to continue our exponential growth by harnessing the talent and engagement of every member of our team. Her leadership will enable us to create a truly welcoming environment for everyone who’s joined Modern Campus recently through acquisition, while continuing our tradition of excellence in building a workplace that rewards and nurtures leaders.”
“Modern Campus has a well-earned reputation as a beacon for top edtech talent, and because of this and the highly engaged leadership team, it is a role that I found to be extremely compatible and one that I simply couldn’t pass up,” Phinn said. “I’m a firm believer that employees are truly a company’s most valuable asset, and with this I found a perfect match in Modern Campus. I am truly excited to join the organization and engage with all my new colleagues as they continue on their growth trajectory.”
Phinn holds a Bachelor of Human Resources Management from York University and is a certified human resources leader (CHRL).
The rapid growth of Modern Campus is due in part to welcoming five new companies in the past 12 months. The company acquired interactive campus map and virtual tour provider nuCloud in early 2021, followed by academic catalog and curriculum management provider DIGARC, and student engagement and development leader Presence. In January of this year, Modern Campus announced its acquisitions of leading higher education text-messaging provider Signal Vine and Augusoft, a leader in enrollment management for continuing education and corporate education programs.
Modern Campus partnered with Partners in Publishing on this executive search.
About Modern Campus Modern Campus is obsessed with empowering its 1,800+ higher education customers to thrive when radical transformation is required to respond to lower student enrollments and revenue, rising costs, crushing student debt, and administrative complexity.
The Modern Campus engagement platform powers solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result: innovative institutions can create a learner-to-earner lifecycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency.
Learn how Modern Campus is leading the modern learner engagement movement at moderncampus.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Contact