Student Information Systems

Louisburg College Picks 'Touch-First' SIS

• By Michael Hart
• 02/24/16

Louisburg College has moved to an upgraded student information system (SIS) designed for mobile access.

The two-year residential college had been a client of Three Rivers Systems for 15 years and decided to switch to Unit4 Student Management software when it acquired the company. Representatives at Lousiburg said they believe the move to a new SIS will make it easier to manage relationships with students, alumni, prospective students and staff as opposed to simply performing routine tasks.

Amir Tajkarimi, senior vice president for global education at Unit4, said its software is based on a "touch-first" philosophy that means all functions are accessible via mobile devices, even if staff members in the college's back office are using desktop systems to deploy them.

As a result, students can send applications, access student records, pay tuition and communicate with school representatives all with their smartphones.

Unit4 Student Management provides applications for managing five student-centric processes: admissions, academics, financial aid and scholarships, billing and student and faculty portals.

Features of the system include:

• A common constituent-relationship management (CRM) platform that allows the institution to track the student from potential applicant through to student, graduate, alumnus and donor;
• Admissions technology with customizable workflows to automate prospect outreach campaigns;
• Built-in analytics with support for dashboard set-up and drill-down; and
• Flexibility in course registration to accommodate multiple course start and end dates or course types.

"Louisburg will benefit from the agility offered by this upgrade," Tajkarimi said. "Student Management will help to improve Louisburg's operations and help them transform their organization to operate at the next level."

Louisburg College CIO Mark Joyner said, "We are looking at this strategic project as a way to strengthen our academic curriculum, improve student support services and upgrade our technology."