News

Jenzabar Upgrades Non-Traditional System for Continuing Ed Course Management

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 02/20/09

Jenzabar has upgraded its Non-Traditional System (Jenzabar NTS), a Web-based administrative service intended to help colleges and universities manage continuing education courses, workforce development programs, and certificate programs. Release 3.0 offers expanded self-service capabilities for students and instructors to view current classes, past classes, and current schedules. Instructors will have an easier time assigning final grades online and viewing and e-mailing section rosters. Greater flexibility within the upgraded service will allow institutions to communicate enrollment and payment related messages through automatic e-mail notifications. Also, bill payment options have been expanded.

New features have been introduced to enable institutions to better support the needs of corporations. Group registration, bulk purchasing, opt-in wait-listing, deferred payments, and third-party order and payment functionality is available to school administrators using the Web-based shopping cart within the new release. In addition, extended financial analysis capabilities will let institutions calculate gross margin percentages and break-even enrollments.

"All indicators forecast that there will be a surge in the number of adults returning to school for re-training and skills development," said Nicole Engelbert, lead analyst at Datamonitor. "Datamonitor believes that within a context of flat or even declining institutional budgets, the adoption of powerful administrative solutions with the capability of supporting the specific needs and requirements of non-traditional students will be a key determining factor in which institutions are able to manage this spike in enrollment effectively."

The service is compatible, the vendor said, with any enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and may be integrated with Jenzabar's Learning Management System.