Open Source

Jefferson College To Keep Students on Track with Open Source Advising Software

• By Rhea Kelly
• 03/03/15

As part of its mission to promote student success, Jefferson College in Missouri is working with Unicon to implement Student Success Plan (SSP), open source case-management software that provides "a holistic coaching and counseling model for integrated planning and advising services."

Coaches, counselors and advisers at the college will use the My Academic Plan education-planning tool to help map out individual courses for students and set academic goals, as well as the Journal tool to communicate and share information. SSP also features tools for early alerts; counseling and interventions; action plans; and student self-help.

"Adding SSP to our ongoing student success strategy will help us encourage students to stay on track and complete their degrees and certificates," said Raymond Cummiskey, president at Jefferson College, in a prepared statement. "We are looking forward to how SSP will enhance the success of our students so that they may continue to become community and business leaders, educators, health care experts, technical professionals, law enforcement officers, or other respected graduates that serve our community."

According to a press release, "Unicon will provide IT consulting services, including implementation planning, systems integration, training and support. Unicon will integrate the institution's student information system (SIS) and learning management system (LMS) with SSP, making it possible to populate student data from the SIS and academic data from the LMS directly into SSP. Unicon will also provide training to coaches, counselors and advisers, ensuring they are well equipped to use the software."