The Opportunity
Future career goals and aspirations may be clear to many people, but the qualifications required to get there may be less so. And on the other hand, some people may have a real passion for a certain topic but not know how that can translate into a career. It’s easy to be confused about making a choice of what to study for the next several years!
With over 100 different major and minor program options, Jacksonville University is able to cater to a diverse range of interests, curiosities, and educational needs of today’s students and aspiring professionals. However, enabling students to visualize their own career path and decide upon the most appropriate program(s) themselves was a daunting task.
Jacksonville University wanted to find a way to create a customized platform that would help students analyze their interests and better understand their future career opportunities. By creating a personalized approach, leveraging workflow automation, the appropriate available programs could then be streamlined and tailored to meet the needs of the applicant.
The Solution
SourceFuse was approached to develop a modern, interactive online platform that would enhance the engagement of existing and potential students. Taking the time to understand the university’s objectives, the main business objectives of this custom application were to:
- Enable students to study and focus in more than one area in order to diversify their portfolio for the rapidly changing work space
- Increase its competitive edge over other universities by streamlining student career progression
- Deliver high levels of performance with guaranteed data security
SourceFuse proposed to build a cloud native progressive web application, leveraging advanced cloud technology , that would serve both the applicants and the university administrators. Via a ‘Student Panel’, applicants would need the ability to pick and choose courses/programs to design their own curriculum, based on selecting their areas of interest. The ‘Admin Panel’, accessible only to authorized university administrative staff via identification and access management, would enable seamless management of the university offerings i.e. Majors, Minors, and corresponding courses.
To further enhance user experience, the solution developed by SourceFuse provides full transparency regarding course credits and timelines, empowering applicants before committing. Based on the combination of courses/programs chosen, the custom app automatically calculates total credit hours, with alerts if total hours are too low or excessively high to complete in a 4-year degree plan. To help manage expectations, the application also predicts the anticipated time for completion/graduation. While selecting courses, the solution also recommends potential career pathways, lists each course module in detail, and provides next steps to apply. For example, email information for reference or who to contact for further information.
The Results
The new application, called PODs (“Pathways of Distinction”), encourages an active approach to higher education, provides resources for education in one place, and supports students to clearly map their academic and future career pathways. PODs empowers freshmen and undergraduates to maximize their educational experience, providing the freedom to pursue their passions and the flexibility to customize their course requirements.
- Personalized Career Guidance
Aligning applicants’ areas of interest with available programs helps streamline the university application process, increasing administrative efficiency and productivity - Increased Student Engagement
With the clean, modern UI, and easy-to-follow navigation capabilities, applicants are better able to focus, refine, and organize relevant and appropriate program selection(s). - Increased Performance Efficiency
At peak demand during the academic year, maximizing platform availability for students significantly increases productivity and efficiency for university application administration.
About The Customer
Named as one of “America’s Best Colleges” in the South for more than 10 consecutive years by U.S. News & World Report , Jacksonville University is a premier private institution in Northeast Florida. Founded in 1934, Jacksonville University offers more than 100 majors, minors, and programs, including degrees in Business, Marine Science, Engineering, Physics, and Nursing, as well as those in the more contemporary and specialized fields of Aviation, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Film, Animation, and Sports Business.
