A career education platform helps vocational schools manage compliance, attendance, and other operations all in one place.
Platform technology is the backbone of efficient large scale operations in a range of industries, including logistics, consumer services, web service providers, and so many others. While platform technology has helped many industries see massive growth, it has yet to be fully leveraged in career education. In this blog, we’ll explore why that is, how it’s affecting career education organizations, and what the path forward looks like.
The unfortunate reality for career education
To maintain daily operations, most career institutions rely on a handful of solutions. Here is a list of common technology solutions used by career schools today:
- Student Information System (SIS)
- Learning Management System (LMS)
- Customer Relationship Management technology (CRM)
- Attendance technology
- Financial aid software
- Digital signature technology
- Texting services
- Career readiness software
- Adaptive learning tools
- Externship software
- Test prep software
- Tutoring software
- Retention software
- Curriculum providers A, B, and C
The majority of these solutions can not integrate with one another, which creates problems and limitations for many career institutions. Inefficient operations are stifling growth, limiting potential to improve, and preventing institutions from getting more out of their resources and personnel.
Strain on personnel and resources
Because the solutions institutions use are not integrated, admins spend hours per week manually entering in new data to keep solutions updated and able to complete daily tasks. With most of their day tied up in data management, admins can only focus a small fraction of their time on students or other areas of operations.
This reality makes many institutional leaders hesitant to adopt new technology because they’re worried about overwhelming their admins. Not only does this keep many institutions stuck in their inefficient processes, it prohibits institutions from enrolling more students or even opening up a new campus without hiring many more admins to scale their existing manual processes.
Limited improvements without a career education platform
“Anything that can be measured can be improved.” This quote by Peter Drucker is emblematic of the effect of platform technology in other industries. With detailed insight across their operations, organizations can identify areas of improvement and make informed modifications.
But because most career schools use separate solutions, there isn’t a singular place to analyze student and institutional data as a whole. Manual processes cause the data visibility to be delayed by days, sometimes weeks, providing an outdated view of what’s actually happening.
This inhibits admins from seeing small details that have an effect on student persistence. For example, if institutions could see in real-time that a student was absent and/or their engagement in class is down, they can begin outreach to help the student persist. Or, institution leaders may notice that an instructor is ending class five minutes early every class period and negatively affecting students’ time accrued. With this knowledge, admins can make changes to improve outcomes.
Regulatory Headaches
Because career institutions are tracking relevant data in solutions that aren’t integrated, the process of sharing information with accreditors to prove compliance is very time consuming. It’s a large undertaking that requires hours of manual processes and is prone to inaccuracies.
To make matters worse, with the emergence of blended and online learning, accreditors are asking for new information that requires admins to gather data from even more sources, like student engagement in online classes.
CourseKey's mission: deliver efficiency through integration on a career education platform
The absence of integration between the solutions career institutions use is the reason CourseKey was born. Our mission is to help institutions significantly improve by providing them with a platform for career institutions that can integrate with and between other technology tools.
Not only does CourseKey’s platform have it’s own modules designed for career education (Attend, Engage, Retain, & Comply), but it has integration capabilities with many of the solutions institutions already have in place.
By enabling automatic data transfer and consolidating relevant data into one location, CourseKey provides career institutions with instant visibility into what’s actually happening at their organization. Our platform gives school leaders the insight to make informed decisions, create efficient and scalable operations, and deliver a world-class learning experience.
The path forward for career education platforms
Career institutions are no longer stuck using separate point solutions and can instead take advantage of an integrated platform built specifically for career education. CourseKey is used on over 200 campuses across the country and is helping institutions improve operational efficiency, maintain and prove compliance, and boost student retention. Through streamlined operations, many CourseKey partner institutions are taking on larger student populations and/or opening new campuses.
To learn more about the market’s first career education platform and how it can impact your institution, schedule a demo below!
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