Request Demo

Type your keyword below

Tag: Student Management Software

Strategies for Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning System in Ghana’s Public Universities

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Educational institutions on a global scale are taking a major turn towards digital transformation and institutions are getting more systematic, aligned, and effective using technologies like ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning, SIS – Students Information System, and more. 

Ghana’s education system is also changing rapidly, and public institutions here are choosing ERP/SIS for overall management and growth. When it comes to the education ERP system, it’s often known as SIS (Student Information System).

If your institution is considering an ERP/SIS system as supportive software for managing all the academic & administrative tools, you are on the right track. 

An SIS system can efficiently help educational institutions by making all the academic and administrative solutions easier for all the stakeholders, like student management, and faculty management, and even helping parents with the best prospects. But with all these, Ghana’s universities must learn about strategies for implementing an ERP that will help the institution’s overall management. 

Strategies for Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning System

Choose the right ERP/SIS platform 

Multiple vendors provide ERP services to educational institutions globally. Institutions in Ghana must choose the right platform & vendor that can effectively provide all the needs and requirements. The right ERP system can help save time in institutional tasks, eliminate tonnes of paperwork, and collates everything in a central place accessible to all stakeholders, like principals, teaching, administrative staff, parents, students, and more. 

Smooth & clear communication between ERP vendors and administration 

Communication is considered one of the most vital parts of educational institutions. It needs to be effective in any form.

Various things need to be discussed while implementing an ERP system in your institution, so it is a must that the ERP vendor you choose must assign you a team that can communicate and connect with your administrators and faculty members. The ERP team should also understand your needs & requirements and explain all the functionalities and features like student management software, admission management, fee management, and any other that can help you in the long run. 

Analyze & research 

Institutions in Ghana are on an ultimate digital transformation journey, they need to analyze & perform proper research before implementing an education ERP/SIS system. You have to analyze & research each & everything that can become more efficient after ERP implementation. You can study details from your institutions like

  • Inquiry & admission 
  • Fee management and accounting operations 
  • Program & course management 
  • Examination management 
  • And a lot more… 

Understand the product from demonstration & templates 

An Education ERP can help educational institutions in the best prospects until and unless all the stakeholders here know the complete functionalities of the software being used. The ERP vendor you choose must provide you with a comprehensive demonstration & tour of the product along with customizable templates according to your needs. 

2-3 rounds of detailed product demonstration can help in the effective implementation of ERP concerning the needs & requirements of the institution.

Carefully manage the data migration 

While implementing a new and modern ERP, you must be exceptionally careful in transferring or migrating important data from a legacy or a manual system. Firstly you will need to differentiate and select your necessary data that needs to be migrated in any case, keeping aside the unnecessary information or data. 

While migrating the data, your staff and administrators need to be attentive along with the ERP migration team. To understand it better, let’s say, your institution owns data for 12K stakeholders. So this huge data will need to be migrated using some integrations like MS tools or any other tool. For this, it becomes too crucial that the ERP you choose must have all the capabilities to migrate the data along with having interoperability features with other systems. 

How does Academia ERP help Ghana Universities/Institutions?

Among n-numbers of ERP vendors across the world, Academia ERP stands out to be different and exceptionally helpful for educational institutions across the world. Looking into Ghana’s digital transformation journey, we are a part of various universities/institutions in Ghana. 

Being one of the core ERP presenters in the world, we follow an institution-centric approach that focuses on accomplishing the customizable needs of all stakeholders. We have a tremendous implementation process with a highly qualified team that supports all the pre-implementation & post-implementation processes. It also provides integration with all the pre-built connectors/plug-ins, Web services API, and integration platforms along with having a multi-center capability feature supporting multiple academy locations of an institution.  

Watch the video to check the reviews of one of our prestigious clients in Ghana:

How Education Management Systems Are Revolutionizing Student Learning Experience

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The new generation of students is different, having a modern approach for everything, they demand a quick, easier, and better way of performing any operations. So for this, it is high time for educational institutions to adopt modern techniques and ways that can help in optimizing a better student learning experience. What do you think about an education management system? Do you know why student experience is important for institutions? How can it help institutions in managing all the operations in a more systematic way that can lead to revolutionizing the whole student learning experience? Let’s discuss all these points in this blog. 

First of all, let’s discuss why student experience is important! 

Why is student experience important?

Students in any educational institution needed to be considered as a priority, for this, institutions can adopt modern tools and techniques like an education management system to provide seamless learning experience automating and streamlining all the academic and administrative operations in the institution like enrollment, records, teaching, homework and assignment, library management and a lot more. Isn’t it interesting?

How is the Education Management System helping to Improve the Student Learning Experience?

  • 24/7 Access

The education management system provides easy 24/7 access to everyone, students can check and submit their assignments anytime, can access their fee details along with receipt generation at the time, important mails, library, and whatnot! They can operate any feature anytime according to their flexibility and requirements. 

It results in saving time and efforts of students that can be consumed in other productive activities. 

  • Offer Centralized Access 

In an educational institution, multiple things need to be managed at different ends. Various tasks need to be managed at each end by administrators, staff, and students. Right from admission to alumni, there remains a bundle of works. Having an education management system, institutions can provide required access to every individual on the same platform eliminating extra time, effort, and chances of errors.

Easy and Convenient!

  • Analytics and Reporting 

Students often in institutions complain about a lack of timely feedback, exact analytics, and reporting of tasks that hinder their learning experience. With manual interventions, students often have to wait for things like feedback, approval, and even their performance reports.  

An education ERP helps institutions to generate all the reports along with real analytics on the time. It helps students in staying motivated and encouraged towards their end goal i.e., their studies. It also helps faculty to get a clear picture and in-depth understanding of a student’s learning curve.

How easy! 

  • Customization of Learning Experience 

It is the best feature that institutions can initiate using an ERP system, it provides real-time access to customize the learning experiences for students. Faculty can create customized homework and assignments, can provide assessment details, can discuss passages to discuss queries with students, can use podcasts to improve their learning skills and a lot more. 

So isn’t this customization that can generate more ideas and techniques to learn and attain institutional objectives? 

  • Reduced Paperwork 

Any educational institution involves a lot of data and paperwork. Hopefully, you will also agree that more paperwork and managing those papers and documents is the hardest and messiest thing, not only for students but also for faculty and other staff, right? An education ERP can help institutions to improve the student experience and faculty experience by exchanging papers and documents with computerized processes and management. 

An effective ERP manages all the documents, right admission forms, examinations papers, result paper, and all other documents can be created and sent using the mobile app and portal which reduces the time, efforts, wastage of paper, and of course easiest access. 

What do you say? Easy enough! 

  • Encourages Continuous Learning 

As discussed, an educational institution involves lots of necessary tasks like fees, examination documentation, and many others. All these occupy a lot of time for students in manual processes. So having an education management system, institutions can provide students with a mobile app that can simplify and automate all important operations like fee submission, examination timetable, entrance card, results declaration, and all other things, they will also get notifications like when is the next slot for fee submission. A mobile app associated with an ERP helps in encouraging continuous learning reducing the excessive time from other administrative tasks. 

Relief from other tasks means the right to focus on studies, right? 

  • Effortless Communication 

Effortless communication between students and faculty is the most important element in any educational institution, it needs to be efficient for the smooth functioning of the institution and to provide a revolutionizing student experience. An ERP software helps educational institutions to achieve this objective effectively providing platforms like mobile apps and portals for operating all the operations and communicating thoroughly as and when required. 

Easy communication breaks all hurdles! right? 

Academia – A revolutionizing ERP software for educational institutions

Various ERP vendors provide good ERP software for educational institutions, but institutions must focus on having a platform that focuses on the 360-degree development of the institute. Academia Education Management System helps institutions to indulge in the digital world making everything smooth and easier for students and faculty along with providing a 360-degree development of the institution. 

Also check:

Top 13 Reasons Institutions Should Use Student Database Management Software

Conclusion

Hope you liked the blog and it helped you in understanding how to improve the student experience at university, and how it can help transform the overall atmosphere of your institution along with providing a revolutionizing student learning experience. What do you think, is it relevant for your institution? Get your queries clear with us, request your demo now! 

 

When to replace or renovate your student information system (SIS)?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The educational ecosystem is on the path of change for various years, and year by year institutions focus to adopt changes in technology that can lead to growth and success of the organization, Student Information System (SIS) is one of the most common technological changes that institutions are focusing to adopt from last few decades, but it is important to check that the SIS you are using is supporting your institution to drive changes along with providing you to deliver modern, innovative technology services being the best student information system for higher education.

Let’s discuss how you can evaluate your current SIS and is it the correct time for you to update or renovate your current SIS software attributing the latest research report by Gartner for “Deciding to Replace or Renovate Your Student Information System With the Fitness Attribute Framework”.

Important things to consider while checking the fitness of your current SIS:

1. Evaluating the capabilities

There are various SIS vendors out there who are providing the same outdated technology for SIS that is restricting the ability to deliver new and modernized services. It is also not wrong to say that most the institutions are using the same SIS without any upgrade for many years leading to restricted growth and advancements in the institutions. 

According to Gartner’s latest research report, it is important to assess the fitness of the institution’s SIS by evaluating its capabilities to function, enable, differentiate, and transform the institution. 

It is important to evaluate the fitness of your SIS based on its:

  • Function

The SIS software in your institute must provide the best and most modern functionalities in maintaining the routine operational expectations, performance, uptime, architectural sustainability, routine maintenance, and skillset availability. It should lead your institutional work in a more fast and actionable way along with a touch of modernization and technological trends leading to the overall growth of your organization.

  • Enablement

A modern SIS includes a lot of advanced features and not just administrative operations. It should meet business unit requirements being responsible for workflow changes and education-specific functionalities for financial aid regulation, satisfactory academic progress, common core application, international visa regulations, tax reporting, and legislative mandates.

  • Differentiation

In today’s modern world, it is most important for educational institutions to opt for change that supports the deployment of unique processes along with the capacity to provide a competitive advantage. Let’s say, in the current situation it is important for institutions to use BI and analytics leading to competitive growth in every way. 

  • Transformation

Modern ERP or SIS software works to automate complete processes of all the tasks in an institution that leads to digital transformation focused on aspects like automation, artificial intelligence, digital relationships, personalized interactions, and ecosystem partnering. So the SIS you choose must lead to complete digital transformation along with all the above aspects.

2. Cost quantifying 

Cost is one of the primary elements of the SIS fitness framework if you are thinking of replacing or upgrading your current SIS software, it is necessary to compare and evaluate the costing involved. 

You can especially compare costs and expenses that you will need to spend on upgrading your SIS versus the expenses you were doing with your current SIS. 

It is important to note that if you are using outdated SIS software, it will include various expenses to meet the current criteria of the technological world, and on the other hand an advanced SIS solution will save most of your institution’s cost providing complete automation of all the processes along with easy access from just one click providing everything efficiently and effectively. 

So take your decision wisely choosing an SIS software that helps you in saving cost-effectively.

3. Develop an SIS modernization plan

This pandemic has taught us to opt for technologies that can ease our work effectively, so the impact of this has created a perception for institutions to evaluate the workings of their current SIS and if it is not meeting their expectation criteria it is better to replace and renovate it as the institutions who are not opting modernization are at risk of being left being in the digital business environment, isn’t it true?

So hope you have got the things that you need to consider while evaluating and checking your SIS fitness. Now let’s discuss the advantages of using the best student information system in higher education institutions.

Advantages of using the best and updated student information system in higher education institutions:

  • Complete automation having multiple data backups

Different and modernized from the traditional student information system, an upgraded SIS automatically updates all the data from time to time. With regular and automatic security updates there are very few chances of the student information system getting hacked by anyone leading to complete data security. With all this, it also initiates multiple automatic backups of all the information stored providing the satisfaction of complete data security in any manner. 

  • Increased productivity

A technology updated student information system increases the productivity of institutions, it eases out every task providing access to everything with just a few clicks, it manages all the tasks like admission, library management, course selection, hostel management, transportation, all other hundreds of tasks. So having easy access to everything the staff and faculties get the opportunity to use the time and energy in greater productivity and growth of the students and ultimately of the institution. 

  • Fosters efficiency 

With the best student information system for higher education, the complete operations of an educational institution get automated. Various things like manpower, time, resources, and paper works, get reduced from every perspective. Meanwhile, these things can be used for better processes driving students’ progress and outcomes. Simply, we can say that a technology-upgraded student information system fosters efficiency making everything simple, efficient, and worthwhile. 

  • Comprehensive management 

In an institution, there are various things to manage for every student, so it becomes messy for administrators to manage all the operations of hundreds of students like student registration, attendance, examination, results, and so on. So to ease out all these operations they choose SIS but imagine a scenario where you have opted for an SIS and it is becoming more tricky to manage tasks, the management of all the things will go adverse. So you must choose the best student information system for higher education that is technology updated and can help to automate all the processes with ease, and if you can find one such; then in simple words you can attain comprehensive management of your institution in the best and most effective ways. Just think- isn’t it satisfactory?

Is it the correct time to update or upgrade your current SIS?

So what do you think of the above? Do you think it is the correct time to update your student information system (SIS)? You can also check Gartner’s latest research report that can help you in deciding to replace or renovate your student information system with the fitness attribute framework. Its ideology will help you understand things that you need to keep in mind while analyzing and evaluating the results of SIS software available in your institution. 

Download Gartner’s latest report now!

Wrapping up 

Hope you find this blog relevant and if you think that you need an advanced, modernized, efficient, and the best student information system for higher education, you must check with Academia. It is one of the best SIS solutions having all the latest functionalities that must be there in your institution. We will feel obliged to provide you with a free demo of the system, just reach out to us and our team of experts will be there to manage it for you. 

Top 13 Reasons Institutions Should Use Student Database Management Software

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Educational institutions involve a huge amount of data of students for managing school affairs systematically. To streamline the process of managing student data, a lot of institutions are thinking about school management databases. It helps you to store and organize student-related data in a proper and centralized manner so that you can easily access, edit, or update data if needed. 

  • Manages complete student information

A school management database deals with all the information related to students’ attendance, assignments, academic reports, curriculum details, project details, exam management, grades, achievements, medical history, addresses, accounts, and many more things. It also helps faculties to reach all the student data easily and effectively. 

  • Streamlined coordination and communication

The school database management system helps for better coordinating and remembering all the events and activities that are going to be held in the school in the upcoming days or weeks. It provides a proper look at the data on a single screen and helps to highlight and remember the important information. This helps institutions in better productivity and growth. 

It also allows institutions to circulate easier communication between students, faculties, faculties-parents, and student-faculties and even allows for the school alumni to stay connected with each other. 

Instead of relying on the diary system, a school database management system can send instant updates to the faculties on school events, attendance, and even disciplinary issues over email or SMS. students can also communicate with each other and with their teachers on the discussion boards to clear their doubts and collaborate over assignments. 

The school database management system takes care of the admission process as well. The complete management system accesses the registration process, admission approval, document uploading, test and interview schedules, and much more. The way of managing academic processes is changing, people are attracted to an effective admission system that can provide ease to faculties, students, and parents. 

It also helps students and faculty to fill out the application conveniently reducing long queues to get an application form or to get their admission-related queries and get an application form or to get their admission-related queries answered easily. 

“Admissions are no longer difficult now, they are easier than ever before. 

  • Reduces paperwork 

A school database system helps students manage students’ data automatically, reducing the paperwork and providing effective digital tracking of student data. All the documentation like admission forms, student records, financial aid, paperwork, and all other data can be managed effectively. It also provides proper security of all the records managing and securing the data for future reference to access whenever they are required which is quite complex with paperwork. 

A school database system stores each data properly providing real-time tracking of all the documents with just a few clicks. 

  • Trustworthy and secure 

The school database management system is the most secured and reliable source, it provides a hundred times more security than manually stored information. Student database software helps in storing all the information using a cloud-based server. It also provides multiple automatic backups of essential data to make sure you do not lose your valuable data. Most importantly, it prevents software from getting hacked by any competitor or other cyber suspect. 

  • Proper and efficient attendance management 

The school database management system includes tools that help faculties maintain quick records of student’s attendance. The software provides student attendance management features that require students to check and scan their fingerprints and enter or leave the classroom and school premises. The software also takes care of the attendance of students, which includes half-days, late coming, etc., without any kind of manual intervention. 

It also reduces the faculty’s workload from the monotonous task of taking attendance of each student by calling his\her name. It also allows faculties to directly check the summary of the presence and absence of the students digitally. The most interesting part is this software allows administrators to keep track of faculty’s attendance along with providing them with a quick calculation of their leaves and adjustments. 

  • Transport management 

A student database management system provides easy access to the transportation system of the institute. It manages the complete transportation requirements right from tracking the vehicle to managing and monitoring the salary, working hours, and other tasks of drivers and other helpers in the vehicles. The software provides easy access to parents and faculties to track their kids using the mobile application keeping them updated about the kid. 

  • Timetable management

The school database management system also provides a better school and class management. Timetable creation is considered the most critical thing that involves a lot of time, it also becomes difficult to circulate the timetable among the students as a minor error by a student or faculty can create a lot of confusion, and even in some cases, it can spoil student’s future if the student not downs wrong time table. 

So the school database management system helps with a timetable management feature that helps in scheduling the classes properly. It helps institutions to meet the requirements of different education boards. The tool also enables users to make changes to a timetable as per their convenience along with providing the timetable to students on their mobile app that can be accessed anywhere and everywhere. 

For more information, check out this video about how Student Information Systems Benefiting Educationalists Worldwide:

Bottom Line:

Hope the article helped you to understand more!

So if you are thinking of optimizing these benefits of a school management system in your institute, Academia SMS can be the best option for you. It provides the best system that helps institutions to manage all the academic and administrative operations of an institute. 

So don’t just be an average competitor of other institutes but be a growth seeker focusing on student’s growth and secured future. Contact us today. 

A Guide To Choice Based Credit System

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The education ecosystem is changing rapidly, there are various changes and one of them includes a Choice Based Credit System (CBCS). This grading system changes the traditional teaching-learning system in India. 

To maximize skill-based education & enhance student learning outcomes in terms of their grades as well as skills, the National Education Policy has made some crucial changes in the traditional teaching-learning system in India. The right to choose subjects & the multidisciplinary education approach are the best takeaways. 

Do you know what a choice-based credit system is and how it can help higher education institutions? Let’s discuss it in this blog:

What is a Choice-Based Credit System?

The CBCS is a University Grants Commission (UGC) initiative and promotes the liberalization of the current conventional higher education models. With a student-based approach to learning or acquiring higher education, the CNCS allows students or learners the flexibility to choose their course from a list of elective, core, and soft skill courses.

A credit system for higher education measures different parameters like –

  • Student performance
  • Learning outcomes
  • Entrepreneurship skills
  • Contact hours
  • Innovation
  • Creativity & talent

UGC has categorized the groups as

  • Core Course – Core courses are there every semester and students have to compulsorily study the core or the main subject to meet the requirement of the program of that particular discipline.
  • Elective Course – Here, the student can choose any paper
  1.   Discipline-Specific Elective Course
  2. Generic Elective
  3. Project
  4. Ability Enhancement Courses
  5. Skill Enhancement Courses
  • Foundation Course
  1. Compulsory Foundation
  2. Elective Foundation
  3. CBCS moves away from numerical marking to grading semester-wise with two semesters in a year where students’ performances are evaluated and grading is done subject-wise.
  4. The CBCS works in compliance with other grading systems of institutes, all over the world.
  5. Different evaluation methods are followed, based on the suitability of the course approved by various legislative bodies.
  6. UGC recommends Letter Grades and Point Grade Systems to be applied
  7. Letter Grades are based on a student’s marks or percentage from his/her course
  8. Grade Point Systems are where marks are converted into grades based upon a fixed period.

What are the Features of CBCS?

Having multiple features of the Choice Based Credit System (CBCS), let’s discuss a few of them:

  • It is one of the best features as credits can be transferred if the student changes his/her branch of study
  • It has changed numerical marking to grading
  • It positively stigmatized the criteria of failing students
  • It facilitates student mobility
  • It provides potential assess to faculty members for student’s performance
  • It promotes easy course evaluation and is accessed to provide an effective and balanced result.

How Does CBCS Work?

The CBCS in higher education works on the simple principle of the choice being in students’ hands. Higher education institutions provide subject options to students, with a CBCS, students can choose subjects according to their choices and the credits needed for a particular semester. 

The students can attend any of the needed classes obtaining credits to pass any semester. 

A CBCS owns the following elements:

  • Semesters

In any educational institution, assessments are done semester-wise. A student progresses based on the courses taken rather than time like three years for science, arts, commerce, or four years for engineering, etc. The CBCS format provides flexibility in creating the curriculum and assigning credits based on the course section and patterns of learning and teaching. 

  • Credit system

Each course is assigned with a fixed credit. When a student passes a course, he gets the recognition of credit which is based on a course. If a student enrolls in a single course in a semester, he does not have to repeat that course later. 

  • Credit transfer

There are various ways for a student to cope with the study load and with a CBCS pattern he owns the freedom to study fewer courses, earn fewer credits and compensate for the next semester. 

  • Comprehensive continuous assessment

It provides a continuous evaluation of the student to the faculty members and also to the student himself. 

  • Grading

CBCS includes grading in a 10-point grading system. 

It includes

O (Outstanding): 10 

A+ (Excellent):9 

A (Very Good): 8

B+ (Good): 7

B (Above Average): 6

C (Average): 5

P (Pass): 4

F (Fail): 0

Ab (Absent): 0

Core Advantages of CBCS that Academia Modules Includes:

  • The student has a choice of inter/multidisciplinary courses:

With Academia, the students can select their inter/multidisciplinary courses in just a few clicks using the program and courses modules. Academia provides easier access to all stakeholders in the institutions starting from the faculty members, students, and parents for selecting, scheduling and finalizing the courses and subjects likewise. 

  • It promotes group work, research, examination, and assignments 

Using Academia modules like examination, assignments, and others, institutions get the authority to work effectively, research, and manage examination-related tasks and assignments, and more easily and efficiently at all levels like faculty members, students, and parents. 

  • Students progress at their pace

Students are the most important stakeholders of any institution, it is important to provide them with the best and Academia provides them with all the student databases provisioning, storing, and organizing all the student-related data and information. It can easily access, edit, or update data if needed.

Conclusion 

The implementation of the student-centric CBCS system is beneficial for institutes. Academia ERP, which provides the most reliable and trusted solutions to educational institutes, has inbuilt functionality to support the rollout of the CBCS for educational campuses.

How Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) are set to transform due to NEP 2020?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The National Education Policy of 2020 is a revolutionary step taken by the Indian government. The policy is envisaged to change the current working of Higher Education Institutes in India and allows students to choose multiple disciplines as per their preference at every stage. 

Higher education in India is widespread. It is partially digitalized and has responsibly transformed the country into a knowledge hub and made it a knowledge economy. 

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is based on five fundamental pillars – access, equity, quality, affordability, and accountability. It is designed to change the current education system

with high-quality knowledge resources and skill-based education.  It also primarily focuses on integrity and promotes equality in participation in varied disciplines, irrespective of what social and economic background they hail from.

What is the New National Education Policy?

Through this new education policy, the government of India aims at bringing more than 2 crore students into proper learning. It is projected that this crucial step would allow the government to achieve 100% GER (Gross Enrollment Ratio) in preschool, secondary, and higher education institutions by the end of 2030. 

These attempts are to prepare India to become a “global Knowledge Superpower”, by making the education ecosystem of India more flexible, holistic, and multi-disciplinary in line with the global skill demand. 

Let’s look at the major reforms the NEP 2020 is set to bring in for HEIs in India –

  1. Opens entry for large education institutions

As mentioned earlier, one goal of NEP 2020 is to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education in India, including vocational education from 26.3 percent in 2018 to 50 percent by 2035. As per the NEP, 3.5 crore new seats will be added to higher education institutions. The NEP proposed multi-disciplinary, holistic undergraduate education. The Policy is focused on supporting skill education and streamlining educational planning, administration, and management at all levels.

The primary focus of NEP 2020 in Indian higher education is to transform HEIs into 

(a) Research-Intensive Universities (RUs)

(b) Teaching Universities (TUs)

(c) Autonomous Degree-granting Colleges (ACs)

This goal has to be achieved by 2040. 

According to reports, India needs an additional 1500 HEIs to encourage and accommodate more students. The policy proposes the setting up of large and foreign universities. It seeks to promote India as a global destination for quality and affordable education. It will allow high-performing Indian universities to set up campuses abroad while allowing ‘select’ universities in the top 100 in the world to operate in India. This would promote healthy competition among Indian HEIs. 

  1. Promotes Liberal & Flexible Education

NEP 2020 is designed to generate interest among students in the specialized area of research. This will lead to discoveries and acknowledge the importance of invention and scientific outcomes.

Arts and Science streams will not be separated strictly, as well as curricular  & extracurricular activities and vocational & academic qualifications. This is meant to promote a holistic and very versatile learning environment that will nurture open-mindedness and build well-rounded individuals. 

A revolutionary introduction in the Indian context is the freedom for learners to learn at their convenience. The new policy gives flexibility to students to choose from a variety of subjects and move out with a certificate, diploma, or full degree, depending on the number of years spent on the course. It gives students multiple entry and exit points in degree programs, which further encourages lifelong learning philosophy. 

An Academic Bank of Credit will be introduced which will store the academic credits of students earned from different HEIs digitally and these credits will be counted towards the final degree earned.

The policy has also asked HEIs to do away with high-stake examinations and bring in a continuous and comprehensive evaluation system. 

This reform is meant to help the students to nurture their creativity and critical thinking by motivating them to follow their passion in their chosen field. This will completely change the business models of HEIs in the future, along with their curriculum and delivery methods. Technology will be the integral support that will help in this seamless shift. 

  1. Eases Regulatory Structure

According to NEP 2020, there would be one common regulator for all HEIs in India -National Higher Education Regulatory Authority (NHERA). By eliminating the multiple, overlapping regulators, NHERA will create various verticals and cater to different disciplines and simplify degrees or diplomas. This change will ease the regulatory burden of HEIs and will allow them to focus more on their core role of imparting knowledge. The single regulatory system would provide autonomy to HEIs, which is crucial to innovations in education.  

Initiating a New Education Policy in 2022: Key Highlights

  • The policy emphasizes providing quality and affordable education to all students between 3-18 years of age group all over the country.
  • It also focuses on using technology in education to make it more accessible and effective.
  • The focus should be on online learning to ensure the highest quality education for students. As part of the new system, e-learning will be expanded to include online courses, which will allow students to study from anywhere and at any time.
  • It also promotes holistic and multidisciplinary education replacing rote learning.
  • The curriculum in India has been updated to incorporate more concepts and vocational education.
  • The policy seeks to provide vocational and technical education to students so that they are equipped to enter the workforce.
  • This policy introduces a new 5+3+3+4 education structure replacing the current 10+2 system.
  • The policy aims to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education to 50% by 2035.
  • According to NEP, learning should be holistic, joyful, stress-free, and a lifelong process.

Conclusion

A change in the Indian higher education system was long overdue, and NEP 2020 marks a bold move away from the long-standing and established rote and herd learning practices in India. 

While the NEP 2020 aims at improving the operative environment for HEIs across India, it reveals the government’s intent to restrict the commercialization of higher education in India.

The NEP reforms introduced in the Higher Education System are set to result in – 

  • Institutional restructuring and consolidation
  • A holistic education eliminating rote learning
  • Internationalization
  • Teachers training
  • Professional education
  • High-quality research
  • Quality universities and colleges

Changes in the overall ecosystem will bring new challenges for educational institutions, staying updated with the latest developments can help educational institutions to address these challenges. For this, a higher education ERP or SIS can help institutions bring digital transformation and automation, you can also schedule a demo now!

A Checklist To Safeguard Your Institution’s Data

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Today, data protection is one of the biggest challenges in the education sector with institutions being prone to vulnerabilities and frequently falling victim to massive data breaches. However, a checklist to safeguard data can help improve the overall security and prevent incidents of major data breaches from compromising their reputation.

Higher educational institutions and Schools are data treasure-troves as they often collect and process personal and confidential information about their prospective and enrolled students, alumni and staff. From personally sensitive information like addresses, health records and payment information, these institutions often run extensive networks across different campuses, with thousands of students and staff accessing their online portals through different devices at any time of the day or night. Hence, educational institutions are at high risk of having their data breached. In 2019 itself, Stanford University, education software developer Pearson and Georgia Tech have all suffered data breaches, with Georgia Tech alone having 1.3 million of their records exposed.

While educational institutions are required to take active measures to safeguard their data from unauthorized access, here is a checklist of how Academia can help institutions to protect their data and records.

– High scalability

Scalability in an ERP software is very crucial as it manages an institution’s growth by streamlining operational performance and maximizing productivity. Academia ERP (SIS/SMS/TMS) is highly scalable and can handle the increasing volume of data and the requirement of securely adding new users. The software is a robust solution meeting every expectation of a growing institute or chain of institutes.

This scalability offered by Academia solutions is beneficial for an institution as it allows the institute to focus on its growth and not the challenges associated including compromising on the security while handling huge volumes of sensitive and confidential data.

– Superior flexibility

Academia ERP(SIS/SMS/TMS) can be customised and configured as per the taxonomy of the institute. This allows for a personal touch to the terminology making it easier to interpret and allows even a non-technical person to operate the software easily without relying on technical help. The configuration features could also help to add extra functionalities as needed.

This superior flexibility from Academia makes an institute technologically advanced, future-ready and self-reliant. Academia SIS offers complete and detailed campus management solutions that improve an institution’s productivity, workflow efficiency and boost high ROI by streamlining administrative processes with automation. Academia’s MIS is highly configurable and scalable, aiding institutional growth. It provides data analytics with detailed reports for every department as required. 

The ease of use and familiarity of taxonomy results in lower incidents of human error, one of the major causes of security lapses.

– Diverse Reporting 

The diverse reporting in Academia ERP(SIS/SMS/TMS) offers dashboards for the administrators and for a range of user roles, which is extremely helpful to disseminate information faster from the existing data. It also offers visual aids with graphical representation like pie charts and bar graphs with consolidated data. With diverse reporting, it is easier to find student details year wise, their academic performances, extra-curricular activities, and all other activities. This helps in optimising time and resources while ensuring that reports are seamless and easily accessible in the most secure way. 

Academia’s diverse reporting helps to make more informed and data-driven decisions in the quickest and most hassle-free way. There is no time wasted in going through uncountable files for little details. It is a crucial tool to gain powerful insights into student data smartly and safely. 

– Cloud Enabled 

Cloud computing has become an essential aid for universities, colleges and schools for content delivery, communication and collaboration. The need for servers, storage and software have become essential to share resources, software and information, to computers and other devices.

Cloud computing also dramatically reduces the time, money and infrastructure that educational institutions need to reach out to new markets. The institutions achieve efficiency in operations with centralised control with students becoming more engaged with the available options and teachers focussing more on learner requirements instead of mundane admin tasks.

Academia’s products are cloud based, which helps to reduce risk and enhances data security. The cloud security not only helps the IT teams to recognise and remove risks in the system, but also enables them to create consistent security policies in all the branches of the institution.

Conclusion:

Finally, with the number of cyber attacks on the rise, data security has become a prime concern for educational institutes. Academia ERP software are built to work around huge volumes of data which are easily accessible by those who require to use them, yet with the tightest security possible. There are multi layers and types of information security control to combat abuses and breaches of security, at every level. To know more and learn about how Academia’s customised ERP solutions keep your data safe, among other benefits, please book a demo by clicking on ERP software for educational institutions.

Online only universities in UK – Technology to the rescue

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

As universities in the UK shut down due to COVID 19 in March, students had to move online to attend live-streamed lectures and swap practical group work for remote assignments. In an attempt to deal with dwindling scholarships, travel restrictions and redefined visa rules, many prestigious universities have moved their courses online. Here is a look at how universities are adapting to a new norm, while using technology for remote learning.

With the pandemic calling for social distancing, it is likely to disrupt normal life for a long time to come. Hence, universities in the UK have shifted to offering online only classes. Leading the pack in the shift to online courses is the prestigious University of Cambridge, which will begin their online only academic year 2020-2021 from October 6. The university announced that it will move its entire course online for the 2020-21 academic year, scheduled to begin on October 6.

The University of Manchester has moved online for the upcoming autumn term with Cardiff University also moving most of its classes online after the summer break. Despite moving online and not being able to offer the intercultural experience that international students seek, it is also believed that top universities like Oxbridge etc will likely be able to attract and retain international students with the UK University degree tag.

In the last few months, there has been totally unexpected changes in the world which should be looked upon as an opportunity for universities to adopt people-centred technology and bring in digital transformation. Today, it can be safely said that the universities meeting this challenge will be the ones to thrive in the future. These universities need to adapt and expand their digital platforms to offer what students really want. The next step would include collaborating with tech companies to create affordable modular online course options, accessible to all.

Universities moving online will have to compete with new formats, including coding bootcamps like Le Wagon, Codeworks and Northcoders which offer quicker, cheaper courses in subjects like web development and data science with in-built industry connections. However, moving online also comes at a cost, Hence, universities in the UK will make sure their investment in digital transformation will be for the long term, especially when they had been lagging behind universities from other countries for years.

Modular Courses

The success of online learning has been experienced with institutes such as The Open University. In recent years, universities like Oxford, Imperial and UCL have also started experimenting with free MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses) through FutureLearn with a paid upgrade option. These courses have proved to be highly popular with their affordability and accessibility and a degree from an internationally recognised University.

For online courses, the focus today has been moving towards modular courses or even short courses that can be availed from home, to match career choices. Here, technology makes these courses available with excellent existing programmes. For example, Zoom or Microsoft Teams platforms are being used to record sessions and provide apt online support for students. Workshopping technology like the whiteboard tool Miro is a great visual way of showing work. Augmented Reality which already existed in the gaming industry is being adapted to play a part in more practical courses.

Modular learning programmes allowing to pick and mix from different courses is likely to be the model going ahead with students having their virtual shopping baskets filled with the best modules according to their needs instead of signing up for a degree or a higher education programme irrelevant to them. 

Going ahead

The growth and adoption of education technology started even before COVID 19 with global edtech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 Billion by 2025. But with COVID 19, there will be a rapid rise in usage of online technology whether it was in language apps, virtual tutoring, video conferencing tools, or online learning software.

Practically, it may look like the future of UK universities is in mixing online curriculum and offline experiences, which is known as blended learning. This will enable social distancing on campus and enhance the experience of studying. Interestingly, some innovative UK universities such as the University of East Anglia (UEA) already offered blended learning even before COVID 19. 

With a consortium of 10 universities led by Coventry recently awarded £3.7m to develop partly online postgraduate conversion courses in artificial intelligence and data science, a lot of universities are taking the online route. The pandemic kickstarted a lifelong online learning agenda which will also skill up employees whose jobs will become automated in the future.

Finally, elite universities will have the advantage of their name and reputation to continue trading on, but for many other universities that bring in students because of location or for a specific course, the future depends on identifying other differentiators to bring in students. Future learning will hence be more about the quality of the learning experience and how geared up universities are to teach remotely in an innovative way using various technologies. 

To get the full benefit of online classes, there is a specific need to go beyond just replicating the physical class through video capabilities and instead, using different collaboration tools and engagement methods which promote inclusion, personalisation and intelligence. With an abundance of ready to use content available across different digital media to enable capability building and meet targeted challenges, Universities will need to use well-designed digital tools for sharing knowledge and support information. The role of technology in online learning will have to be explored to its full potential.

7 Emerging Technologies that are Reshaping Education

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

In the field of education, emerging technologies are revolutionizing the learning process for students by enhancing the way students, teachers and institutions work. Technology has changed the world and cutting-edge technologies  are reshaping education in innovative and unimaginable ways. Students are getting the opportunities and unique experiences they need and deserve as emerging technologies promise to deliver exciting new resources for learners.

Let us take a closer look at the seven emerging technologies that are earmarked to make major waves and reshape education.

1. Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality

Mixed Reality and Simulations are pathbreaking experiences for learners and teachers too. AR, considered as one of the best emerging technologies in the world, can be used by educators in innovative ways to make lessons interesting and interactive. AR is useful in overlaying interactive digital elements to give real time experience and for promoting skills like creativity, critical thinking analysis and problem solving. AR promises to help learners capture their dreams and imaginations and take learning to the next level.

Virtual Reality, the next big thing in education, enhances student learning and engagement by cutting across all barriers and immersing students in what they are learning and helping them to process information better.

learning and helping them to process information better.

2. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education is already transforming the way curricula are implemented in schools, with innovations that would have been impossible a few years back. AI applications have made the academic world more convenient and personalized. One of the key impacts of AI from kindergarten to graduate school is the different levels of individualized learning with adaptive learning programs, games and software, where students can work at their own pace.

AI aims to reshape education by supporting the sharing of first-person perspectives which will be useful for students research. From artificially generated content to image recognition and smart tagging systems, AI is also automating basic activities like grading homework and tests as it takes up a lot of time for teachers. While human grading may not be fully replaced, AI can help in providing detailed analysis of student performance in exams, and help in grading to a certain extent.

AI has resulted in automation of administrative jobs, saving time for educators.

3. 5G Technology

5G is the fifth generation of wireless technology which promises high speed and low latency wireless technology. 5G is meant to change the way educational institutions interact with much quicker downloads and increased efficiency and expanding the scope of connected devices and technology within the classroom.

Some universities have started implementing IoT integration for higher education where lectures and discussions on specialized topics can be conducted through virtual reality experiences. Seamless connectivity will bring in better engagement which will be a big boon for international students, along with faster downloads of files and resources and more powerful networks. 

Interestingly, 5G was supposed to be launched in India in 2020 and would have been extremely beneficial for students learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, things didn’t go as planned and the launch has been pushed to mid 2021.

4. Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has tremendous potential to create smarter and connected schools and is already impacting the education sector by making learning simpler, faster and safer. IoT can save energy and lighting, and sensors across the campus can track traffic and the strategic positioning of security features like lighting would help students and visitors too.. IoT can help break the usual barriers to education like language, location or certain disabilities, besides helping everyone with bottom-line solutions.

5. Adaptive Learning

The Adaptive learning technology provides learning activities to students, based on their needs and learning style and behavior. It helps students with unique learning paths that are based entirely on their interests and learning ability. 

It can play a huge role in the educational system as it uses computer algorithms to orchestrate the interaction with the learner. Although this technology originated from AI, it actively caters with individualized resources and top learning activities to take care of the special needs of a learner.

6. Learning Analytics

When it comes to the process of learning for students, it needs efficient tracking and analyzing to understand results better. This is essential to bring about improvement which is a very important factor in education to improve the learning experience of every student. The learning analytics technology helps teachers to better record the learning rate and behavior of students so that teachers can provide targeted improvements to courses.

7. Blockchain

The Blockchain technology which has changed every industry dynamically, can prove to be very useful in the education sector as well. It is especially useful to collaborate around distributed information in a database. Blockchain can help in examination management, verifying student credentials, verifying certificates, managing life-long learning records etc. Besides effective analyzing and tracking, it can help teachers provide targeted improvement for courses and help students deliver enhanced results.

5 Step Process to Implement OBE In Your Academic Institution

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Outcome-based education or OBE is the latest development in the education industry. It is a type of education delivery model that focuses on mapping, measuring, and achieving pre-determined educational goals. It prioritizes student learning and development by nurturing the pre-existing skills in students to help them grow in their professional and personal life. 

Clearly, it is a major leap from the existing education delivery model where a lot of time and effort is spent on scoring good marks in examinations rather than skill development and knowledge acquisition. OBE thus can help you change that, and provide a definite solution for the increasing problems such as unemployment, skill alignment as per the global market standards, and more. 

If you are thinking about implementing OBE in your education institute, here are some tips to successfully implement it, and ensure better student outcomes.

 

 

Outcome-based Education Process – Step By Step OBE Implementation

  • Goal Setting 

First and foremost, it is imperative to set short-term and long-term goals for individual students in terms of learning outcomes, personal growth, skill development, and institute overall performance. Institutes can follow the given steps to define vision and mission department-wise. 

  • Start by brainstorming with experts and experienced faculty of various departments
  • Speak with industry professionals and alumni batches
  • Analyse the opinion and define a solid plan of action 

Once the vision and mission are clear, the institute needs to focus on teaching and learning processes.

  • Program and Education Objective and Program Outcomes

Program Educational Objectives help teachers define the expected outcomes for the students once they graduate, this includes academic and behavioral aspects both that are absolutely necessary to excel in their career. 

  • The vision and mission set in the first step should be central to the action plan.
  • Experienced faculty members and the heads of various departments must draft and share it across their respective departments. 
  • The draft and processes need to be implemented and discussed thoroughly for gaining the approval of authorities. You can iterate the draft to prepare a final draft. 
  • Once the final draft is ready after taking all the considerations of people involved in the implementation process, it is presented to Program Assessment Committee so that it can further be forwarded to Departmental Advisory Board. 
  • The Departmental Advisory Board reviews the points mentioned in the draft and sends them to the Board of Studies & Academic Council for final approval. Once the approval comes in, the draft is taken as a guide to design a fresh curriculum for the students to grow personally and professionally. 
  • Institutions need to analyze the student learning outcomes periodically to identify the learning gaps and rectify them. It is usually focused on Professional Skill Development, Problem-Solving Skills, Industry-Specific Skill Development & Creative Enhancement. 
  • Establishing Program Outcomes 

POs or Program Outcomes are defined as the objective achieved at the end of the specialization or discipline. These attributes are defined while a student is undergoing education and determined when they get a degree. 

Here is a step-by-step approach to establishing the POs for the institution. 

  • The Program Coordinator consults with the senior faculty to prepare a draft for program outcomes. 
  • The Coordinator speaks with alumni, industry experts, and various employers to understand the skill requirement and new trends in the industry. On analyzing the views, a synthesized version of the draft is created and sent to the Program Assessment Committee. 
  • The Program Assessment Committee reviews the draft and sends it to the Department of Advisory Board to get the final approval from them. 
  • Department Advisory Board makes the final decision by moderating the draft.
12 Graduate attributes mentioned By the National Accreditation Board In Their Guidelines to attain POs successfully
PO1 Knowledge PO7 Environment
PO2 Problem Analysis Capability PO8 Ethics of Individuals
PO3 Development & Designing of System PO9 Teamwork & Individual Contribution
PO4 Analyze & Solve Complex Problems PO10 Communication
PO5 Use of Latest Tools & Devices PO11 Finance & Management of Project
PO6 Society’s Responsibilities PO12 Life-long Learner
  • Establishing the Course Outcomes

Course Outcomes are different than Program Outcomes. The objective of CO or Course Outcome is to define the objectives that are achieved at the end of a semester/year. It is basically the outcome that is achieved in theory and practical lessons concluded at the end of the year or semester.

  • CO-PO Mapping Process

To thoroughly analyze if a student has successfully achieved the goals set at the beginning of the process, it is important to map Course Outcomes with Program Outcomes. To do that, follow these steps: 

  • Specify and obtain the course outcomes
  • Map COs with POs
  • Set an appropriate weightage for the CO assessment
  • Measure the COs through assessment given to students
  • COs & POs attainment calculation needs to be done. 

Concluding

Outcome-based Education can help you stand out in the education market and offer a quality education. But for that to happen you must have a great implementation strategy on your hands. Use the above-mentioned steps to achieve successful implementation of OBE. To assist you in your course toward redefining education consider an ERP solution that offers process streamlining, simplified processes, better results, easy CO-PO mapping, and more. Explore the Academia ERP OBE module here. 

Technology in Education: Key Takeaways from NEP 2020

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

In July 2020, India’s HRD Ministry was renamed Education Ministry and it unveiled the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, a revolutionary regulation with ground breaking changes in Indian Education. This policy, while focusing on various aspects of education, weaves in technology at every stage. 

The NEP has been welcomed by educators all over the country who insisted it was long due. In the last few years, India has turned itself into an information focused society and it has become the need of the hour to embrace technology in the field of education. The NEP 2020 states that one of the main drivers of the education system will be ‘extensive use of technology in teaching and learning, removing language barriers, increasing access as well as education planning and management’.

It has become even more relevant in the current pandemic situation when virtual learning is the new normal, to re imagine conventional learning and teaching techniques. The Policy drafts a vision of education for the new generation which will help to build a self-reliant India.

According to the policy, a dedicated e-education unit and a National Education Technology Forum (NETF) will be set up to boost digital content, infrastructure and capacity building. Through NETF, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, computing devices and other educational software and hardware will be incorporated into education at all levels to improve classroom processes, boost student progress, support teachers development and streamline administration and management.

Let’s look at some of the key aspects of NEP 2020 dealing with technology.

Primary Education

  • Recognising technology as an aid for teachers, bridging language barriers between teacher and student, creating digital libraries, enabling greater access to education, specifically for differently abled children.
  • Coding to be introduced in school curriculum as an important skill for students to develop.
  • Technology can be effectively used for teacher education and online teacher training.

Professional & Higher Education

  • Technology to be a part of professional education (legal/health)
  • Technology to be used to achieve 100% literacy has been proposed. For this, quality technology-based options for adult learning has to be introduced.
  • Recognising the importance of technology in addressing different challenges of society and to promote interdisciplinary research and innovation. For example, setting up a National Research Foundation has been proposed to grow a culture of research and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been encouraged to open start-up incubation centres and technology development centres
  • The National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) to be set up to serve as a platform for the free exchange of ideas on using technology to enhance learning, assessment, and administration.

Administration of Education

  • The Academic Bank of Credit is to be created, which will digitally store academic credits earned from various HEIs. These credits earned over a period of time will help to grant degrees.
  • Focus on using technology to ensure efficiency and transparency of regulatory bodies like the State School Standards Authority, the Higher Education Commission of India and also its four verticals (National Higher Education Regulatory Council, National Accreditation Council, Higher Education Grants Council and the General Education Council).

Adapting to Artificial Intelligence

  • Recognising the challenges arising from the widespread use of Artificial Intelligence, the Policy focuses on the need to adopt changes occurring due to excessive use of AI across sectors.
  • The NETF will identify and categorise emerging technologies according to their potential and estimated timeframe for disruption, and present a periodic analysis to the Education Ministry, who will formally identify the relevant technologies.
  • The Policy is pioneering the need to generate awareness and conduct research on various facets of the emerging disruptive technologies, including concerns about data handling and security.

Learn How Academia helped bring online class culture at Ashoka Schools.
Download Case-Study Now!

Digital India

  • The Policy foresees creating a dedicated unit to frame the development of digital infrastructure, content and capacity building to take care of the e-education needs of school and higher education.
  • On a national level, the NEP 2020 calls for

> Investing in digital infrastructure
> Developing online teaching platforms and tools
> Creating virtual labs and digital repositories-Training teachers towards becoming quality online content creators
> Designing and implementing online assessments
> Establishing quality standards for content and technology
> Pedagogy for online teaching-learning

It has to be acknowledged that the NEP 2020 has done a path breaking job in incorporating technology in the Indian education system, but this also raises certain concerns and challenges that cannot be ignored.

A large part of rural India is still digitally challenged. According to a government survey conducted between July 2017 to June 2018, the results released in November 2019 say –

(a) Only 4.4% households in rural India have computers as against 23.4% urban households.
(b) 14.9% of rural India has internet facility as against 42% urban households.
(c) Internet users are growing in rural India, though access is almost always through mobile phones, in rural as well as urban areas.

For the purpose of education, it is necessary for students to have exclusive access to any form of digital hardware, be it a smartphone, computer or tablet. However, in today’s scenario, a majority of students from under privileged backgrounds have limited or no access to devices, internet and in some cases, even electricity.

While NEP 2020 recognises these limitations and the efforts to eliminate them with campaigns like Digital India and making affordable computing devices available, practical solutions are needed along with awareness on the importance and use of technology. Also, the human factor of education is crucial and technology is meant to further amplify the learning experience.

The NEP 2020 is undoubtedly a progressive step towards education of the future, with technology playing an invaluable role in facilitating teaching and learning. Hence, it is important to develop a coherent road map for promoting successful technologies and also providing effective data security and privacy, with the help of ed-tech companies which offer holistic education management information systems .

Estimates say that by 2022, the Indian K-12 ed-tech market, including educational ERP softwares, will be worth USD 1.7 billion and post K12 ed-tech market will be worth USD 1.8 billion. The policy also offers an opportunity for cooperation between the various industry stakeholders and regulatory authorities/educational institutions.

Finally, the success of NEP 2020 will depend on how well it is implemented, and how effectively the objectives of the Policy are integrated within the existing initiatives while also involving the relevant stakeholders in delivering the policy effectively.

The NEP 2020 is a great step in accepting that education in the future will mean greater dematerialisation and digitalisation of content and working towards staying ahead of the curve. For a country steeped in a traditional education system, this itself for India is an extraordinary feat.

Importance of College ERP for Stakeholders

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

In the past decade, technology has become an integral part of many industries/businesses, and educational institutions are never an exception. Nowadays, with the increasing scope of technology, universities, higher education, and schools are incorporating quick decision-making into their current system. Institutions that are seeking a smart school or college management system need to opt for tools and software that can help faculty members, administrators, and other staff to master their tasks with more accuracy and efficiency.


 

  • Capability to manage academic & administrative tasks 

The current scenario of educational institutions involves a bundle of academic and administrative tasks. Right from admission enquiry to the alumni of the student, the administrators, faculty members, guest lecturers, and researchers find it difficult to manage all the operations manually. 

To this, a college ERP software can be the best solution, it can provide administrators and faculty members manage all the operations efficiently using just one single software. It can avail faculty members to manage all the important objectives in just a few minutes of tasks. 

  • Remote admission process 

Admission season is considered one of the busiest yet most important seasons in any educational institution. In completing this process, the staff, administrators, and faculty members get frustrated with the manual interventions in the institutions. In today’s scenario, institutions must choose technologies like college ERP software that can become a savior and help in managing all the admission-related activities remotely, quickly, and accurately. It also enhances productivity and boosts faculty morale in positive ways.

  • Efficient examination management

The examination time is also one of the hectic periods for educational institutions. It includes a bulk of tasks like question paper generation, hall ticket distribution, examination sheet checking, result, and more. So in the paced world, institutions must opt for good software that can help in automating the complete examination process and help in validating a fruitful examination season for students, faculty members, and ultimately for the institution.


 

  • Synchronized attendance management 

Attendance is also a crucial element of administrative processes in an institution. An effective attendance system brings success for students and also for the institute. Institutions that are still following manual processes always find attendance management a confusing and hectic process. It also creates a wall between the faculty and parents as faculty members are not always able to share the exact attendance details of students in an institution. 

An automated attendance system brings efficiency to the institution, improves student performance, and ensures trust between parents and faculty. Automation of attendance processes using biometric integration or directly through the portal can help institutions bring efficiency in different ways. 

  • Accurate financial aid 

Managing financial aid in universities, colleges, and schools is a difficult task for administrators, faculty members, and even for students if done manually. There are multiple fee structures, various departments, and of course a huge number of students. 

Meanwhile, institutions can make the complete finance process easy, flexible, and transparent. It gives a true platform and connects the entire process for just one or multiple campuses simplifying all the fee-related and financial operations of the institute. 

  • Student lifecycle management

A student is considered the most important stakeholder of any educational entity. Almost all of the tasks in the institution are connected to students. Faculty members always find it difficult to manage and organize students using the manual intervention. A school or college ERP software can attract students, track their interests, and nurture them accordingly. It also can help institutions engage students in real prospects and provide faculty and parents with real-time analytics for student tracking and enhancement. 

  • Data & information management

Educational institutions involve a huge amount of student data for managing school affairs systematically. In manual intervention, it becomes crucial for faculty members to manage data in papers, files, and documents. 

Automation through a robust ERP/SIS can help institutions streamline the complete processes and manage student data. It also helps to store, organize, and manage all the data in a centralized manner that can be easily accessed, edited, and updated from anywhere and anytime by faculty and parents according to the authority. 

  • A hybrid method of learning 

In today’s advanced and technological world, it is important for educational institutions to opt for a hybrid method of learning. A combination of both online and offline methods in the classroom using new technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality and more can help institutions ease student learning and teaching process. 

Conclusion 

A college ERP can be the best solution for educational institutions, it can provide robust management for every stakeholder, especially faculty members and students. Hope you like the article, still having doubts? Let’s discuss this now! 

Capability to manage academic & administrative tasks 

The current scenario of educational institutions involves a bundle of academic and administrative tasks. Right from admission enquiry to the alumni of the student, the administrators, faculty members, guest lecturers, and researchers find it difficult to manage all the operations manually. 

To this, a college ERP software can be the best solution, it can provide administrators and faculty members manage all the operations efficiently using just one single software. It can avail faculty members to manage all the important objectives in just a few minutes of tasks. 

5 Ways Technology Can Help Save Costs for Academic Institutes

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The growth of educational resources and online courses being offered today are a clear indication of the shift to technology and how it’s changing the landscape of the education industry. 

Every year there is an increasing number of students opting out of attending schools and colleges physically. With many study options available, a lot of which are online and comparatively cheaper, technology is playing a huge role in making education accessible and cheaper than ever before. Even long-distance or work-based learning, as well as apprenticeships, are becoming available online, which reduces the total cost of education by permitting interns to live at home and learn and earn. 

Today, when the world has been ravaged by COVID19 in an unprecedented way, education is one field that has managed to deliver, without any hiccups. Educational institutions all over the world have quickly moved all their teaching online and are making sure that students are gathering every bit of knowledge and learning that they would have, on campus. 

While online education may be the need of the hour right now, technology has always proved to be a gainful investment for educational institutions, one of which is saving on costs. 

Let us explore 5 ways in which technology can help save costs for educational institutions. 

1. Using the cloud instead of the copier

Educational institutions have seen the enormous potential of the cloud and more and more schools and colleges are moving over every year. A market research report had predicted a 26% annual growth in cloud computing in schools through 2021. Needless to say, with the ongoing pandemic the numbers would inflate too much more than that. 

Cloud technology has plenty of instant benefits to academic institutions like –

  • It does away with the need to buy expensive printed textbooks, which become outdated quickly. Using digital content allows easy regular updating as and when necessary, which also saves cost substantially for the school. 
  • It minimizes the requirements for expensive hardware like servers, which call for ongoing server room cooling, maintenance and a huge amount of space. 
  • It reduces the use of toner and copy paper, along with saving the time spent on making copies every week, while also reducing carbon footprints. 
  • If there is ever a loss or a need to track down a paper trail, a cloud system will give easy access and swiftly recover data.

2. Taking advantage of the VoIP over the traditional PBX

Switching over to the VoIP phone system has helped schools and institutions to cut down costs by lowering phone bills and having access to new automation features to further boost productivity. 

VoIP providers often offer free internal calls making it possible for teachers, administrators, and anyone with a phone connected to the phone system to call each other without any charges. Larger schools and institutions can save a substantial amount by using a VoIP phone system since all the frequent calls made within a school system are considered in-network and will be free of charge.

A VoIP system is cheaper to maintain than a PBX system. It can be installed quickly with adding and removing of phones done simply. A hosted VoIP system comes with free 24/7 support staff. 

3. Opting for the digital platform over manual  

In this age of technology, it is a challenge for educators to constantly keep the learning environment engaging and relevant. It is important for them to keep the communications and information flow of the school community completely smooth and secure.

While it may seem migrating to a digital platform would require huge budgets, truth is, it is the crucial factor that can actually cut costs, boost productivity and save time which is otherwise wasted on administrative tasks. With digitization, teachers and administrators do not have to spend time with old machines, including outdated computers, printers and slow networks; and could use their time for more productive work. Teachers have the advantage of using technology to produce more creative learning opportunities for students. On the other hand, students get accustomed to technology at an early age and learn valuable skills which will sustain them for life. 

4. Using special-purpose applications for better efficiency

Educational institutions have started to see the utility of application that can help them manage a lot of departments better. Since educators know they have the responsibility of building the careers and lives of a whole new generation, they understand there is no scope for mistakes. Switching over to digital helps to make sure there are no errors in statistics and work flows smoothly as programmed. They are moving to the use of specifically created applications to better manage food services, school buses, utilities like electricity and cooling/heating, textbooks, etc.

Besides the smooth functioning and management of various departments with the use of various applications, educational institutions are also saving money by eliminating the need of human intervention and physical work.

5. Availing digital documents over physical material

One important aspect of knowledge is, it needs constant updating. Going digital helps to quickly and efficiently update new material online with adaptable changes. Content changes and delivery, digitally, lowers the cost of printing the new material and also gets rid of the reliance on physical printed content and copy.

While education institutions wake up to the importance of technology and seek to empower themselves with the latest, it is the SIS (Student Information System) that has proved to be the groundbreaker with the advantage to connect, teach and manage better. One of the most important roles technology plays is to handle evolving requirements and efficiently manage multiple modes of communication. 

Academia SIS has been specifically developed to suit the current and future needs of growing higher education institutions. It is a unique multifeatured solution for Group Institutions, Business Universities, Colleges, Schools, etc. and automates the complete student life cycle.

Undeniably, the best technology solution to successfully lower costs while providing an edge by enhancing connectivity among students, teachers and parents.

For the education institutions, while adopting technology helps to cut down costs, it also works for students as the expenses go down considerably with online course materials and other associated expenses. Hence, a win-win for all. 

What Are the 5 Advantages of Using College ERP in the New Era of Education?

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Education ERP software is gaining great momentum. But one thing that most certainly is missed out by college management is that their model is different than that of a school or a training institute. Thus, you need to ask yourself constantly, what is the most important thing for your institute, what problems you aim at solving, and how advantageous your investment is going to be. 

Today, we would like to use this opportunity to introduce you to the 5 biggest benefits college ERP software will bring you. Here are they: 

Advantages of the Education ERP System for a College

  • Simplified Admission Process: 

Admissions are one of the busiest times of the year, and they are painstaking. You have to be alert to every pre-admission and admissions activity and that can be cumbersome. A college management system comes with specific features for admission directors and the people responsible for the admission phase. 

A good college ERP system would give you toolsets such as managing enquires, converting enquires to admissions, planning and implementing fee structure, improving communication between college and applicant, and also, an applicant portal. This would successfully untangle all admission-related processes. 

  • Real-time Data Record:

You have various people working in your education organization and it is supremely important that they get the right information, at the right time to take the right decision. 

With a centralized database, you can allow role-based access to real-time data and information to all your stakeholder. It is a highly secure data management system that allows you to efficiently and effectively manage your processes and take data-backed decisions faster than ever before. 

  • Automated Fee Processing 

Easy integration of 3rd Party Payment Software would give your students and parents an edge over the fee system. It allows transparent and secure online payments through e-wallets, debit/credit cards, internet banking, etc. 

Furthermore, it allows you to track every transaction that happens in your organization. You can track even the oldest of your transactions that have happened online. Also, you no longer need a cashier to collect fees, it is a completely automated system that shares the receipts with the students and parents for their payments. 

You can also take this a step further and add automated reminders that send out messages to students and parents near the time of fee payments. 

  • Centralized Data Management 

Data management is a big task. Ask the person who has to add or remove data from the paper-backed record system. You can replace it with a digital data management system that allows you to store a vast amount of data about students, parents, exams, timetable, faculty, student performance, result, and even alumni. 

  • Prompt decisioning 

Technologies such as AI & ML are helping institutes utilize the data to develop a deeper understanding of the market trends and use it to develop profitable strategies. Using Education ERP software for college you can generate reports on admissions, fee payments, student enrollment, payroll, employee records, student accommodation, and more. 

Summing Up

These were just the 5 top advantages of using a college ERP in the new era of education, but there is more. For more information, you can connect with our ERP expert and discuss in detail your needs. 

How Education ERP is Changing Dynamics of the Education Management

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The education sector is in the advent of complete digital transformation. From online education management to MOOC (Massive open online course), e-learning, flip classroom; it is going to have a paradigm technology shift in the coming future.

Among all the education technologies, Education ERP is one that is playing a significant role in institution management. According to a study, Education ERP is going to grow 3X by 2028 with the increase of CAGR (Compound annual growth) 10.9%.

In today’s rapidly evolving electronics market, educational institutions are using education ERP solutions for managing, planning, controlling and delivering data effectively.

In this article, we’ll see how Education ERP is changing education management.

1. Digitization of complete administrative processes

An education management system integrates all the academic processes in one place and makes it easier to manage the day to day tasks. It helps to automate the entire administrative processes from admission to course completion.

It is an online student management system that makes workflow seamless, easy and efficient. It centralizes all the departments and allows staff members to communicate better and helps them to exchange information in a hassle-free manner.

2. High data storage with disaster recovery

This is one of the most prominent benefits of a web-based education management system. It is obvious that educational institutions generate a huge amount of documentation. To store and manage these documents manually is a tedious task that is also prone to physical damage.

With cloud-based campus ERP, institutes can easily store endless documents on the web with no worry about data storage capacity. Moreover, with the disaster recovery solution, you can back up the data on a remote offsite server, keep it safe from any kind of damage and recover it without any data loss.

3. Student management beyond campus boundary

What if student management is not limited to school/college timing?

An education management system is a solution that increases the connectivity between teachers and students. Students can check assignments via their portals, submit documents whenever needed, access their details, check their results, submit their fees online and do much more. Teachers with Teacher Portal, can check, remark, upload assignments work, download them for evaluation, track students’ academic records, etc.

Not only this, with the parent portal, parents can also keep track of their child’s academic activities, such as attendance details, results, remark from teachers, their achievements, etc.

4. Student-centric education management

The main objective of an educational institution is student development, giving them proper time for their complete improvement. However, due to the increasing number of academic processes, teachers and staff members have lots in their plates, therefore, it becomes difficult for them to focus on students.

Thanks to the education management system like Academia ERP, it takes the load off of trivial academic operations from teachers and allows them to invest their time in students and develop their teaching approach.

It helps institutes to build a student-centric ecosystem, which enhances student performances, improves the productivity of academic management, strengthens the credibility and thereby helps the institute to grow.

Education ERP: A tool to accelerate the growth of educational institutions

Institutions are shifting to digital transformation and implementing education ERP for managing, planning, tracking and controlling its regular task from beginning to end is the fundamental step toward that development. It is helping institutes to bring better management, efficiency, and cost-saving. It is enhancing the student experience, employee engagement, and changing the dynamics of education towards exponential growth.

Academia education management system helping more than 200 institutes worldwide to reach their higher potential. What are you waiting for?

Take the step toward a better future for your institute, shift to automation with Academia. Book a FREE demo now!

7 Key Benefits of a Student Management System

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Educational institutions involve a lot of data that needs to be managed properly and systematically. It is important to streamline and manage the complete student data, and various educational institutions invest in high-performance student information systems (SIS). There are various Student Management System Benefits that we will discuss in this blog.

The cloud-based software helps in storing and organizing various student-related data in a proper and centralized manner so that it can be easily accessed, edited, and updated when they are needed. 

To understand it more properly let’s discuss some of the key benefits of using a student information system:

  • Manages Student Information

A student profile management system manages all the information related to student’s attendance, assignments, academic reports, curriculum details, project details, exam-related information, skills and achievements, medical history, address, fee, and accounts-related data easily and efficiently leading to simple and effective management for the institution. 

  • Increases productivity

It is important to choose a good and effective SIS that can help boost the productivity of your institution. An effective SIS leads to increased speed and efficiency that helps in maintaining effective records and an increased data accuracy involving lesser time helping administration and staff to focus on other important and productive tasks for the institution.

 

  • Streamlines all the operations 

In most cases, a student management system provides complete access to all the operations equipped with a dashboard that makes easier tracking of what needs to be done, who will do it, and what work needs to be done. The best part of all this is you can attain any of the student’s, faculty’s, or administrator’s information any time on a single screen within just a few clicks. It streamlines the complete academic and administrative operations of the institute making everything simple and efficient in every manner. 

It manages all your important work that is highlighted. It also improves all the tasks that are important for high productivity focusing on student’s growth. It also indicates that you can grow as an institution having complete control in just one system. 

  • Improved Communication

It is always known that every student has a different interaction level, but no matter how friendly the atmosphere in your school is, some students require special attention related to all the academic and administrative operations. A student management system comes hand-in-hand helping faculties to improve their communication properly and systematically. 

There are various reasons for which students might hesitate to discuss with faculties and administrators like fee submission, exam-related queries, etc. So having a student profile management system will be easy to communicate for students with whomever they want for any operation like fee, exam management, timetable management, and any other thing. 

  • Reduces Paperwork 

Student Management System helps institutions to manage personal records easily, it keeps complete track of student data – reducing paperwork. There are various things for which students need to manage a lot of documents like admission forms, student records, financial aid paperwork, etc. so by having an automated student system in place, students get the opportunity to access all the data easily and efficiently from anywhere and anytime along using the mobile app. 

  • Centralized access to everyone

Old were the days when parents always got their child’s information only on parents teachers meet. Using a student app parents can access any information like activities, assignments, attendance, and other relevant information. 

  • Date Security 

In an educational institution, it is quite important to secure student’s information in any case, the manual intervention involves a lot of errors along with a lot of time involvement

The traditional methods of storing documents are also prone to risks of data loss. It can be by physical damage, theft, or an accident. 

With the use of student management software, administrators can minimize that risk to the lowest. All the data is saved on the server which is encrypted with security and only a user with login credentials can access it.

So, institutions should opt for a student management system that provides data security keeping all the data security along with providing real-time access whenever required. The software provides multiple automatic backups of data to make sure you do not end up losing your valuable files.

Wrapping Up 

With the increased demand for online systems, educational institutions need to opt for a system that is student-friendly and can fulfill all the needs of students. Hope you liked this article and understood the Student Management System benefits that can help your institute and its students to focus more on productivity, and having efficient management of all the academic and administrative tasks in the institution. 

It allows institutions to focus on other productive activities rather than managing the regular student’s documentation and management as they are possible with just a few clicks. 

So what are you waiting for, choose the best student management system for your institution, and if you are interested in seeking the best system, do contact us now and we will explain to you how Academia can help institutions seek growth, productivity, and success. So do call us to know. 

5 Reasons Why ERP In Education Is the Need of the Hour

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

Education technology is paving the way for the digital development of several institutes. Students are the most important part of this chain. 

Catching the pace of students and their tech-savvy parents is now a crucial aspect of the education industry. Quality education, modern infrastructure, and a digitized management system are some of the crucial aspects they look for in education institutions.

Following this trend, the education management system or education ERP is now becoming the need of the hour. It helps streamline and integrate the complete administration processes of institutes.

What is ERP in Education?

ERP in education, usually known as a Student Information System (SIS) is an enterprise software solution to manage the complete student life cycle. It is also integrated with multiple software programs to manage departments of educational institutions.

With the help of Education ERP, it is possible to manage complete admission processes, enable online payments, monitor student records, handle human resource management, and much more.

Check this out to know more in detail about education ERP.

Here are 5 reasons why Education ERP is the need of the hour for the education sector.

1.   Prompt decision making

Imagine you have access to all the information about your business, and you can see whatever you want whenever you want. How helpful that can be!

Now you can take decisions faster, solve product, service, or employee issues more efficiently and track your business data at the click of a button. 

Just like business enterprises, educational institutes including schools and colleges also have many processes that include not only managing students and classrooms but also all sorts of administrative activities. 

With Education Management Software, the heads of institutes can take decisions quicker than with manual reports. A key feature such as generating thousands of reports with a display of data can help an institute scale rapidly and effectively. 

2.   Integrated management

If you are from the accounting department and you want to know if a student has submitted the hostel registration fee at the time of admission, you would ideally send an email or dial a number to check with the corresponding authority for details.

Ever wondered how much time gets lost in this simple process, especially while tracking thousands of students and their records?

Whichever department you are from, this software offers you the privilege to access information, you can check all details and more without any hassle, helping the staff utilize time better.

Not just the administration, but the faculty too is able to save time in attendance records management, exam and result executions, which ultimately helps them focus more on their teaching.

3. Smooth processes

This is one of the most important benefits of ERP in education. With multiple integrations of software systems, it becomes easy to regulate all the processes on a single platform.

ERP impacts all the functions across departments and removes manual intervention as much as possible. This, in turn, makes the execution of processes smooth, leading to increased efficiency and greater control of the system.

It gives the admin the power to connect and maintain data in the most efficient and effective way. Moreover, it also helps in improving communication and ensuring transparency.

4.   Increased communication

An education institution consists of three important pillars i.e. students, teachers, and parents. To run it successfully, it is important to enable strong communication between all three of them. This helps them stay updated on the activities as well as understand their expectations from the institute.

Student Management System helps institutes execute this. With a portal that has students, teachers, and parents together, the information becomes easily accessible and shareable.

Teachers can distribute assignments and check an individual’s performance via their portal anytime they want. They can also keep records on attendance, and overall performance and help students perform better wherever they lack.

Students, on the other hand, can stay updated with events, attendance, fee details, and other circulars. Similarly, the portal can help parents access their child’s progress from time to time.   

5.   More transparency and trust

It is a fact that fair communication brings transparency among people leading to an increase in trust. If employees and other stakeholders are updated with the information on a real-time basis and informed regularly, it builds their trust and respect towards an organization. 

The same goes for educational institutions. With the help of ERP, it can easily update teachers, students, and parents with relevant information. Automatic information on exams, events, circulars, assignments, and more increases the productivity of the institute.

What is your reason to use ERP in your institute?

Want to know more about ERP? Talk to us now! 

How Generation-Z will remodel the map of Education

Posted on by Hemant Mahajan

The Millenials have ruled the world but the future belongs to Generation Z. This generation is the next generation of higher education students, presently attending schools. In education, the survey states that around 93% of this generation students consider technology in the classroom essential to nurture their creativity and prepare them for their future career.

Not just technology this generation believes in social learning which is not limited to geographical borders. Online learning that is available at any time, anywhere is their must-have facility. They expect on-demand services that can help them to focus them in the right direction in their career. This generation is not just limited to Instagram and Facebook story sharing but more focused and career-driven. Most of them already involved in one or another type of business or startup and therefore they need an educational institution that can add value in their skills, that can act as a catalyst for their career. And Generation Z won’t settle for less.

What is the role of an educational institution toward generation Z?

Gen Z is the generation that is not a passive learner, they are the answer finder or if they don’t find the answer they will create the answer for the curious mind. They have an ample amount of resources to enhance their knowledge, the generation where 4G and 5G internet is delivering 24*7*365 access to all over the world.

So, how educational institutions will exist in this digital generation?

There is no doubt that any technology or any amount of internet can’t replace the human touch of education and teachers but to stay “relevant” for Gen Z, education institutions need to pace up with the digital world. 

Educational institutions need to increase their digital presence not only in the learning area but also in administrative management. These students are realistic, they believe in transparency and connectivity. Any institute without technologically advanced management system will lose the interest of Gen Z students. For proper management of student technology like SaaS, Student Information System with cutting edge technology is now the necessity for higher education institutions to maintain the admissions retentions of students. 

Coming to learning management system colleges and University are already on their way to increase their digital presence with online courses, video lectures, podcasts, and 24*7 teacher availability via portals. Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Machine Learning will rule the education sector for Generation G.

Educational Institutions have to show this generation that how their education process can make them stronger, more skilled and future-ready. 

How to meet the expectation of Gen Z?

This is the generation that is passing through the tragical events such as 9/11, 2008 financial recession, terrorism, and whatnot. Gen Z doesn’t live in a fantasy of the ideal world, they live in reality and they understand it. Emerging technology and self-reliance to get learning haven’t lost their faith in the education institutions and educator. In a recent survey by Deloitte The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2019, Gen Z has put the onus on educators for preparing workers for Industry 4.0 i.e. industries with smart factories with advanced connectivity and where whole work can be visualized to aid in decision making. 

That means the next generation of students is already putting their money on education sectors and educators, rest must be done by the educational institution. 

Now it’s the responsibility of the institution to make themselves ready to meet the expectation of the Gen Z by diving into active digital transformation, automation of the administrative system, by shifting towards a more practical approach of education and last but not the least delivering the world-class student service to help Gen Z to succeed in their future.

Back to top