Managing student services can be difficult when the data you have is anywhere and everywhere.

Unfortunately, this is often the case in larger education and training provider businesses. Because student support involves multiple lines of service – from accommodation, internships and mentoring, right through to counselling, financial assistance and childcare – it can easily involve separate software systems.

Like barnacles on the hull of a ship, these systems tend to accumulate organically over time as a private provider evolves, turning into a layered, encrusted mess. Because these systems don’t talk to each other very well, the quality of data intelligence and student experience that can be created is impacted.

The cost of having student data out of sync

When student services-related data is sitting in multiple software systems, education providers have information silos on their hands that often need to be accessed and managed manually, adding to the administration burden the institution has with all the associated costs.

As any student services or success manager will tell you, this creates a lot of difficulties for staff.

But there are bigger things at stake. Firstly, providers in this boat will struggle to extract the true value of the data at their fingertips scattered across different systems, which could be brought together in smarter ways to enhance the student services they provide and wow their students.

It also impacts the service and support experience. If students don’t receive seamless service when they seek access to services – and are shunted around from one platform to the next or are not getting access to information when they need it – it introduces friction and frustration.

Centralisation of data for student services

Educators can achieve a better services experience through smart centralisation.

Through system integration or consolidation, data that is essentially sitting offline in other software systems can be used from a centralised location. From there, educators can unlock that data to create meaningful ways of intervening and supporting student journeys in more intelligent ways.

ReadyTech’s JR Plus and VETtrak Cloud, for example, are student management systems that have been designed to bring student services data into the system and turn that information into a powerful, real-time supply and demand marketplace that matches student need with providers in all areas of student service.

Bringing together all your student needs and your availability to service them into a single screen, it is a sophisticated way for educators to both capture data related to their investments in student success and then contextualise it back into academic progress.

Over time it can even help them use consolidated student services data to measure the efficacy of their engagement and intervention investments, and start to refine their approach to student support to drive a meaningful impact on overall student outcomes.

A marketplace for student experience

Student services can help education providers set their student experience apart. Through engaging and supporting students along the learning journey – in the good times and in the tough times – they can create an experience that is positive and memorable, not just mediocre.

Data is the central tool for elevating the management of student services. Through smart centralisation of data across different systems, providers can utilise this in new ways to enhance the way they manage services and ultimately improve the outcomes of the students they support.