2019 UNC CAUSE

Faced with aging web technology, low student engagement, and a fragmented list of cloud-based services, North Carolina Central University (NCCU) changed its web infrastructure to better serve the campus community. In this session, members of NCCU's Web Services will demo their new campus portal and share how it was done.

With the increased adoption of cloud-based services and third-party applications, students are having to access a widening variety of resources that can often leave one feeling fragmented and disjointed. At North Carolina Central University, we have developed a virtual one-stop-shop portal ("myEOL") that pulls actionable information from many different sources into a single dynamic online environment. 

During the presentation, the “dynamic duo” will begin by providing a PowerPoint presentation that showcases what the portal looked like before the redesign project began. The presenters will outline the problems faced, offer context by sharing the previous solutions, and then transition to a live demo of the new portal with details on how it was done. 

Specifically, the in-house developers started with an Adobe ColdFusion web server that was hosted on-campus and built with years of custom code that was not agile enough to pivot in response to the student’s needs. Realizing the opportunity to better serve its campus community, the University decided to move away from the aging technology and adopt Drupal 8 in the cloud. 

Through a live demonstration, the presenters will show off the new portal, highlight areas that pull important actionable information from external sources using APIs and discuss the strategy to keep students engaged and returning often by installing modules that help create a thriving online community. 

In the final segment, the audience will have an opportunity to interact with the team responsible for developing the new portal and ask specific questions around strategy and technology used. 

Participants will: 

* Understand how to leverage analytics and personalization to improve the student’s journey. 

* Identify ways to eliminate fragmentation of data and resources. 

* Recognize opportunities to extend existing service offerings through APIs.