Benefits of the Kuali Student Suite at Public Institutions

The Registrar’s role includes working on course catalogs, registration, curriculum management, degree audit, credit transfer, and transcript fulfillment. According to Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, when we read into that work a bit further, we see that Registrars are located at several intersections: 

1) academic life and administrative life, 

2) supporting accreditation by protecting student data and making student data actionable and 

3) improving student-led pathways and scaffolding them. 

Those intersections are fundamentally transforming the profile of the registrar. 

As you transition with the transformation of your role at your institution, consider how a technology solution could help you have the greatest impact in each of those intersections.

In this post, let’s dive into how a software solution can help the Registrar’s office elevate impact across campus. The Kuali Student Suite can help your institution in three key ways: data-back decisions, efficient programs, and the potential for a more rigorous curriculum. 

Data-Backed Decisions

Informed, data-based curricular decisions are ideal; however, many institutions struggle to produce all the data they would like to make informed decisions, lacking the staff or the technology to deliver powerful data. The resulting problems are twofold: 1) decisions are less informed and 2) when accreditation comes around, it can be difficult to produce the paperwork that demonstrates all the appropriate processes involved in curriculum management. 

With a homegrown solution, collecting the data and documenting processes required to make decisions about upcoming program changes might be complex and time-consuming. It may include manual data pulls, coordination with other staff members, and some Excel gymnastics. The result might be insights from the last 6 months. But what about historical insights? 

Creating reports was a consistent concern at the University of Victoria (UVic). After implementing the Kuali Student Suite, UVic imported years of historical data, giving them access to innumerable insights. 

“We now have a database with all of our curriculum records, which is something that our institution has never had before. That’s a wonderful asset,” said Laurie Barnas, Associate Registrar at the University of Victoria.

The Kuali Student Suite provides a database to store a historical record and collect incoming data, all of which can be reported on and used to demonstrate bureaucratic processes of curriculum approvals. Additionally, the solution can be integrated with other campus systems, enabling creative opportunities for efficiency. 

Suddenly, collecting data for data-based decisions and proof of your processes for accreditation purposes takes far less time and manual effort than it previously did. With faster reporting, and a tool that is already integrated with other campus solutions, your office has the opportunity to repurpose time and elevate the impact your office can have on students. 

Efficient Programs

In today’s competitive recruiting environment, efficient programs can improve your institution’s graduation rate, which in turn can increase funding opportunities. 

A software solution like the Kuali Student Suite can help by bringing transparency to your internal processes. For example, generate a quick report to learn how outcomes are connected at the course level. This report will give you key information you can share with faculty to make programs more efficient and/or more effective. Additionally, built-in reporting can help you locate hidden dependencies. When you locate dependencies early on, you can eliminate them before they cause delays for students.  

“[Kuali Curriculum’s] Dependency Analysis makes it so much easier to help students go through their program, and it has implications for financial aid,” said Peterson Gross, Curriculum Chair at Leeward Community College. 

With transparent processes and quick reporting, you can spend more time helping faculty and staff make strategic program changes and less time on manual data management. These strategic changes lead to a better student experience which can lead to improved retention and reputation.  

Rigorous Curriculum 

Using a software solution like the Kuali Student Suite can help you deliver data faster, you can repurpose that time for impactful work. 

At Murray State University, faculty and staff estimated saving over 200 working hours per curriculum cycle after using the Kuali Student Suite to cut down their meetings. Those hours equate to an estimated $7,000 per curriculum cycle.  

What kind of impact could your office have if you had an additional $7,000 or 200 working hours available?

Elevate the impact your office has on student learning by using that extra time to help faculty and staff develop strategic, effective, and rigorous curriculum. Use reporting and program histories to understand how courses have changed over time and measure current success. Give staff the ability to access their curriculum approvals quickly and easily, without digging through email threads, so they can be more efficient. 

Getting Started with the Kuali Student Suite

The Kuali Student Suite includes 4 modules: Curriculum Management, Catalog Management, Syllabus Management, and Kuali Build for Provosts, Registrars, and Admissions Officers, a forms and workflow solution. Learn more about how these tools can help you address the unique challenges you face on your campus today. 

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