October 17, 2016
I am pleased to report on several technology initiatives that will have a major impact on students, staff and faculty at Virginia Wesleyan College.
Most of these initiatives were generously funded by an anonymous donor who had expressed interest in advancing VWC’s online program. The gift comes, in part, to support the new Center for Online Learning—conceived to facilitate access, quality, user satisfaction and collaboration opportunities for our virtual learning environment.
Although the projects were selected to optimize the online student experience, there will be wide benefits for many users.
Here is list of the technology improvements:
- Ellucian Portal, a foundational technology offering a web portal that simplifies information exchange for students, faculty and staff by giving them a single, virtual gateway to academic and administrative services.
- Colleague Self-Service Financial Aid, a Colleague module designed to help students navigate the financial aid process online.
- Touchnet’s Bill+Payment Suite with Ellucian’s Payment Center, a comprehensive online self-service “payment portal suite” for student accounts, giving students 24/7 online and mobile access to campus bills and online bill payments.
- Ellucian Mobile Platform Edition, a complete customizable mobile solution featuring native integration with our student information system, Colleague.
The improvements were a culmination of work guided by the Ellucian Action Plan. Many thanks to Robert Leitgeb, our Chief Information Officer, for his vision and leadership to move this plan forward. He describes this as a first phase in a series of planned improvements addressing gaps in our technology lines.
