So, you’ve finally just settled on a CRM, upgraded your ERP and SIS, and you’re thinking about why your LMS isn’t more like Google Apps or Facebook.  You’ve probably got a portal, and if you’re lucky students think it’s not ugly.  Maybe your school just decided to go with Google Apps.  Let’s face it, your stack keeps getting more complex to meet the increasing needs on IT.  Now people keep talking about Cloud Computing in Higher Education, to boot.

But all of these major IT components are “Management Systems.”  They allow someone in some office to manage data, input forms, and process reports.  They allow professors to post documents and students to take assessments and check their grades.  They’re good at what they do -  allow people to “manage” stuff.

Lately, though, there’s lots of talk about Student Engagement in Higher Education.  You can check the data and see where they’re engaged online:  Facebook, blogs, Youtube… in effect: Social Media.  So where’s our Social Media in Higher Education?  Where’s that part of the IT stack?  What’s on the menu for CIOs to provide something that students will enjoy engaging with?

I’d like to introduce you to a concept.  No, wait, it’s a whole new category: a Lifecycle Engagement Platform.  At Inigral, we think it’s the next generation component of your technology stack.   Unlike an LMS, an LEP focuses on social needs for connection and engagement, both across the student lifecycle and across the enterprise.  It helps foster relationships and create results.

Want to see which of your friends are going to be in your classes next term?  Want to find an alumni career mentor?  Want to see everyone on campus who’s from Boise?  Want to find people to help start a project based on your research interests?  Go to the LEP.

This need for an LEP came out of conversations with over a hundred thought -leading institutions.  At Inigral, our charter since our founding was to figure out Facebook Applications for Higher Education. We’ve talked with administrators, thought-leaders, staff, admissions, student affairs, career services, alumni development, students, prospects, and alumni to find the intersection of desired and appropriate interaction.

We listened, and we came up with the defining set of criteria of this Lifecycle Engagement Platform:

1. It needs to be a destination for everyone from early stage prospects through to alumni, and it needs to intelligently handle who each user is and how they relate to the institution
2. It needs to hook into and leverage the open social web in places like Facebook
3. It needs to be private and secure and integrate into the core technology stack where appropriate, like getting enrollments out of an SIS or put activity data into a CRM
4. It needs to focus solely on engagement and not on management or official communications; and the use cases should all be around internal communications and marketing rather than “administrivia”.

I believe that the LEP will quickly become an important component of the technology stack.  It will drive a sense of community and belonging using online tools that were not possible before the innovation of the social web.  It will ultimately have an impact on efforts to meet goals in Yield, Retention, and Giving.

Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts on the Lifecycle Engagement Platform.