Increasingly, educational institutions are moving away from their highly customized ERP solutions, and towards more flexible, cloud-based solutions. In fact, according to Gartner, by 2018, at least 30 percent of service-centric companies will move the majority of their ERP applications to the cloud. That’s because the cloud offers greater flexibility that monolithic, postmodern ERP simply doesn’t provide.
The needs of educational institutions are constantly changing as technology marches forward because colleges and universities are expected to be on the forefront of any new technology. Students come to college expecting the latest tech and apps to supplement their education, and this can be difficult to accomplish with a legacy ERP system that isn’t flexible enough to meet changing educational and business needs.
So the solution seems to be moving ERP applications to the cloud, and embracing a hybrid approach that keeps a small core of on-premise ERP functions, combined with cloud point solutions. These loosely coupled suites of cloud functionality will bring with them integration challenges for the institutions that adopt them.
That’s where N2N and our Illuminate platform step in. Illuminate acts as the plumbing between an educational institution’s cloud-based apps and their legacy ERP systems, providing seamless and secure data transfer from each system. Illuminate takes each department’s existing, disparate systems and acts as a translator, allowing them to communicate with each other.
Illuminate allows users to calibrate and manage APIs, set security layers and cross walk variables without coding or help from IT. This is known as a Hybrid Integration Platform. Illuminate is special because it’s the first commercially available HIP in the higher education market. With Illuminate, colleges and universities have a simple, low-cost solution to for all their integration needs, and they can rest easy knowing that they can add any cloud-based application as needed. So when the next great mobile app comes calling, colleges will be able to easily integrate and implement the app on campus.
At N2N, our goal has always been solving the integration problems of institutions, no matter what market they are in. It won’t be long before more institutions make the switch to the cloud to solve their ERP problems, and when they do, they’re going to need a smart, inexpensive integration solution.
Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about Illuminate and to set up a demonstration for you and your team.
At N2N, our goal is to solve the systems integration challenges of educational institutions and support an integrated digital campus. We achieve this by helping our partners and their clients with all of their integration needs, using our state-of-the-art Integration Platform as a Service. Now, colleges and universities are able to easily integrate new, cloud-based apps with their existing IT apps and systems in a cost-effective manner. Illuminate acts a translator for these disparate apps and systems, allowing them to integrate seamlessly with each other.
Students and faculty may not know it, but when they use their mobile apps, they’re accessing information from several different departments, and this information has to get to them quickly and securely. At N2N, we want those apps to be as safe and effective as possible, and that’s why we’ve teamed up with Modo Labs to combine our services and make it easier than ever for colleges and universities to develop and implement their own mobile apps.
Using their Kurogo Platform, Modo Labs is putting powerful mobile implementation and development capabilities directly into the hands of non-developers. So instead of hiring costly app developers or expensive consultants, higher education institutions can develop mobile apps that are ideal for their campus’without the traditional costs. Kurogo’s unique combination of data access, powerful pre-built functionality, and ease-of-use dramatically reduces mobile development time and costs.
The combination of Kurogo and Illuminate provides colleges and universities with the ability to design mobile apps that fit their needs, and to make sure that those apps will be effectively integrated with their present systems. The broad range of disparate data sources faced by most universities can be easily integrated and accessed through N2N’s powerful Illuminate data engine, and in turn, quickly mobilized into a rich mobile experience through the Kurogo mobile app assembly platform.
Kiran Kodithala, President and CEO of N2N Services, puts it like this. “Students, Administrators and Faculty at campuses have been looking for a comprehensive mobile app that they can use for student engagement and student success. This partnership gives institutions of higher education the best of all worlds. While N2N provides secure enterprise data access, Modo Labs offers the best-of-breed front-end mobile experience that makes it possible to quickly leverage that data on any device.”
The partnership between N2N and Modo Labs is a dramatic step towards our goal of a fully integrated campus, where students can access their information at any time, and be sure that their personal data is safe and secure on the app they are using. Kurogo and Illuminate are two powerful platforms that together are changing the way colleges and universities think about their options for mobile applications.
At N2N, we pride ourselves on our partnerships with some of the most innovative companies in higher education, and we’re not done yet. If you’d like to hear more about how partnering with N2N Services can help your business, then contact us today.
At N2N, we’re proud of our background in higher education and the service we provide to colleges and universities around the country. Illuminate is an invaluable asset to colleges that are running more and more apps and systems each year, and looking for a way to securely integrate them all. We know Illuminate is a boon for higher education institutions, but that’s not the only place it can work. Yes, we pride ourselves on helping colleges, but we also pride ourselves on our ability to make our services work for a diverse group of businesses and institutions.
Now that businesses are using the cloud without the reservations that they once had when it first came onto the scene, there are certain issues that almost all businesses face ones that aren’t limited to colleges. The cloud allows businesses to easily store and access data and applications using any device, without having to deal with expensive hardware purchases. This boosts productivity and efficiency, while driving down costs. With the growth of cloud-based applications, companies ended up using these apps along with older on-premise legacy applications. The trick is getting all of these to work together, whether they’re cloud-based or on-premise.
And that?s exactly what Illuminate does. Illuminate is what’s called an iPaaS, or Integrated Platform as a Service. It acts as a central hub to integrate all of the applications a business uses, whether cloud-based or on-premise. So there usually isn’t any hardware to install, and our “concierge approach” means that we provide integration as a service, with no lengthy training required for implementation. No matter what combination of legacy, on-premises systems and cutting-edge SaaS applications your business uses, Illuminate acts as a central hub to integrate them all. It allows each program to communicate with every other program seamlessly and securely, and makes it easy to accommodate the addition of as many new applications as may be necessary in the future.
One dashboard within Illuminate allows administrators to view and monitor transactions that pass through the system, to ensure that information input into any one application will instantly be shared with all other participating applications as well, so that all systems are always up-to-date and coordinated.
Don?t think that all these transactions lead to less security, though. Illuminate allows for central management and monitoring of data transfers, helping to ensure compliance with all regulations.
At N2N, we know a college can,t be run just like a business, but we also know that businesses today face many of the same challenges as higher education institutions as they look to the cloud to handle their applications. With Illuminate, no longer will employees need to update several different systems with new data, or search through several different applications to find information. Illuminate automates those tedious tasks, freeing up resources for other projects.
The traditional method of teaching and learning at colleges and universities has long been the lecture. And there?s nothing inherently wrong with the lecture format. Students come to class to listen and take notes on the lecture given by a professor. But the lecture hall format has come under fire in recent years because of the lack of student and professor interaction. While the lecture remains a great way for a professor to provide students with a wealth of information in a relatively short time, an increasing amount of college faculty are trying what?s known as a flipped classroom.
In a flipped classroom, students are required to watch lecture videos and use online forums outside of the classroom, and then come to class ready to engage in more advanced topics and project-based learning. Flipped classrooms have been gaining traction lately, in part because professors report that they see an increase in student engagement and student learning. It makes sense if you think about it. Students are expected to learn the basics on their own, using their own devices and technology. Then they come to class to discuss what they?ve learned and handle problems that may have arisen.
In theory, a flipped classroom engages the students in a way that a packed lecture hall just doesn?t allow. However, as with all education techniques, there have been speed bumps for faculty to overcome. Too much emphasis on the work outside of class gives students little reason to come to class, especially if they don?t encounter problems. Faculty have to design a new curriculum that encourages both sides of the work?coming to class and work at home. Another problem is that most high schools simply don?t use the flipped classroom technique, and students come to college lacking the skills and self-discipline required to complete the work assigned outside the classroom.
But why is the flipped classroom seeing so much of a surge in recent years? The answer is that the technology at colleges and universities has become incredibly user friendly. Combined with incoming students? familiarity with high-tech devices, this means professors can assign video lectures and other online work knowing that their students will be able to access and learn from them without problems. Today?s students are comfortable sitting on their couch and accessing the same information that used to only come from attendance at a lecture hall. This means the classroom experience needs to change, as well. If students can access a lecture on their laptop, then there needs to be something new and engaging awaiting them in the classroom.
New software and applications provide faculty with increasingly innovative ways of reaching their students with the information they need to succeed in the classroom. At N2N, we understand that the need for applications and systems on a college campus is always growing and evolving. That?s why we?ve designed the?Illuminate platformto be the revolutionary system and application integration tool that your college needs. Contact N2N Services today for more information.
Educause recently published their Research Snapshot, Top 10 IT Issues 2016. We?d like to give you N2N?s perspective on some of these important issues, and our thoughts on how our Illuminate platform can help institutions address these areas.
First on the list is Information Security. This is a perennial concern, and is an area that has consistently, and justifiably, been a top issue for IT leaders. Concern is needed, as our interconnected world opens many avenues for malfeasance. N2N?s Illuminate platform can be an asset here, as one of its core value propositions is to make it easier for users to manage data interconnections between applications. Having a central platform with controls for data exchange and logging of transactions helps users understand where and to whom data is moving.
Educause states that technology leaders must work with academic leadership and faculty to Optimize Educational Technology. That is certainly true, and especially so in today?s fast-moving world where an institution?s perceived competitiveness can be tied to its ability to seamlessly integrate its administrative and academic technologies. N2N?s Illuminate platform has out-of-the-box adapters for many popular ed-tech (educational technology) applications, and also creates application programming interfaces to institutional data that can be leveraged by in-house developers.
Student Success Technologies are critical to improve educational outcomes. Leveraging technology means sharing data, and unfortunately, much institutional data is stuck in its own silo, and each time it needs to be provided to a new, innovative application, a customized interface must be written and maintained. N2N?s Illuminate addresses this by leveraging its core Enterprise Service Bus technology to convert a complex web of interconnections and a ?one-to-one? integration philosophy to a ?one-to-many? paradigm, helping an institution to be nimble in its use of changing tools.
Enterprise Application Integrations (#8)?are a key to efficient and effective institutional operations, and are the core value proposition of the N2N Illuminate platform. The Illuminate platform?s ready-to-use adapters for common educational enterprise applications makes it easy to connect legacy systems to its Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). This ?one-to-many? connectivity model allows technical staff to focus on areas where they add unique value to their organization rather than continually building and maintaining a mesh of ?one-off? connections.
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