Western Nevada College
College transforms its digital application process, leading to large enrollment and application gains, with Hyland’s OnBase.
The challenge
At one point, the online application process at Western Nevada College was so cumbersome that counselors visited local high schools and helped the students fill out applications.
Western Nevada College’s legacy system “had no mobile responsiveness,” Co-Director of IT Troy Wadsworth said. Also problematic were slow load times, limited customization, minimal automation and integration capabilities, and an outdated user interface.
“The biggest thing, though, that was a huge frustration with our staff and our students was just the interface,” Wadsworth said. “Our application would literally take 30 minutes to fill out. And it was horrible on the mobile phone or tablet. You literally had to do it at a desktop.”
That was especially problematic for a school with three campuses that cover a wide area of Nevada, including rural areas in which fax machines aren’t readily available.
“What we had to do is innovate that process to help students be able to turn in their documents easily,” Wadsworth said.
The solution
Western Nevada College, an Oracle PeopleSoft School, is a longtime user of OnBase, Hyland’s content services platform. Rather than “spending hundreds of thousands of dollars” on a new third-party application, Wadsworth worked with Hyland to develop an in-house solution to the college’s application dilemma.
It was a huge undertaking — one made more challenging by the small size of the school’s IT department. Wadsworth and two programmers, aided by the flexibility of OnBase, completely revamped the college’s application process.
Utilizing OnBase Unity Forms, which simplify the creation of electronic forms via a point-and-click designer and built-in security and validation controls, Western Nevada College developed a digital application that was cleaner and built for mobile users.
“There are other schools that are here in Nevada, they have full-time programmers. They can build out an HTML, an application,” Wadsworth said. “We didn’t have that coming from the community college. That’s why the Unity Forms were so attractive, because it made it so much simpler for somebody that didn’t have a programming background to go in there and build this out.”
> Watch the webinar: How Western Nevada College streamlined admissions with modern content services
3
Campuses
14%
Enrollment increase with new application
111%
Increase in applications — in a 10-month span
The difference
Excellent user experiences: The new application is “very, very mobile friendly,” Wadsworth said.
And because the entire school uses OnBase, the experience is now consistent.
“When the student fills out the admissions app, it’s a Unity Form,” Wadsworth said. “When they go in and start doing their degree change form or their financial aid form or their verification form, it looks exactly the same. The student is used to it. All our forms are on the phone. Everything is standardized across the board, and that’s been a huge help for our staff and students.”
Highly customizable: Wadsworth’s team met frequently with admissions, marketing, financial aid and other school departments. The flexibility that comes with OnBase’s electronic forms proved to be crucial.
“They would say, ‘Hey, can it do this, can it do that? Can that form do this?’ 99.9% of the time, yes, it could,” Wadsworth said. “We just had to collaborate, and collaboration is the key to a successful application.”
Enhanced security: Western Nevada College developed a fraud detector that flags applications that seem suspicious. The automated process checks for invalid email addresses and information that might be purposely left out by scammers.
Increased accessibility: The new application meets accessibility standards, which was made possible by OnBase’s Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates.
“The accessibility on Unity Forms is fantastic,” Wadsworth said.
A sizable ROI: Saving money by developing a new application process in-house is nice. Even better, though, are the application and enrollment gains Western Nevada College has experienced since the new program launched.
The college had been averaging about 2,650 applications a year. In the first 10 months after the debut of the new digital application, the tally more than doubled — to 5,600, Wadsworth said.
The school’s full-time enrollment has increased 14%. Wadsworth attributes quite a bit of that success to the new application.
“We all know having a nice application is basically the front door of your store,” he said.
The feedback from students, leadership and even other schools has been overwhelmingly positive. One of Western Nevada College’s sister institutions was so impressed that the school is utilizing OnBase to develop a similar application process.
“Using OnBase and using Unity Forms and using the Hyland platform has been revolutionary for our schools,” Wadsworth said. “It has made our enrollment go up, it has made happy students, and happy students make for happy staff, and happy staff makes for happy faculty. It has been a game-changer for Western Nevada College.”
Using OnBase and using Unity Forms and using the Hyland platform has been revolutionary for our schools. … It has been a game-changer for Western Nevada College.
— Troy Wadsworth, Co-Director of IT, Western Nevada College