Case Studies

In businesses with a high degree of human-to-human connection, it is especially important to use technology in a way that doesn’t take the focus from the things that matter. In these businesses, technology is successful when it effortlessly supports user interactions and facilitates connections, surfaces insights and provides services.

Trying to get children to read — especially when they would rather be outside swinging from the monkey bars or inside playing games on their devices— is no easy task for parents and educators.

2U isn’t all about algorithms and code, it’s about people — eager students, dedicated teachers, and lifelong learners. So, when the company needed to adjust for larger enrollment numbers and increase their course offerings, they didn’t want to lose their vision and purpose in the process.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) is committed to harnessing technology to improve student learning and provide ready access to quality education for everyone. DELTA is the department within NCSU spearheading this initiative; they targeted student retention as an area that could benefit from a technology-based solution.

California College of the Arts (CCA) used EQUELLA as an online archive to store and catalog work by students and faculty. Pearson Education, parent company to EQUELLA decided to make the product open-source, a benefit for many reasons, but the decision also left CCA and other institutions running the program without a support provider.

In the era of Netflix and Amazon, students increasingly expect their educational experiences to be delivered on-demand. To enable immediate access to digital resources on day one of class, higher education institutions have to get better at exchanging student information system (SIS) data with other applications, in near real-time.

A small start-up company launched a Traveler Relationship Management application to support early-stage study abroad advising while simplifying the application and pre-departure process. To achieve quick deployment of application updates, increased application reliability / availability, and improved operational transparency, the company needed a solid DevOps solution designed to strengthen infrastructure.

A large social networking company developed a program that provides a forum for developers worldwide to connect and collaborate. Developers build skills and gain experience to contribute to their knowledge base. The program allows for idea incubation while fostering a strong sense of community.

Experiments and research-gathering for education was once limited to the lab and the classroom. Today, every student’s computer is a mini research lab where educators can learn more about how students learn, and accommodate best for student success. With robust learning analytics tools available, schools can use the data about how students learn and behave to make decisions that positively impact student retention, degree attainment, and student satisfaction.

For over two years Unicon has been a core partner in the development of Jisc’s Learning Analytics Service for the UK Higher Education and Further Education sectors. During the R&D Learning Analytics Project, Unicon provided infrastructure and a blend of on-site and remote consulting support for the development of an open source predictive data model. Unicon also deployed an open source case management tool (Student Success Plan - SSP) to enable visualization of ‘at risk’ indicators from the predictive data model.