How to Develop a University Management Software

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KindGeek

Developing a University Management Software is a sure way of saving teachers’ time, boosting productivity, and ensuring the establishment’s relevance.

Digital technologies force a fight for relevance and competitive edge upon establishments from all industries, and education is not an exception. Even though education will always be relevant, educational establishments that fail to address modern trends may fall behind the competition.

Developing a university management software becomes a necessity as it helps ensure that an establishment is at the forefront of the industry on top of boosting productivity, decreasing overhead costs, and optimizing the educational process. Digitization of education is not a fashionable trend anymore, but a way of ensuring that a university is as efficient as possible.

This article will describe the functionality of university management software, its types. advantages, and peculiarities.

University Management Software Types and Purposes

University Management Software is a complex digital solution that combines different systems for managing a university’s operations and automating some aspects of the educational process.

There is not a strict differentiation of university management systems, but the system’s functionality can be divided into groups depending on what parts of a university’s workflow they target.

The most prevalent types of university management software include:

1. Academic software

The very core of university management software — academic software — is a combination of tools that help to automate and monitor students’ academic journey and make the bureaucratic aspect of teaching significantly less taxing.

Academic software is a complex solution that can combine:

Progress monitoring. It helps to monitor the progress of each student from the start of their academic journey to the degree. It provides access to a student’s grades, the status of assigned tasks, information on their supervisors and teachers, etc.

Examination management. It allows passing exams remotely using computers or tablets, provides a tool for monitoring results, and helps create new tests and tasks. The system also automates the evaluation of the completed tests.

Online Submissions. It allows students to submit and update the status of their works online without the necessity to visit the establishment.

Degree management. Automates the degree distribution and keeps track of issued degrees as well as requested amendments.

With proper academic software, student-teacher cooperation becomes transparent, fluid, and quick. Professors are always up-to-date with their students’ successes and shortcomings and can easily manage all academic tasks while the students’ academic journey is intuitive and feedback is instant.

2. Finance and Accounting Management

Finance and accounting software helps monitor and manage budget and expenses, conduct and receive online payments. In addition, the software can help to create reports and provide financial statistics. Overall, it helps to deal with taxes and better plan future expenses because everything is transparent and easy to track.

Finance and accounting are bureaucratic pain and frustrating work in all industries. Therefore, the finance and accounting management is a must in a decent university management software.

3. HR software

HR software stores information about all employees, their working hours and responsibilities, On top of that, the software helps to count salary based on the provided information.

High-school management software can combine different types of functionality as well as have unique features depending on the requirements of the particular establishment.

4. Department Management

A university is a complex system that consists of many different departments that have to be in sync with each other to ensure the proper functioning of the school. Department management software provides a cloud-based hub that stores and helps manage all required information and makes it available to all departments. As a result, the university functions seamlessly.

5. Inventory and Library Management

Helps to keep track of all items and equipment available in a university’s storage and required to successfully run the facility. The same is for a library. If there is a plentiful number of books in the library, it can be difficult to manage. Specialized software can help to keep the library in check and order.

Features of University Management Software

University management software grants a lot of different features that boost productivity and make it much easier to run an educational establishment. With an extensive higher-school management system, a university obtains:

1. A Single Control Panel

Management software provides a single system for managing all the departments, learning courses, staff, and students. No need for complex bureaucratic structures, cumbersome paperwork, and significant administrative efforts to manage the university.

2. Great Communication Tool

No need to rely on third-party services to establish smooth communication between departments and employees as with the university management system the establishment can have its very own secure communication tool.

3. Secure Data Storage

Quality software grants centralized data storage protected from physical damage, criminal intent, and malicious information manipulation in addition to making it easier to update and manage information.

4. Convenient Reporting and Statistics Tool

With all required information “within arm’s reach” and modern software capabilities, creating statistics and reports becomes a breeze in comparison to the previously required manual efforts.

5. An Instrument to Get Rid Of Tiresome Paperwork

With the automation that software grants, there is no need for tons of miserable paperwork the university employees should endure in order to keep the facility running.

6. Simplified Decision-Making

It is much easier to plan for the future having a university management software in place considering all the strategic benefits it provides.

Reasons Why Modern Universities Can’t Do Without Management Software

The issues education is facing are similar to the ones HealthCare deals with: bureaucracy, high burn-out rates, and ineffective processes. In addition to that, traditional educational establishments face a new and harsh competitor — online courses, which despite the lack of prestige and networking possibilities the former offers, can provide the required knowledge and skills in a convenient package. Implementing university management software is the most certain way of targeting modern issues, boosting the establishment’s efficiency, and decreasing the amount of repetitive work.

Thus, there are three primary reasons why universities require management software.

1. Relevancy

The youth knows well the convenience that technology grants. Students are aware there is no more a necessity to visit a university as often as previously, to print or write everything on paper, memorize tons of information by heart, or even be physically present in the school to pass exams if the required technology is in place. And the realization that an educational establishment wastes the opportunities digitization grants, by sticking to the conventions of the past and wasting everyone’s time, can be extremely frustrating. While online courses are flourishing, building a university management system can be a crucial step in the higher school’s development.

If academic software is well adjusted and comprehensive, the necessity to visit an establishment is minimal for a student. As a result, students can save their time and money otherwise spent on a daily commute. It is a serious competitive advantage for any higher school.

2. Efficiency

“It’s just bureaucratic paper filling, data-driven, mind-numbingly useless work they’re doing for accountability purposes rather than raising standards of teaching and learning,” claimed Mary Bousted, a leader of the English Association of Teachers and Lecturers, describing the paperwork teachers have to perform.

Bureaucracy leeches on teachers and lectures taking away their precious time they could be spending actually teaching, improving their skills, or simply resting, which is important in their mind-taxing job.

One survey of 1200 teachers showed that “despite being aware of the workload challenges before entering teaching, it was still the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for wanting to leave in the future.”

One of the surveyed teachers stated, “I feel I came into teaching for all the right reasons (passionate about my subject, a strong work ethic and a love of watching students learn) but am leaving for all the wrong reasons (workload, specification changes, not being able to have a life and too many classes).”

A university management software can help target this issue and decrease the amount of this mind-numbing work that teachers, lecturers, and professors have to endure daily.

3. Flexibility

Easier communication between departments and employees, automation of routine tasks and internal operations, decreased workload, convenient centralized and secured storage of university data, powerful online education capabilities will make the establishment more flexible, adaptable, and sustainable. It would be much easier to change the strategic course of a  university, react to current trends, implement new and innovative managerial solutions with higher school management software in place.

It is difficult to predict for sure what the future holds for the educational sphere considering the pace of progress and shifting social views and ideas regarding the matter. However, one thing is for certain — only establishments that are able to keep up with the pace and deliver the most relevant and viable service will stay at the top.

Custom Higher School Management Solutions

If a university requires a software solution, the establishment can buy out-of-the-box software created to suit the most prevalent requirements. However, such software is not tailored to target specific needs of a given university as well as has other drawbacks in comparison to custom-build software.

A university that decides to create a custom management solution obtains the following benefits:

Long-term cost efficiency. Out-of-the-box software management may be cheaper to start with, but associated costs do not decrease as time goes by. The costs can even start growing with the growth of the university or due to the changes in the provider’s pricing policy. With custom software, you do not have to pay licensing fees, and a management system you receive stays relevant to the establishment longer.

Better productivity. The custom university management system does not have any generalizations of functionality that limit its efficiency for the sake of universality. A custom solution is created with a particular higher school in mind. It is an ideal fit for the establishment’s unique needs. As a result, it provides a greater productivity boost.

Software that grows as the establishment does. Custom software, unlike the mass-market one, can evolve together with the university, changing and improving as the needs or the size of the establishment change. No need to wait for another update of the out-of-the-box solution and hope that it would target issues you want it to target.

For instance, the University of Basel decided to develop a custom university management software, MedMe Web Service, to help manage its personnel and decrease the amount of paperwork.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Higher Education Management System?

The cost of building a higher education management system depends on the following factors

  • The complexity of the system
  • The platform the system will run on
  • Time taken for development
  • A software development company’s rates
  • The necessity to use Business Analysis expertise

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an average price for creating a university management system considering the number of factors. Nonetheless, a software development company can provide you with estimates of costs required to develop higher school management software if you provide them with requirements.

The most certain way of figuring out how much will the development of university management software costs is to conduct a discovery phase. The discovery phase will not only provide you with the most accurate estimates of future costs but will deliver you, depending on the chosen package:

  • Product concept from Product Manager
  • Prototypes from Business Analyst
  • Visual concept from UI/UX Designer
  • Architecture concept from System Architect
  • Estimates of development costs

As a result, you will have a price as well as a tangible foundation for the full-scale product.

Conclusion

The world moves forward at an incredible pace, organizations, regardless of the industry they belong to, should keep up with the pace to stay relevant. Education is particularly susceptible in this regard considering that it should  reflect the zeitgeist and prepare people for work. Thus, higher schools can receive serious competitive advantage and ensure that their future in the industry is secured by implementing university management software.

KindGeek has broad experience developing ERP systems as well as the university management software. We are equipped to deliver reliable and secure software regardless of the platform and well-versed in creating digital solutions for the education industry. We would gladly assist you in building university management software for your educational establishment.

If you think we can help you, contact us.

This article was originally posted here.