Canberra Uni takes out Benchmark Award for best education project with UC Student 360

The University of Canberra has taken out the top spot for education IT projects at the 2018 iTnews Benchmark Awards for its UC Student 360 customer relationship management project.

This ambitious project leveraged Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online to combine a vast array of digital tools and systems to automate more than 200 workflows, channelling enquiries around the uni to the proper department and providing a clearer path for communication.

Current and prospective students alike benefit from the new platform, which brings together data and course information in a more streamlined, accessible manner.

As a result, staff can obtain a more holistic view of students to tailor programs and marketing efforts in ways that combine efficient resource use and maximum engagement.

To learn more about all the winners and finalists, download our iTnews Benchmark Awards e-magazine here.

By the end of 2018, UC Student 360 had handled a quarter of a million cases and sent over one million tailored messages, and saves the university $1.84 million a year by replacing redundant, duplicated or obsolete systems.

The university's deputy director of projects Rebecca Armstrong said at the Benchmark Awards that UC Student 360, like most initiatives she works on, has been driven by the rampant change within the education sector, and hasn't always been smooth sailing.

"This project that we’ve won for has been really quite difficult," Armstrong said.

"Bringing consumer technology into the education space where we have academics, whose job it is to debate with us - even if we have the same point, and that’s really important - but what we’ve seen is student change."

"Now we have students not having to walk from faculty to faculty to the student centre to answer questions."

On top of that, the uni's AI chatbot Lucy can plug into the system to take over from human operators of an evening and answer student queries.

Read more about the project here.

Winners were announced at the iTnews Benchmark Awards gala dinner held at KPMG’s Sydney Office in Barangaroo.

To learn more about all the winners and finalists, download our iTnews Benchmark Awards e-magazine here.