Lehigh Carbon Community College Streamlines Curriculum Management to Save Time & Increase Faculty Engagement
Explore the case studyThank you to James Ayrton, Associate Dean of Curriculum, Assessment, and Articulation at Lehigh Carbon Community College for sharing his Coursedog experience with us.
Institutional Overview
Institution Type: Community College
Location: Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
SIS: Ellucian Banner
The Challenge
1. Time-Consuming Manual Processes
Prior to Coursedog, LCCC’s curriculum management process was extremely time consuming as it heavily relied on manual work across disparate systems.
“Making just one change in the curriculum process would take us about seven hours of manual effort.”
2. Lack of Faculty Visibility
Due to disparate systems, the LCCC faculty and staff didn’t have visibility into the curriculum process, which made it difficult to understand and implement changes effectively.
Previously, there was no way for our team to visualize for faculty how a change in one course requirement would impact multiple other programs.”
The Solution
Streamlined Curriculum Management Software
LCCC is partnering with Coursedog to implement a bi-directionally integrated curriculum management solution that provides a more transparent, automated approach.
“What I'm looking forward to most is having everybody at the campus, especially faculty, be able to go in and see exactly what the curriculum looks like and then be able to make changes and see the impact of those changes.”
Coursedog vs. the Competition
While other vendors were discussed, Coursedog was the only software that felt intuitively easy-to-use. The drag-and-drop workflow feature especially stood out in comparison to competitors’ offerings.
“We had researched curriculum software in the past, but none of it had stood out. When I saw Coursedog’s tutorial video, I was very impressed with how intuitive it actually was. I felt Coursedog had come up with something that made a whole lot more sense.”
The Implementation
A True Partnership Experience
One of the main reasons LCCC loves working with Coursedog is the reliability of their Customer Success team. Throughout the implementation, they valued the depth of support and guidance from their dedicated Project Manager and Data Engineer.
“If there was only one reason, it would be that the people who work at Coursedog act as true partners to our institution. It’s clear our school is not just a number but it’s a personable experience.”
The Results
1. Time Savings
LCCC anticipates a 50% reduction in time spent on curriculum changes.
“We believe that Coursedog’s software will help us go from seven hours per change to three hours per change. Based on an average number of changes in a year, we foresee saving +580 hours every year.”
2. Increased Faculty Engagement
LCCC believes that a centralized curriculum solution will enable faculty to more easily understand the curriculum process. LCCC anticipates more curriculum changes in the coming year due to a lower barrier to participation for faculty members.
“I’m interested to see how faculty having a better understanding of the curriculum process will increase their participation.”
3. New Student-Centric Initiatives
With all the time savings, LCCC’s registrar team is turning their focus to impacting student success by improving the curriculum transfer process and optimizing their student pathways.
“Now I might actually have time to take care of more strategic initiatives. We don’t need to spend time on collecting signatures and instead do something that's going to help the college move forward.”