A Detailed Guide to Choosing the Best College Management System

Change is always good even if it is driven by a pandemic. We now see more digital transformations taking place in various sectors. The education segment is one such in which you can see colleges switching over to digital technologies to manage their operations. The college management system is tailor-made to suit colleges and universities across the entire spectrum of their activities. This is the best time to digitize your college operations, but how would you pick the right college management system with so many vendors? Read on.

The college management system or college ERP system has several modules necessary for all activities. Evaluate and see if the solution offers all these modules.

Student registration, evaluation, admissions

Admission may be on a direct basis or through entrance examinations. The software you pick should offer all these features:

  • Online application form, registration, and allotment of secure ID to each student
  • Online fees payment, confirmation of payment, and enrolment.
  • If exams are necessary, then there is an intermediary step to allow students to apply for the entrance test, undergo the test, and for the college to evaluate marks and grade students. After that, a merit list is prepared automatically, and students notified about admission and, possibly, scholarship if applicable.
  • This module will also allow students to know their status online and submit queries and for colleges to respond to queries and keep a record.

1. Attendance

It is a chore to track attendance, but this becomes an automated procedure through advanced solutions such as card attendance or biometrics if you have the college management system in place. In addition, you can generate reports using this module.

2. Teachers and timetables

The complex task of assigning classes to teachers becomes fully automated and easy when using this module of the school management system. In addition, administrators can set up schedules and timetables and even modify them if a lecturer is not available for any reason.

3. Staff administration

This module allows college management to handle staff salaries, attendance, tasks, leave, and HR functions.

4. Online tutoring and exams

One big advantage of college management systems is that you are freed from the restrictions of conducting physical classes. You can use this module to set up online audio-video tutoring classes for remote education, thereby increasing the scope of reach and number of students. Students benefit by having access to tutors and to student materials they can peruse at any time.

Likewise, online exams can be a boon for teachers and students alike. You can set dates for exams, admit students to such online exams through secure logins, keep track of their exam papers and let teachers evaluate and give scores and post results besides emailing test reports to each student. In addition, sophisticated systems will automatically check exam papers and grade students.

5. Communications

The college management software you evaluate should have first-class communication features. This is necessary should you be conducting classes online, in which case you will need a superior video conferencing solution to which students can gain access through a secure login. In addition, email from within the solution is a must since you will be communicating with students, staff, and parents on a range of topics. It also helps if you have WhatsApp included in your college management system.

6. Financials

This is important for college management. Besides general accounting and book-keeping, it will also carry out functions such as sending out automated reminders for fee payment, permit students to pay online, and then credit their account, all without human intervention. Just one operator can handle the generation of the balance sheet, ledger, profit and loss account, and daily expenses. As a result, you can know your financial status, follow up on payment collection and maintain healthy revenues. You also avoid errors that occur, such as a student’s account not being credited when paid or payments are credited to other accounts.

This module and your staff module can greatly reduce the time and effort needed for efficient, error-free administration.

This is the minimum feature set you should consider in choosing a modular college management system.

7. Security

As you will see from the above, the system gathers plenty of data related to students and staff members. You also have data relating to financial transactions. Then there is education-related data such as exam reports and scores. All these need to be segregated, and accessible only through highly secure authentication features with SSL encryption to assure total security. When you evaluate a college management system, it pays to be particular about the security aspects so that no one can access data without authorization. Thus, that data cannot be hacked and misused.

Next, evaluate the vendor.

8. Experience and testimonials

Vendors may be offering a bouquet of products apart from college management systems. Check their website to know what their capabilities are. It helps if the vendor is ready to give you a demo package on trial for a couple of months to check usability, features, access, and other parameters. The software you choose should be easy to use by everyone.

Ask if the vendor has supplied the same software to any other college, and then ask that customer about their experience with the software and with the vendor. You will get a clear picture of the capabilities of the vendor.

9. Upgrades, service support

The trend these days is to go for software as a service or the subscription model. This way, even though you pay regularly, you are freed of the expense of upgrades—the vendor automatically upgrades software and keeps it current. In addition, if there are any issues, you can expect the software provider to give you excellent and timely support.

Call us, initiate discussions, Request a demo and try out the college management system before deciding. This way, you will get the best value for money and no regrets.

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