University drives digital transformation with student-focused app

Student feedback revealed a major pain point: with more than 50 disparate systems that could be involved in a student’s journey, CQUniversity’s experience was disorganized, disjointed, and discouraging. Reflecting the problem, the Student Support Services team was inundated with support calls from confused students.

CQUniversity understood the necessity to invest in delivering a guided, consistent, seamless experience. By adopting an API integration platform to connect the varied systems and allow for information to be funnelled to a central point, the school has been able to deliver a personalized assistant that provides timely guidance and support, and helps students make sense of university life.

Today’s students are more tech-savvy than ever and recognize a good digital experience when they see it. MyCQU is designed from the ground-up to meet those expectations. A student portal reimagined, MyCQU is a student-centric, personalized, one-stop shop that guides and enables students throughout their journeys, on any device.

Through a headless, cloud-based, Sitecore Content Hub™, and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) integrated Sitecore approach, MyCQU’s agile personalization delivers information and resources hyper-relevant to a student’s situation, reducing clutter and surfacing what matters to them at exactly the right time. It works seamlessly with legacy systems, enabling the school to connect and aggregate data to create a highly integrated experience. Also, integration with Content Hub lets admins maintain and deliver an extensive content library with ease.

MyCQU has reduced the number of systems students need to log in to, delivering a simpler landscape to navigate and a powerful UX layer that interfaces with the rest of the student-facing digital CQU. And, because JSS enabled an app-like experience on the web, students get the same great experience across any device. Delivery partner Liquid Interactive pioneered a customized ADFS integration for headless, so that students and staff can log in to MyCQU using their standard university credentials, maintaining a consistent experience and removing a barrier to adoption.

Beyond dramatically reducing the number of systems students need to log in to, MyCQU is now an integral part of the University’s communications strategy, utilizing features such as alerts, notifications, and spotlights to keep students informed of changes relevant to them. Also, the app is transforming the way CQUniversity is interacting with and guiding students, along with additional transformative benefits.

For example, the app has essentially doubled student engagement in promoted spotlight opportunities and nearly doubled the number of Commonwealth Assistance Forms lodged for the same term the previous year.

Students report that MyCQU is easy to access and navigate, and they praise its mobile usability, saying that it provides a one-stop shop with access to key platforms, it’s not cluttered by unnecessary information, and it surfaces important reminders.

MyCQU was also designed to enable onboarding of new capabilities to further enhance the digital student experience. A componentized development approach, well-supported by Sitecore XP, allows for rapid updates and enhancements.