OutSystems announced today that a growing number of colleges and universities are turning to low-code development to face the challenges of the digital era. Kent State University and Georgia Tech are just two examples of higher education institutions that are already using low-code application development platforms to improve the experience of their students while delivering innovative solutions and escaping the constraints of legacy systems.   

“Kent State has a vision to be a community of change agents and we are putting technology into action to help us deliver on that vision,” said Sameer Jaleel, Director, Platforms and Integration Solutions at Kent State University. “Adopting OutSystems as our strategic development platform has allowed us to quickly transform into a digital enterprise and deliver new applications in an efficient manner.” 

As the competition to attract and retain students continues to grow, universities and colleges are being pressured to deliver better digital experiences for their students. These experiences include better customer service and more convenient interactions with the institutions, ranging from enrollment and course registration to work submission and booking of labs / classrooms. 

However, in the 2018-2019 State of Application Development Higher Education report, 65 percent of IT professionals said they have an app dev backlog and 80 percent of respondents described app dev talent as scarce, with hiring taking longer and costing more, crippling their ability to innovate.

“Many colleges and universities are burdened with multiple legacy systems that are hard to adapt,” explains Mike Hughes, product evangelist at OutSystems. “These slow down innovation, making it hard and unnecessarily expensive to launch new and improved digital experiences for students.”

“OutSystems integrates with pretty much everything, allowing colleges and universities to add features and capabilities to existing systems, thus modernizing them without requiring a complete ‘rip-and-replace’ approach,” continues Hughes. “The low-code visual development approach is up to 10 times faster than traditional coding, helping education establishments accelerate digital innovation without lengthy ramp-up, hiring, or retraining delays.”

Higher education institutions have adopted OutSystems to deliver better experiences to their students and gain an advantage in the reputation race against other universities -- some examples include:

• Georgia Tech built a web-based application for 2,500 users to check availability and reserve any of its nearly 400 pieces of advanced lab equipment in just 15 weeks. Since the institution adopted OutSystems, it has saved $540,000 on programming. 
• The Kent State University developed two apps to improve the experience of students who live on campus and streamline workflows related to information requests and approvals. The first app empowers students to self-register their wireless smart devices onto the university’s secure Wi-Fi system, while the second replaces paper processes, enabling students to easily request and apply for various services at the university.
• College Bound created an application that helps high school counselors gather information about students’ college plans and apply that information to prioritize their actions.
• The University of Georgia is using OutSystems as the platform for its technology course for business analysts. The university chose OutSystems low-code platform as its development capabilities catered to both technical and non-technical students.   

More details about these case studies and how OutSystems can help higher education institutions regain their competitiveness can be found on the OutSystems website.