Well-Architected Solutions for Continuing Education

Executive, professional and continuing education programs offer post degree certificates for professionals who are looking to advance their careers. These programs have different names and serve a different purpose, which can range from professional license renewals to simply advancing knowledge to keep up with changing business trends. Despite these nuances, the underlying business capabilities and the solutions that support them are similar.

Universities around the world are increasingly offering these types of programs, as they generate revenue that can help reduce the need to increase tuition and other costs for undergrad and graduate students as well as providing support for other programs. Due to the types of courses offered and target audience, the departments that run these programs have a unique set of requirements that differ from the ones seen in other parts of higher ed organizations.

Delivering a connected digital experiences for these types of programs requires a modernization effort for most institutions as many post degree certificate programs currently rely on outdated heavily customized solutions to automate their processes. You can design well-architected solutions for organizations offering post degree certificate programs by understanding their capabilities and associated business processes along with the supporting technology.

Business Capabilities

The diagram below outlines the business capabilities that are typically associated with an organization offering post degree certificate programs:

Below is a description of each of these capabilities and their related processes:

• Program Planning — Post degree certificate programs can be open to to the public (open enrollment) or customized for employees of a specific organization and may or may not have prerequisites. Program planning and creation involves working with faculty members to identify requirements, content and other logistics, such as whether the program will be offered in-person or remote, and how long it will be.
• Participant Engagement — This is one of the capabilities that differentiates post degree certificate programs from traditional degree programs. While students in degree programs have a list of courses that are required to earn their degrees, post degree certificate participants typically have a wider variety of options and can take courses on a one-off basis or take a series of courses that will eventually allow them to earn a certificate. Departments want to generate recurring revenue by having participants sign up for multiple courses so being able to identify participant interests and send targeted communications about related course offerings they might want to register for is crucial.
• Registration — While this capability has some overlap with traditional degree programs, the underlying processes are different. Participants typically purchase post degree certificate courses on a one-off basis, the enrollment process tends to be more like purchasing items through an eCommerce site as opposed to working with a registrar’s office to enroll in them via a student information system.
• Delivery — Faculty members use the resources identified during program creation to deliver course content. Program administrators help with related logistics, such as keeping track of attendance and making sure course materials and pre-read requirements are available through an online portal.
• Finance — Since departments offering post-degree certificates are considered to be revenue generating, they track their finances at a more granular level than most other departments within a university. Faculty compensation, course materials, location rental and similar expenses are deducted from the revenue generated by course enrollment and added to the university’s general ledger on a course by course basis as opposed to being tracked at the overall department level.
• Program Analytics — In addition to more granular financial tracking, departments that offer post degree certificate programs make regular adjustments to their programs based on return on investment calculations for individual course offerings. The goal is to provide courses and content that are in high demand by professionals, which will help participants advance their careers while also increasing revenue for the organization. These requirements necessitate a robust set of analytics processes that allow administrators to identify the highest and lowest performing programs based on enrollment, revenue and feedback and make adjustments accordingly.

Solution Architecture

The capabilities outlined above highlight the need for post degree certificate program administrators to think about marketing and commerce in a way that differs from processes associated with standard degree programs. The Level 2 Documentation and Implementation diagram below outlines a typical system landscape that can support these types of programs:

Below is a description of the components in the diagram:

• Marketing Cloud — This system supports the program marketing capability by allowing program administrators to segment participants based on interests and send targeted communications about related courses. It can also be used to send updates and payment reminder emails for courses to currently enrolled participants, reducing the need for manual processes (see Well-Architected — Automated for more information about how to design effective automations).
• Commerce Cloud — An eCommerce Solution can support the processes related to program purchase and registration and is a better fit for most post degree certificate programs than a traditional university enrollment system due to the way these programs are offered.
• Experience Cloud — This is where course participants to create profiles, access course materials and communicate with each other. It’s also where creating engaging participant experiences like access to dashboards that show progress towards certificates can help generate interest in additional programs, which will ultimately lead to additional revenue (see Well-Architected — Engaging for more information about creating good user experiences).
• Education Cloud — This is where corporate accounts, participants (contacts), courses, course offerings, faculty assignments and participant course history are stored. Organizations that utilize the standard objects offered by Education Cloud to keep track of this data will avoid the technical debt associated with creating custom objects. (See Well-Architected — Standard vs Custom Functionality for more information).
• University Accounting System — This is the central accounting system used by the University. It’s typically an ERP or Student Information system and it’s used to maintain overall financial information. For the purposes of a post degree certificate program, the financial data associated with each course, including participant payments, faculty compensation and other expenses related to delivery are tracked here. The goal is to determine the return on investment for each course in a way that’s similar to how commercial organizations track ROI for the services they offer.

Education Cloud Data Model

Once you understand the Capabilities and Solution Architecture associated with post degree certificate programs, the next step will be to understand the Education Cloud Data Model, which contains standard objects that can be used to keep track of the majority of data that’s required to support these programs. Education cloud objects can be mapped to corresponding objects in Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud as well:

• Participants map to contacts in all three systems.
• Courses map to products in Commerce Cloud.
• Course Offerings map to product variants in Commerce Cloud.
• The number of seats available for in person courses can map to product inventory in Commerce Cloud.
• Other information, such as course times and locations can be mapped to product attributes in Commerce Cloud.

Familiarizing yourself with the objects and relationships in this data model will help you avoid costly customizations. Download a copy of it from the Reference Architecture Gallery in the Salesforce Architects Website

Conclusion

Education Cloud provides the digital foundation to capture 360-degree views across the entire education journey. Continuing education teams can use it to capture valuable insights with shared access to improve participant experiences.

Post Degree Certificate Programs are unique in that they combine elements from education, commerce and marketing together in ways that other higher ed programs don’t require. Since these types of programs used to only be niche functions within the context of a university’s overall operations, many student information systems have overlooked them, and until recently program administrators had no choice but to rely on custom built systems to provide the functionality they needed.

By developing a thorough understanding of the business needs associated with these programs and how they can be met with standard functionality, you can help improve program operations and ultimately help universities generate additional revenue, which they can use to support the other programs and services they offer.

Authors

Tom Leddy, Architect Relations, Salesforce
Taylor Grimes, Architect Salesforce