Drake University Extended Education

Drake University Extension Education, which provides distance learning courses for educators across the country, had a homegrown online registration system in 2009 that was showing its age. Though “online,” the system required a lot of manual entry by Drake staff once registrations were received. Extension Education Director Chuck Sengstock sought a more secure process, one that provided more flexibility to expand course offerings, and also one that could easily work with Banner, the university-wide enrollment management system.

Less Hands-On

Following extensive review, Drake chose Learning Stream as its partner to implement a more secure, robust registration management system. Learning Stream uses TLS security protocol, and is protected by GeoTrust, a digital certificate solution company. Foremost, the software is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant. “We only spend a third of the time that we used to spend inputting credit card and other registration information,” said Sengstock. “We knew it would be a time saver, but we had no idea it would be this efficient.”

Banner Import

Many of Extension Education’s students are first-time enrollees. Allowing students to directly register in Banner is impractical because the system requires students to have a Drake ID number to enroll. Learning Stream created a data file that enables student information to be bulk-imported into Banner. “The functionality within Learning Stream to accomplish that task probably paid for itself in the first month or two,” added Sengstock.

Sengstock says he discovered an even greater value than that. “The customer service is outstanding. I know you don’t get that from every company because I work with a lot of different companies. I can call Learning Stream any time.”

It allowed me to automate our registration process and helps me maintain my productivity