CASE STUDY · EDUCATION · APP DEVELOPMENT
A New Web Portal Provides Online Program Access for a Graduate-Education Nonprofit
Test preparation, program search, and e-commerce now serve students, administrators, and partner institutions from one platform.
The Enterprise Challenge
A graduate-admissions testing organization had no real web presence for students, professionals, or partner institutions.
The client is a global graduate-education nonprofit, the creator and owner of a standardized graduate admissions test that institutions use to determine admittance into their respective graduate programs. Three groups depend on the information that sits around that test: students deciding where to apply, administrators processing them, and institutions describing what their graduate programs require. The organization owned the test. What it did not have was a place online where any of those groups could obtain or exchange that information.
With primarily no real web presence, the organization was losing potential students to facilities that were offering more Internet-based services. It needed to update its technology to support new and existing students, and to establish a portal that would assist students, administrators, and institutions in obtaining and exchanging information regarding graduate programs. It was also new to interactive and enriched web technology, so this was not a matter of adding features to an existing site. There was no site to add them to.
The Solution
At a Glance
A graduate-education nonprofit behind a major admissions test had essentially no web presence for the students, schools, and partners depending on its programs. i3solutions built a single platform combining test preparation, program search, and e-commerce to serve all three audiences.
Students can now register online, download the interactive test-preparation tool for free, and search a program database by location and school type, while the organization gained a site of its own with greater control over its published content.
Strategic Trigger
Students Were Choosing the Organizations They Could Reach Online
The pressure did not come from a failing system, because there was no system to fail. It came from where prospective students went instead. The organization was losing potential students to facilities that were offering more Internet-based services, which means the loss happened before any conversation with the organization began: a student comparing options online found more to work with somewhere else.
That reframed the project. What the organization needed was not a website in the brochure sense but a portal, a place where students, administrators, and institutions could work from the same program information, and where the organization could support both new and existing students directly. The technology update and the audience problem turned out to be the same problem.
Conditions That Triggered the Engagement
- An organization whose audiences were already looking online for services it did not offer
- Potential students going to facilities that were offering more Internet-based services
- Students, administrators, and institutions with no shared place to look up or publish program information
Skip the Brochure Site, Go Straight to the Portal
This organization went from almost no web presence directly to a working portal instead of building something it would immediately outgrow. If you’re scoping a first web presence, that distinction is worth making before the project starts.
Stakes
An Organization Its Own Audiences Could Not Work With Online
Left as it was, the gap widened on its own schedule. Every application cycle brings a new set of prospective students, and each one compares what it can reach. The organization’s absence online cost it students it exists to serve, and cost institutions and administrators the exchange of program information that the organization was uniquely positioned to hold.
The risk on the build side was different in kind. The organization was new to interactive and enriched web technology, so it was not positioned to specify the solution it needed, and the decisions in front of it covered registration, test preparation, program search, e-commerce, Distance Learning, and the partner data exchange all at once. That is why the engagement began by determining the best course of action rather than by building.
Constraints and Complexity
One Portal, Two Audiences, and a Client New to the Technology
The portal had to serve students and school professionals from the same site without becoming two sites. Students needed registration, a test preparation tool they could download, a way to find graduate programs, Distance Learning courses they could join online, and articles and publications to research. School professionals and institutions needed to exchange information about the programs those students were choosing between. Both sides ran on the same content, data collection, research resources, and interactive communication the portal was built to provide.
The second constraint was the organization’s own starting point. Because it was new to interactive and enriched web technology, the engagement could not proceed from a client specification. i3solutions worked closely with the organization to determine the best course of action for creating the Internet solution, which put web business process consulting alongside the design work rather than after it. Behind the pages, the build also had to carry data collection, e-commerce, and the partner data exchange, so database development was in scope from the start.
Selection Rationale
A Team That Could Decide the Approach, Then Build All of It
The requirements defined an unusual vendor profile. The organization needed a firm that would do the deciding as well as the building: work through the business process questions with a client new to enriched web technology, then design the site and the application, then develop the database behind registration, e-commerce, program search, and the partner data exchange. Splitting that across specialists would have put the specification burden back on the organization, which was the one thing it could not carry.
The organization engaged i3solutions, and the engagement scope covered exactly that span: web site design, application design, web business process consulting, and database development. The consulting was not a preamble to the build. It was how the course of action was set, and the same engagement then delivered against it.
The Engagement Approach
i3solutions designed and built the portal, combining content for students and school professionals with data collection, research resources, test preparation tools, e-commerce, and interactive communication, with database development and real time data transfer with partner companies behind it.
PHASE 01
Web Business Process Consulting
With a client new to interactive and enriched web technology, the engagement opened by working through what the site had to do for each audience and what the organization would publish and exchange. i3solutions worked closely with the organization to determine the best course of action for creating the Internet solution before any of it was designed.
PHASE 02
Web Site and Application Design
The portal was designed as one place serving students and school professionals: content for both, plus the interactive communication, data collection, and research resources that make an exchange of program information possible rather than a set of published pages.
PHASE 03
Database Development and Partner Data Transfer
The data layer was built to carry the portal’s working parts, including the school search database, e-commerce, data collection, and real time data transfer with partner companies.
PHASE 04
Student-Facing Services
The student side went in: test registration handled online, the free download of an interactive test preparation tool, the school search database for finding graduate programs by location, program type, or school, online registration and participation in Distance Learning courses, and a virtual library of articles and publications.
Technical Transformation
The portal is one custom web application carrying several distinct jobs. On the student side it handles test registration online, distributes an interactive test preparation tool as a free download, and runs a school search database that finds graduate programs by location, program type, or school. It registers students for Distance Learning courses and lets them take part online, and it holds a virtual library of articles and publications to research. On the organization’s side it collects data, publishes content aimed at both students and school professionals, and supports interactive communication between them. Two pieces sit behind the pages: e-commerce, and real time data transfer with partner companies, which keeps the portal’s information current with the organizations the nonprofit exchanges data with. Database development is the substrate for all of it, which is why it was scoped with the design and consulting work rather than treated as a later stage. What the organization operates at the end is a site it controls: greater control over what it publishes, and improved administrative ability.
Measurable Outcomes
Registration, Search, and Test Prep: Online
A new web application put student registration, program search, and test preparation online for the first time.
| Outcome | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Web presence | Primarily no real web presence | A web presence that communicates the organization’s vision to the public and delivers services to graduate students, professionals, and institutions |
| Student registration | No Internet-based registration service | Student registration handled online through the portal |
| Test preparation | The interactive preparation tool not obtainable from the organization online | Free download of the interactive test preparation tool |
| Finding graduate programs | No searchable source of program information for prospective students | School search database covering location, program type, and school |
| Distance Learning | No online registration or participation | Online registration and participation in Distance Learning courses |
| Content and administration | No site of its own to publish to or administer | Greater control over content published to the website and improved administrative ability |
The organization came out of the engagement with a web presence that communicates its vision to the public and delivers services to graduate students, professionals, and institutions. For students that meant registration for the test handled online, an interactive test preparation tool they can download free of charge, a searchable database of graduate programs by location, program type, or school, Distance Learning courses they can register for and take part in online, and a virtual library of articles and publications to research.
On the organization’s side the change is administrative. It has greater control over what it publishes to the site and improved administrative ability, and the system provides more information and better functionality for site visitors than the presence it replaced. Its information also stays current with the organizations it works with, through the portal’s real time data transfer with partner companies.
PENDING-CLIENT-QUOTE
Who This Engagement Serves
This engagement is relevant for
- An organization whose students, applicants, or members are already comparing it online against services it does not offer
- A testing, credentialing, or membership body whose applicants, administrators, and member institutions all need one source for the same program information
- An organization new to interactive web technology that needs the course of action decided with it rather than handed to it as a specification to sign
Less relevant for
- You already run a portal and need one feature added rather than the site, the application, and the database built as one piece of work
- Your audiences are internal, so there is no public exchange of information for a portal to carry
What This Engagement Established
One Portal Where Students, Administrators, and Institutions Work from the Same Information
The engagement established that an organization starting from almost no web presence can go straight to a working portal instead of to a brochure site it would outgrow. One custom web application combined content for students and school professionals with data collection, research resources, test preparation tools, e-commerce, and interactive communication, with database development and real time data transfer with partner companies behind it.
Students got test registration through the portal, a free download of an interactive test preparation tool, a school search database for finding graduate programs by location, program type, or school, online participation in Distance Learning courses, and a virtual library. The organization got greater control over what it publishes to the site, improved administrative ability, and a web presence that states its vision publicly to the students, professionals, and institutions it serves.
Frequently Asked Questions
A portal in this sense is one custom web application that lets several audiences obtain and exchange the same body of information, rather than a site that only publishes to them. For this global graduate-education nonprofit, i3solutions combined content aimed at both students and school professionals with data collection, research resources, test preparation tools, e-commerce, and interactive communication, with database development and real time data transfer with partner companies behind it. What separates it from a website is that most of the value is transactional: students register for the test, download a preparation tool, search for graduate programs, and take part in Distance Learning courses through it, while the organization collects and publishes the information those actions depend on. One engagement covered all of it: the consulting that set the approach, the site and application design, and the database development underneath.
A portal that lets students, administrators, and institutions obtain and exchange information about graduate programs. The site combines content aimed at both students and school professionals with data collection, research resources, test preparation tools, e-commerce, interactive communication, and real time data transfer with partner companies. The engagement covered web site design, application design, web business process consulting, and database development. The organization had primarily no real web presence when the work began, so the portal was not a redesign of something already running; it was the first place its audiences could reach the organization online. What it produced on the organization’s side was greater control over what it publishes to the site and improved administrative ability, and more information and better functionality for site visitors.
Register for the test through a streamlined registration process, download an interactive test preparation tool free of charge, search a school database for graduate programs by location, program type, or school, register for and take part in Distance Learning courses online, and research articles and publications in a virtual library. Those capabilities are the answer to the problem that started the engagement: the organization had been losing potential students to facilities that were offering more Internet-based services. They run on one portal, so a student registering for the test, preparing for it, and comparing graduate programs is working in one place rather than assembling the process from separate sources.
Where this client began. It came to i3solutions with primarily no real web presence and was new to interactive and enriched web technology, so the first work was deciding the best course of action together before anything was built. That is what the design and consulting portion of this engagement was for, and the portal that followed gave the organization a web presence that states its vision publicly and delivers services to graduate students, professionals, and institutions. In practice that means the opening phase is web business process consulting rather than design: what each audience needs to obtain or submit, what the organization will publish and exchange, and which of those interactions the database has to support. The build follows the answers.
More than the pages suggest. The visible side is content aimed at students and school professionals; the working side is database development supporting data collection, e-commerce, the school search database that finds graduate programs by location, program type, or school, and real time data transfer with partner companies. That last piece keeps the portal’s information current with the organizations the nonprofit exchanges data with. Interactive communication runs across both sides, so students and school professionals can reach the organization and each other rather than only read what it publishes. The engagement scoped all of this together, which is why the consulting, the design, and the database work were one piece of work rather than three separate ones.
Greater control over what it publishes to the site, and improved administrative ability. For an organization that started with almost no web presence, publishing had not been something it controlled: there was nothing to publish to. With the portal in place the organization maintains its own content, and the system provides more information and better functionality for site visitors than the presence it replaced. The administrative gain extends to what the portal carries on the organization’s behalf: student registration runs through the portal, Distance Learning enrollment and participation happen online, and the interactive test preparation tool is a free download. Each of those services is delivered by the portal itself.
Because the span of the work is the hard part. This engagement covered every layer of the portal, from the business process questions that set the approach down to the database underneath it, and the organization it was built for was new to interactive and enriched web technology, so the course of action had to be determined with the client rather than handed over as a specification to sign. i3solutions did both parts: worked through what the portal had to do for students, school professionals, and institutions, then designed and built it, including the database behind registration, e-commerce, the school search, and the partner data exchange. For an organization weighing this class of work, a short scoping conversation establishes what the first release of a portal would have to include in your environment.
More From i3solutions
Related Engagements
Registration, Search, and Test Prep, All Online for the First Time
Students, professionals, and institutions all now work from the same information because the portal was built around their actual workflows. We’re glad to discuss what a comparable portal would look like for your organization.
