Our next generation product is all about the students

TechnologyOne’s Australian-made digital experience platform is set to revolutionise learning by bringing the “power of one” and empowering students with a simple, engaging interface that brings together data across sources.

Dedicated to solving the unique needs of government and local industries with Australian-based R&D teams, we are poised to roll out our next generation product, DXP Student, which simplifies and automates university and TAFE administration.

“DXP is all about the end-user,” says Peter Nikoletatos, TechnologyOne Industry General Manager, Education and Adjunct Professor. “It puts everything we have learned in the past 30-plus years into a practical solution where the student says, ‘This is it, I don’t need anything else’.”

DXP Student also uses data analytics to connect student-related information such as academic performance, finance or health services to identify when students are struggling and directs them to the right support services.

Attracting students and keeping them engaged has become critical for universities under increasing financial pressures, especially when students are battling the current cost of living crisis.

DXP Student was designed after undertaking extensive user research, interviews and workshops with real students across the globe. There are already a dozen or so early adopters of the product across the higher education and vocational education sectors.

The platform will begin being rolled out in March 2024, with regular comprehensive updates every six months.

Emphasising that new digital student management systems for tertiary and vocational training must focus on “personalisation” and offer a single digital source for everything associated with the learning experience, Mr Nikoletatos said the vision for the future of higher and vocational education was truly enabling students with technology.

DXP “is about the end-user wanting to stay in the one environment where we pull in all the things they need,” he said.

“The digital experience product suite is really about personalisation. As an end-user, I want to see how everything that happens in an institution impacts me in my day, in the week and in the month ahead. The next generation is much more about what is in it for me – why should I bother with this connectivity?  For the university administrators, having a single view of a student is also key.”

Our flagship OneEducation solution, which combines Financials, Human Resource & Payroll, Timetabling & Scheduling and Student Management System (SMS) into one system, is used in 60 per cent of universities and TAFEs in Australia.

Its digital presence has also been building in the United Kingdom higher education sector, being used by institutions including the London School of Economics, University College London and the University of Lincoln.

Every feature of the system is now available on both desktop and mobile devices.

“For a student with part time or casual work or other commitments outside their studies, the system automates class timetabling and scheduling based on your parameters, allowing the maximum utilisation of your time by taking into account your commitments,” Mr Nikoletatos said.

“It also offers flexibility in accessing programs, submitting assignments and dealing with lecturers and tutors.  In the next era we want to think about the intersection of how students use our product and how that relates to the peripheral services of the institution – such as the library, the social events and entertainment and the food services on campus, and the travel to and from the campus.  We think about everything that happens to that student in a day.”

Next year we will also launch our new product App Builder, which will allow users to create applications inside the TechnologyOne ecosystem with no code and little training, helping them to personalise the software solutions for their business in real-time.

Mr Nikoletatos says App Builder offers a more intimate and unique way to solve the specific challenges for each individual customer.

We have also launched our Solution-as-a-Service offering, SaaS Plus, which delivers not just the SaaS solutions but also the implementation for customers under a single yearly fee, reducing much of the complexity, duplication and risk traditionally involved in technology projects.

“So you as an end-user get the one price point and guaranteed delivery on a fixed timeline.  It is reimagining our service delivery model.  That has huge take-up at the moment because it is market leading and makes things predictable for customers,” he said.

There has been intense conjecture about the role of generative artificial intelligence (AI) – including Chat GPT and other large language models – in the future education of university students.

Some view it as a powerful tool that will enhance the learning experience, but others fear it could be the greatest threat to academic integrity.

“I have always described AI as an exciting solution to a problem we do not fully understand,” Mr Nikoletatos said.

TechnologyOne is currently looking at ways to apply AI into solution functionality.

“By way of example, it might include automatic marking, auto exam monitoring, virtual tutors, demystifying complex situations, auto class registrations and best timetable fits,” he said.

“It is early but we are certainly building our DXP architecture with more generative AI consideration.”

Mr Nikoletatos, who has been at TechnologyOne for five years and before that was Chief Information Officer at five different universities, said one of the biggest obstacles to the greater adoption of digital services by universities was legacy culture.

“A university is not run on IT systems, it is run for the purpose of teaching and research.  But you cannot treat the implementation of these new processes as just an IT project.  It needs to be a business transformation project,” he said.

“When we talk about DXP, the end-user groups we are engaging with are not just IT people.  We are dealing with students, course co-ordinators, timetable experts and student admin people.”

“Those processes of the past are being streamlined, automated and digitised.”

TechnologyOne is enabling our OneEducation customers, such as Swinburne University, to modernise their student journeys, moving their student management solution to SaaS and implementing a student portal to create a seamless, contemporary enrolment experience.

“Most importantly, we don’t see students as customers, we see them as advocates,” Mr Nikoletatos said.

“We want students to be ambassadors of our university clients and life-long learners.”