Let’s face it. Ever since the pandemic forced students from the classroom to the bedroom, the education industry has been going through somewhat of a digital engagement crisis. While bored students might not be anything new, educational institutions are facing bigger challenges as a result of the shift to digital learning.
A study by OneClass found that 75% of college students are unhappy with the quality of online classes, and 35% have considered withdrawing from school. And while most schools and colleges have since returned to in-person teaching, many educational institutions have adopted a hybrid approach—whether that’s by continuing online lectures or introducing digital homework activities.
The main problem is that digitally native students expect ‘Netflix-like’ digital experiences. But they are faced with poorly integrated systems and, more often than not, user interfaces straight out of the early 2000s. Luckily, online education platforms don’t need to be stuck in Windows 2000. There is a way out. Modern intranet platforms can digitally transport educational institutions into the (right side of the) 21st century.
It’s not just students struggling with legacy platforms and approaches, teaching staff also face several challenges daily. Without an intranet platform, most teachers are over reliant on email to communicate with their students, and don’t have the right tools to collaborate with fellow staff members online.
By centralising information and communication channels, and enabling collaboration with tools, intranets can help schools bring together different departments, foster teamwork, and improve productivity.
Here are eight reasons why your educational institution needs an intranet:
- Fast up-to-date knowledge access
One of the biggest challenges for educational institutions without an intranet system is sharing important information such as deadlines, timetables, policies, resources, and events—and keeping them up-to-date.
To avoid keeping your students’ anxiety levels high, an intranet solution makes it easier for them to know where to access important information—whether that’s a deadline for an upcoming assignment, necessary reading for the course, or a new school policy that’s being implemented.
- Personalised content experiences
Intranets are more than just platforms for sharing documents. They can be a vital part of the teaching process. Intranets allow teaching staff to personalise the learning experience for the different classes they teach. Teachers and professors can assign tasks with deadlines, grade coursework, and leave feedback. As tasks can usually be assigned on an individual basis, teaching staff can go one step further and provide a tailored learning experience for students who may need extra help. When paired with in-person class work, intranets can help to keep students engaged with discussion groups, quizzes, and virtual “office hours” with staff members.
- Better staff collaboration
Educational institutions, such as universities, have a number of different faculties spread out across multiple buildings, and sometimes even across countries. Each faculty usually has its own way of doing things and their own goals. And, even within a faculty itself, communication and collaboration are still limited to email.
Intranets make cross-departmental collaboration a walk in the park. Whether you need to work on a new curriculum for the year or turn staff meeting points into a project with actionable steps, having a centralised platform where people can work on things collaboratively, makes life so much easier for your staff members.
- An accurate view of staffing resources
What’s more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack? Finding a teacher or professor without an online directory. There are usually hundreds of staff members at schools and universities.
Whether you’re a student who needs to connect with a professor for an assignment or a professor looking for a colleague in a different department, without an intranet, this process often involves jumping from one university webpage to another until you eventually find whom you were looking for—if you’re lucky.
Intranets allow you to keep an online record of teachers, admin staff, part-time workers, faculty heads, lecturers, and even Ph.D. students—making it easier to find staff members and their contact details.
- Centralised platform to manage internal information
Most educational institutions are still stuck in the past when it comes to communicating internal information. While email can be a useful tool for quick announcements or last-minute location changes, the last thing you want is important announcements lost in the inboxes of your staff and students.
Whether you’re announcing a faculty dinner, a list of extracurricular activities, or posting a recap of an event, an intranet with a blogging platform can help you share important information in a more dynamic and engaging way—with videos, images, and links.
- Integrated with existing workflows
From Microsoft PowerPoint for lecture slides, to Gmail for communication, teachers and students often use several different tools, systems, and apps on a daily basis. Instead of spending too much time jumping across tools and information sources, intranet platforms integrate with some of the most popular apps, providing your staff with a single place to access and share information.
- Secure and compliant knowledge sharing
As an educational institution with students and teaching staff, you’ll want to control who can access and contribute to certain pages and channels. Most intranets allow you to easily assign user roles and permission levels so you can keep specific areas for the right eyes only.
Additionally, depending on the jurisdiction that your educational institution operates in, you may have to adhere to certain governance requirements. The best intranets for educational institutions usually come with top-of-the-line security and privacy specs to keep your sensitive data secure.
- Customisable to fit your brand
With universities struggling with enrolment declines and increasing their attempts to attract both domestic and international students, university branding has never been more important. Your school or university brand symbolises who you are and what you stand for.
As your intranet will be used on a daily basis, by teachers and students alike, you’ll want the platform to reflect your institution’s personality and culture. Most intranet platforms allow you to customise your platform on a visual level, with logos, colors, and branded activity/news feeds. A fully branded experience helps to strengthen online engagement and adoption by making your users want to keep using and returning to the platform.
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