Neglected by Another Vendor, Skidmore College Moves to CourseLeaf

“Skidmore students are better informed and better equipped to succeed with CourseLeaf because they have easy access to the information they need to prepare for registration and plan for their academic career.”

- Dave DeConno, the Registrar at Skidmore College

After feeling neglected by a previous provider, Skidmore locks in CourseLeaf for curriculum, catalog, and scheduling

Back in 2021, administrators at Skidmore College in upstate New York were losing patience with the service provider for their catalog and curriculum management systems. Reps for the company weren’t responding as quickly as they once had to help tickets, and the software systems hadn’t been updated in a while.

“The products were getting stale, and it seemed to us that the company might be moving in a different direction,” recalls Dave DeConno, the Registrar at Skidmore, a four-year private college in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Professors were also fed up, and DeConno knew he needed to act. His first call? CourseLeaf.

DeConno worked with CourseLeaf in 2019 to replace Skidmore’s homegrown course scheduling management system with CLSS. The project was a success, which gave DeConno the confidence he needed to move forward with the company for the catalog and curriculum management projects.

“When Skidmore upgraded to CLSS, I experienced first-hand the cooperation and innovation that CourseLeaf brings to a project,” says DeConno. “The level of expertise and quality of customer service was impressive.”

Give MarCom a break

When Skidmore and CourseLeaf started the catalog project in 2022, one of the big goals was to reduce pressure on the school’s Marketing and Communications team, which, once a year, was tasked with editing and formatting the digital catalog—all 328 pages—so that it could be printed in paper format. It was a massive task that took two members of the MarCom team several months to complete.

“They would get a dump of data, and they would have to put it in the right format,” recalls DeConno. “We worked with them during the CourseLeaf CAT implementation, and since then, we haven’t had to contact them. With CAT, you click one button, and the software puts everything in an easy-to-read PDF format, so it’s easy to print. You can even print out one page or section of the catalog.”

CAT gives DeConno and his team the oversight they need to ensure that the catalog is correct but also gives academic departments the freedom to make time-sensitive updates and program decisions. And, of course, CAT automatically syncs with the campus’ existing SIS, so no one is left in the dark.

Manage your curricular ecosystem

Earlier this year, Skidmore and CourseLeaf teamed up again to implement CIM, CourseLeaf’s curriculum management software, which makes updating course content and degree programs easier than ever. Skidmore’s old curriculum management system was outdated, and professors avoided it because it was cumbersome.

“I was constantly getting email messages from professors saying, ‘I need to make this course change, but do I really have to use the system, or can I just send you the changes so you can enter them,’” says DeConno. “They were doing everything possible to avoid using the old curriculum management platform.”

When DeConno announced at a recent faculty and administration meeting that the campus was moving to CourseLeaf’s CIM software, there was applause. Professors and staff members already using the company’s CLSS and CAT software were excited about adding another CourseLeaf tool.

One aspect of the CIM tool that DeConno and others on campus find especially helpful is that it provides users with a view of the entire curricular ecosystem. This means that when the Math Department changes the content for a Calculus course, the software checks the whole network for degree programs in which the same Calculus course appears. This ensures homogeneity and accuracy across the entire course ecosystem.

“The CourseLeaf CIM ecosystem shows us everywhere the course we are changing shows up in the catalog,” explains DeConno. “This means that we can proactively go out and talk to an academic department about a change in learning goals so that everyone is aware and in agreement.”

Another thing about CIM that Skidmore faculty members appreciate is that course change proposals automatically prepopulate with information from the campus SIS. “With CIM, professors don’t have to start from scratch each time they submit a change proposal for a course or program,” says DeConno. “It’s a huge time-saver.”

Single sign-on and other bonuses

Skidmore staff and faculty members also love that they only need to sign in once to access all three CourseLeaf platforms. Once they sign into the college’s internal internet system, they can access CLSS, CAT and CIM. There’s no need to open a second or third window on their computer screen to work on the platforms. There are also fewer passwords to memorize.

DeConno appreciates that CourseLeaf representatives are willing to add specific tools that his campus needs. For example, when working on the CLSS integration with CourseLeaf customer representative Patrick Boateng, he asked if the company could add a seating capacity tool that would provide students with the maximum number of seats in each course and the number of seats already taken.

“I told Patrick that we needed this tool, and he provided it when it wasn’t a part of the software out of the box,” says DeConno. “Our past product provider was unwilling to think creatively or customize the software for us, but CourseLeaf is doing it, and I find that refreshing.”

CourseLeaf also worked with Skidmore to create a final exam tool that automatically assigns exam slots based on pre-determined criteria. In the past, Skidmore staff used an Excel spreadsheet to carefully plan exams so there were no conflicts. Today, this job is done automatically by the CLSS software.

Kudos and gratitude

Skidmore hasn’t finished working with CourseLeaf just yet. The campus is seriously considering adding the company’s PATH advising and registration software in the next year or so.

In the meantime, DeConno continues to check in with CourseLeaf customer representatives Patrick Boateng and Shari Friedman to perfect the campus’s CLSS, CAT and CIM platforms and to ensure that students have access to the right courses at the right time in their college journey.

“Skidmore students are better informed and better equipped to succeed with CourseLeaf because they have easy access to the information they need to prepare for registration and plan for their academic career,” says DeConno.

“Overall, CourseLeaf is very responsive and very collaborative. I appreciate the hands-on relationship I have with the company. Every time I speak with a representative, I can tell they are listening to me and truly interested in solving my problem.”