From Brand-New to Campus Staple
John Brown University Amplifies Digital Experience with Eaglenet
From Brand-New to Campus Staple
John Brown University Amplifies Digital Experience with Eaglenet
John Brown University (JBU) supercharged their digital campus experience when they moved from an outdated SharePoint portal to Eaglenet, their customized, branded Pathify hub. JBU prides itself on creating delightful experiences, and the SharePoint portal no longer measured up. Content management became cumbersome, and SharePoint lacked the smooth, intuitive interface JBU needed to serve its students, staff and faculty in a changing world. Paul Nast, Chief Information Officer at JBU, explained they found Pathify when searching for a portal with the ability to truly mirror their best-in-class campus experience. Eaglenet launched in 2020 — and five years later it serves as the central hub for the entire campus.
Connecting Campus in New Ways
“We recognized a great opportunity to connect our various constituencies — students, faculty and staff. A key part of our mission as an IT organization includes not just operational excellence, but the ability to foster positive experiences,” Nast emphasized. “There’s nothing less delightful than seeing content which has nothing to do with your role at the institution. It makes you feel less connected.” The right platform needed to solve two main issues for JBU. First, it needed to enhance the user experience for all campus users, from students to faculty and staff. Second, it needed to separate externally-focused recruitment content on the public website from internal content on a secure site. With a modern, intuitive interface and secure, role-based provisioning, Pathify satisfied both needs and more. What started as an initiative to improve user experience quickly became a core component of the campus experience. Nast described Eaglenet as a “glue platform” — able to integrate with and connect disparate systems into one cohesive experience.
Building a Better Digital Experience
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, JBU froze many of their institutional projects. However, they kept their foot on the gas implementing Pathify in order to tackle an urgent need — enabling seamless communication and online collaboration as campus leaders stared down the unknowns of hybrid learning. Implementation proved smooth and simple, in large part because of the intentional collaboration between departments who looked at the portal as a shared effort to benefit the entire campus.
The switch to Pathify boosted efficiency and connectivity across campus. Whereas managing content in SharePoint consumed valuable time and resources, Pathify enabled Nast and his team to hand pages over to appropriate departments and empower them to create and manage content — so information stays accurate and up to date — without the hassle. Nast emphasized teamwork as the key to Eaglenet’s success. IT worked closely with marketing and communications teams to ensure the portal reflected the institution as a whole, which drove significant adoption with students and staff. “Marketing and communications helped with promotional videos and created a splash. But more importantly, they advocated for the end-users and ran the project from their perspective,” Nast elaborated.
Personalized Solutions for Every Student
Eaglenet became a household name on campus because it met students’ needs — providing them with the information to support them through their journey. The easy-to-use search function and custom widgets provided targeted answers to students’ most asked questions. “I constantly hear positive comments about the ease of use. We discuss how to get to resources, services, tools and solutions by telling folks to go to Eaglenet and search for a specific term,” Nast explained. “Eaglenet became part of our digital identity as an organization.” Beyond launch, JBU continued to adapt when they identified new needs. For example, Nast and team noticed an uptick in students experiencing difficulty understanding the details of their financial status. In response, JBU created a custom financial health widget providing basic, foundational information and relevant links directing students to representatives. When students clicked the link, they connected with a representative with specific expertise, not just a generic phone or email message. “When we target those needs by surfacing information in the dashboard, we see results. Students visit those resources and tangibly benefit from them,” Nast said. Now, students visit Eaglenet to access everything they need throughout their journey — from course registration to athletics to the school newspaper feed.
Fostering Community & Connection
Eaglenet launched as an effort to upgrade the digital experience and connect the campus in a hybrid environment. From there, it evolved into a rich social and community platform. Clubs and groups quickly recognized Eaglenet Communities as a space to develop an online presence to connect and engage their members. Even for a primarily residential campus, clubs need a place to house announcements and information, especially in an increasingly digital world. With the templates already set up, organizations create and manage their digital Groups with ease, further solidifying the continuity between on-campus and digital experience. “For us, Eaglenet is a branded destination everybody knows. When we’re in meetings and discussing initiatives, I just say ‘go search Eaglenet’ and everybody knows how to do it.” Nast remarked.
The Future of Eaglenet
JBU continues evolving Eaglenet to suit student and staff needs. Currently, they utilize tasks to point students toward what they need to do to stay on track. With the rollout of Pathways, sequential tasks designed to guide users toward key milestones, JBU plans to elevate these workflows even further. “Pathify is ahead of the game when it comes to anticipating what we need the platform to do,” Nast commented. He also noted Pathify’s strength as a connector and front-end experience, unifying every user and journey under a personalized, seamless experience. “Whenever we have a recognized need, we go to Pathify for the solution.”
So what’s next on the roadmap for Eaglenet? Building more custom widgets, diving into analytics and exploring Pathify’s GenAI chatbot.
About John Brown University:
John Brown University is a private, Christian university in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Founded in 1919, JBU aimed to combine a liberal arts education with specialized vocational training. Since then, JBU has significantly expanded its programs, enrolling 2,500 students per year across its traditional undergraduate, graduate, online and concurrent education programs.
