Why the SIS Must be Reimagined — Not Just Updated
Imagination and innovation are the driving forces behind every transformative shift. Yet, when we think about modernizing our own institutions, more often than not, we don't start with imagination. We start small making incremental changes that rarely deliver the transformation we need.
In 2007, companies like Nokia and BlackBerry were focused on refining their existing products — better keyboards, smaller phones, incremental UX improvements. On January 9, 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone — redefining not just how a phone looks or functions but what a phone could be. That moment created an entirely new paradigm for mobile communication.
Today, higher ed institutions face unprecedented challenges: enrollment pressures, financial constraints, and a generation of students with dramatically different expectations. For many universities, the response has been to update existing SIS with newer technology.
But as Nokia and Blackberry found out, incremental updates to outdated ideas aren't enough. Melissa Morgan, VP of Solutions Marketing at Ellucian, puts it succinctly: "It's time to reimagine the SIS, moving from a system about students to a system built for students, accelerating outcomes by bringing processes together across the entire student life cycle."
This shift isn't just semantic. It represents a fundamentally different future for higher education institutions.
Refine vs. Redefine: A Tale of Two Transformations
Most SIS modernization projects focus on preserving existing processes rather than questioning whether those processes still serve students effectively. They digitize paper forms and replicate decades-old workflows in cloud environments. But that's not true modernization. That's doubling down on the ways things have always been done.
Matt Alex, Founder of Beyond Academics, frames this challenge perfectly: "If you just copy what you do in your legacy system into your modern system, you're going to just refine what you've been doing." This refining results in expensive technology refreshes that fail to deliver meaningful improvements in student experience or institutional outcomes.
Instead, institutions need to redefine their workflows and processes. Success doesn't come from preserving the past. Success comes from fundamentally reimagining assumptions about how systems should work and who they should serve.
The Student-First Imperative
Modern students expect personalized, transparent, and intuitive experiences, and they're making enrollment decisions based on these factors. When institutions deliver clunky, fragmented experiences, they risk losing students before they even enroll.
As Alex notes, "The traditional SIS is still very institution-centric. We now need to shift policies, procedures, and structures in a way that is driven by the learner." In other words, systems designed for administrative convenience must be reimagined to serve the student journey first.
Institutional success cannot come at the expense of the student. It comes from the student's enrichment and experience.
Key Elements of a Redefined, Student-First SIS
Personalization at Scale
Today's students expect the same level of personalization they get from the consumer apps they use daily. Generic, one-size-fits-all communication no longer resonates with today's learners. An updated experience gives students easy access to the right information at the right time.
Effective personalization requires understanding student context and their unique journeys. Modern cloud-based SIS platforms like Ellucian's enable institutions to tailor information, recommendations, and support based on individual student needs and behaviors.
Proactive, Not Reactive Engagement
Legacy SIS platforms often rely on reactive support models where staff spend most of their time responding to issues rather than providing proactive guidance.
A redefined approach uses data and automation to anticipate student needs before problems occur. With cloud-based systems, institutions can use AI and analytics to identify at-risk students, deliver timely interventions, and measure the effectiveness of their support strategies.
Seamless, Intuitive Experiences
Administrative silos create fragmented, frustrating student journeys. The average student interacts with multiple different systems during their academic career, each with different interfaces and requirements. It doesn't feel like a system built for them because it wasn't. Modern SIS should feel student-centric, natural, and simple.
"The experience layer should be intuitive," Alex says. "It should be easy to get the answers you want. The interaction should be simple."
Student experience should be unified across services, providing consistent interfaces, single sign-on, and mobile-first design. Every friction point in this experience represents enrollment and retention risk—a reality that institutions can't afford to ignore.
Outcomes-Focused Design
Today's students are increasingly focused on career outcomes and ROI. They want to understand how their education connects to future opportunities.
A redefined SIS platform makes pathways visible and helps students connect their coursework to career goals. It enables students to take ownership of their academic journey and make informed decisions about their education. The outcome is increased engagement and satisfaction.
Measuring Success in a Redefined System
Traditional ROI metrics for technology investments often focus on infrastructure savings. But this approach fails to answer the critical question: Is this best for the student?
To better measure student-centered outcomes, Alex proposes a 'Time to' framework:
- Time to clarity: How quickly can students find the information they need?
- Time to decision: How efficiently can students make informed choices?
- Time to outcome: How effectively does the system support institutional goals?
The "Time to" framework allows institutions to naturally consider not just direct savings like infrastructure costs, but also indirect benefits like staff productivity and service quality, and strategic benefits like enrollment, retention, and student satisfaction.
Getting Started: From Theory to Implementation
To begin redefining your SIS approach:
Start with student journeys, not system requirements. Map end-to-end student experiences and identify pain points from their perspective.
Focus on workflow transformation, not feature replication. Question why each process exists and whether it still serves its purpose.
Build implementation around measurable outcomes. Establish baseline metrics for student success and track progress against them.
Treat change management as equally important to technical implementation. Staff adoption requires understanding what's in it for them.
The Future Belongs to Redefining Institutions
In the decade ahead, the institutions that thrive will be those that choose to reimagine — not just refine — their approach to student success. Those that merely "lift and shift" existing processes will continue to face enrollment challenges, while those that reimagine student experiences will create sustainable competitive advantages.
Student-first design delivers measurable returns beyond cost savings: improved enrollment yield, higher retention, and greater operational efficiency. But the time to begin this transformation is now, not after implementation.
By challenging assumptions about how processes should work and focusing on outcomes rather than features, institutions can move beyond the limitations of their legacy systems to create truly student-centered experiences.
Want to learn more about transforming your SIS from a system about students to a system built for students? Watch the full webinar featuring insights from Matt Alex, Founder of Beyond Academics, Melissa Morgan, VP of Solutions Marketing at Ellucian, and Vanessa Tribastone, VP of Customer Impact at Ellucian.
