Ellucian Announces 2025 Experience Idol Winners and Partner Experience Award Recipient
Higher education institutions and Ellucian partners innovate with Ellucian SaaS technology to enhance student and staff experience
RESTON, VA – Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, announced the 2025 winners of Experience Idol and the Partner Experience Award on the mainstage at Ellucian Live, the industry's premier global technology conference. The 2025 Experience Idol competition builds on last year's success, showcasing best-in-class customer innovations using the Ellucian Platform and leveraging Ellucian Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies such as Experience, Data Connect, and Intelligent Processes. Recognising innovative partner integrations with Ellucian Experience, the inaugural Partner Experience Award highlights solutions that enhance institutional efficiency and student engagement.
"As our customers have matured in their use of the Ellucian Platform, we challenged them to think outside the box in this year's competition, and they truly delivered," said Mike Wulff, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Ellucian. "Congratulations to all the winners and finalists for demonstrating an impressive degree of innovation and elevating the higher education experience. Our community continues to learn together, sharing best-in-class examples of what's possible, and inspiring others to explore creative new ways to improve outcomes for students."
The Experience Idol competition invited higher education institutions to customize the Ellucian Platform for today's students and staff. Judging focused on three categories: use case, persona-driven experience, and collaborative effort. Finalist institutions were voted on by peer institution leaders and presented at Ellucian Live 2025, higher education's premier technology conference.
Winners will receive a $5,000 Student Experience Scholarship, an Ellucian Flex Plus Professional Services Package to support further innovation within Experience, and a four-hour session with the Ellucian User Experience Design Team.
The 2025 Experience Idol winners include:
Best Use Case
Lethbridge Polytechnic
Students no longer want to carry around physical IDs. That's why Lethbridge Polytechnic created a digital ID as an Experience card. The digital ID enables the institution to cater to student needs by allowing them to use the Experience Companion App to gain access to the gym, library, and testing centers with a barcode rendered in real time. Faculty and staff then use a 2D scanner to grab student information and gain insights on how they're accessing various services at the institution. Admins then synch the usage data with their CRM to better understand student lifecycle trends.
Best Persona-Driven Experience
Delta College
Delta recently relaunched an entirely new Experience dashboard, dubbed MyDelta, that embeds a chatbot in an Experience card in addition to dynamic content that leverages the software development kit (SDK) and Data Connect serverless APIs to create several useful cards. Examples include a Semester Countdown card showing various deadlines for the current semester, a Registration Status card to keep students updated on the courses and credits they're taking, and a My Grades card, which shows a student's cumulative GPA with links to the final grades and unofficial transcript. Delta College also featured a My Programme card, which shares programme details for a student's major and provides the ability to switch between the programmes they're enrolled in and take actions such as changing the programme or applying for graduation within the card.
Best Collaboration
University of Bridgeport and Goodwin University
The two institutions leveraged Data Connect to produce a bulk invoice upload process for their Accounts Payable department. This innovation saves countless hours, turning a previously manual process into one that takes minutes, allowing staff to focus on more strategic activities. Employees create a new job using Integration Packages in Data Connect, which allows them to use the information in their Colleague ERP.
In addition to the Experience Idol winners, Ellucian also announced the recipient of the 2025 Partner Experience Award at Ellucian Live. This award programme celebrates the impressive cards developed by Ellucian partners in Ellucian Experience that integrate with Partners' own technology solutions. The accolade recognises exceptional innovation and dedication to enhancing user experiences, and the judging panel evaluated submissions based on several criteria, including the cards' appearance, functionality, purpose and use cases, integration and extensibility.
The inaugural winner, TouchNet, was honoured for its OneCard VIP Experience card, which seamlessly integrates physical and virtual campus IDs, allowing students and administrators to view balances, meal plans, transactions, and more—all within a single, user-friendly interface. This solution exemplifies the power of collaboration between technology providers and higher education institutions, delivering real-time access to essential campus services.
To learn more about Ellucian Experience, visit: https://www.ellucian.com/emea-ap/solutions/ellucian-experience.
