Women’s Education Training Charity Turns To The Cloud

Blackburne House, an educational training charity, is using cloud technology to help it better deliver its courses to women in non-traditional areas of work including ICT, senior management and construction.

Education software provider Compass Computer Consultants is supplying the organisation with its cloud-based ProSolution, a student information and management system which holds learner records, timetables, registers and exam details.

The firm has also implemented ProAchieve, a success, retention and achievement analysis system used by 90% of the colleges in England.

By utilising these solutions, Blackburne House is hoping to efficiently monitor students and courses, allowing it to compete with colleges and larger training providers while saving costs.

ProSolution and ProAchieve are both hosted in the cloud by Compass’ sister division Advanced 365 – this will allow the charity to avoid investing in expensive IT infrastructures as well as offering the flexibility to use a scalable model.

“Our IT structure indicated that hosting was the best way forward for us. Without hosting we would have needed to invest in an additional server which would not have been cost effective,” explained Blackburne House head of learning Maura Cummins.

“Being hosted meant we could afford the software, enabling us to compete with larger training providers and Further Education colleges.

“The solutions have already significantly improved efficiencies and will help to ensure our success rate remains high, giving our students the best possible chance and giving us the competitive edge,” Cummins added.

Benefits For All Staff

Blackburne House is based in Merseyside, employs 70 staff and offers 50 difference courses with 1000 full and part time learning opportunities for women.

More than 30 teachers are using ProSolution, allowing them to move from paper registers to online registers, leading to more accessible and easier to monitor attendance data.

The system is also used by administrative staff for enrolment and to run reports.

Meanwhile, ProAchieve is being used to track enrolment data, course retention rates and exam success.

The solution includes national averages, so staff are able to monitor is courses are on target to hit the national success rates, which can affect the funding it receives.

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