To support the digital needs of St John's College (The University of Queensland) we developed a suite of solutions including a website, mobile app and alumni portal. All of these solutions were built on the Acora College Digital Platform.
St John’s College (SJC) is one of the oldest co-educational residential colleges of The University of Queensland. It was established in 1988 and is currently a ‘home away from home’ for almost 300 students. St John’s has a huge college community to support and encourage students and guide them throughout their college and university life.
The Challenge
SJC had an aging website and no digital communication tools.
The college needed a comprehensive digital platform to be able to effectively communicate with future, current and past students. They also needed a modern, efficient website with relevant and engaging content, video tours, news and events.
The College partnered with DDSN Interactive to provide a digital platform.
The Research & Planning
DDSN Interactive is an Australian firm providing customised digital services to clients from various industries since 1997.
Our User Centred Design (UCD) approach, that we have developed over more than 20 years, is tailored specifically to every project.
Read more about the Life of a Website Project
The Website
The SJC website was designed keeping the strong connection between SJC and their community in mind.
The home page included a fly-through video of the college that highlights the outstanding facilities.
The beautiful website design is crafted around the college brand and includes a map and interactive testimonial carousel.
The map was designed to share with potential residents that they can live at SJC and study at a number of universities. The map is fully responsive to support all devices and browers.
The Mobile App
DDSN have developed an advanced student mobile app as a part of the Acora College platform.
The native mobile app is developed on Ionic5 and is the MySJC app is deployed to the Apple and Google play stores
The flagship component of the app is a Meal Management System that allows the students to quickly and simply input their required meals for the week or update their dietary requirements. Staff can send menu updates through the app or direct push messages.
The Alumni Portal
DDSN has created an alumni portal to engage former college residents and harness the philanthtropic opportunity.
The portal inlcudes a mentor connect feature as well as news, events, jobs and an alumni directory. This allows the college to harness the power of their former students.
The Result
DDSN Interactive was able to successfully provide a unified digital experience platform to St John’s College by deploying their Acora College solution that is built on the Australian CMS, Acora.
This includes;
- a marketing website
- student engagement app
- alumni portal
- email marketing, and
- integrated analytics.
The project helped the college decrease the overall cost of running these systems and overall overhead by managing a single digital platform.
In the long-run, a unified digital experience in addition to more visually appealing website content and layout will help SJC increase enrolment enquiries, ensure a high retention rate for students throught their improved engagement, increase revenue opportunities for the college through alumni engagement and enhance the overall college brand.