Readers' Choice Top Products

TargetX’s student recruitment manager is a CRM tool that helps colleges manage, integrate, and automate the process of student recruitment—from the first point of contact through enrollment. It allows for two-way data exchange with student information systems. It also includes an online app, a campus visit scheduler and email, broadcasting and online chat tools.

This lecture capture software simultaneously records and synchronizes video, audio, slides, document cameras, screen capture and electronic whiteboard content. Users can record formal lectures, campus events, classroom activities and informal presentations. The Panopto recorder runs on any laptop, as well as on many mobile devices.

With this web-based solution, higher ed institutions can request, receive, send, and analyze electronic student transcripts. The admissions department can track students through the application process and receive leads on students who meet a school’s key profile. Administrators can get transcripts in the format they prefer, regardless of how the sender chooses to send it.

This cloud-based, emergency alert system allows users to manage time-sensitive communications to students, faculty, staff, campus security, first responders, visitors and others. Alerts can be sent via text message, voicemail, desktop alerts, email and websites. Messages also can be transmitted through digital signage and PA systems, and posted on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

This accreditation management software organizes and helps schools create presentations to show they are meeting standards. The software can pull in data on learning outcomes and other documentation that show an institution is making continuous improvement. Insight has the ability to export reports that may be self-contained for distribution on CD, flash drive or electronically.

Get It Now from Copyright Clearance Center complements a school’s interlibrary loan services by immediately fulfilling patrons’ requests for full-text articles from unsubscribed journals. Instead of requiring patrons to navigate between multiple publisher websites—each with different access, payment and invoice methods—Get It Now fulfills content requests through a single centralized service.

This software allows institutions to bring/integrate mobile devices into their communications efforts. Mobile Commons accesses user data—such as email and addresses—from a school’s CRM so administrators can run far-ranging text messaging campaigns from one dashboard. Text-message alerts for events and breaking news can be sent to an entire community or to specified groups.

Tuition Refund insurance helps protect a student’s higher education invest-ment if he or she is forced to withdraw from school for covered medical reasons, such as injury, illness, or a mental health condition. Along with the Student Protection Plan, the insurance covers the costs that may not be refunded by an institution, including tuition, academic fees, room and board, books and other eligible education expenses.

This online engagement platform aims to spark collaborative conversations within a higher ed community. Administrators can post a challenge that the institution is facing, such as how to improve sustainability, and let the community help find solutions. Administrators can also post polls and surveys to gauge community interest and sentiment about a particular issue.

The Amazon Kindle is a wireless e-book reader that enable users to shop for, download, browse and read e-books, textbooks, newspapers, magazines, blogs and other digital media. Users can find definitions by placing their cursor over words. Notes and highlights can be shared on social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook.

WorldShare provides higher ed libraries with an online platform that streamlines acquisitions, circulation, license management and metadata management workflows by allowing staff to collaborate in the cloud. Its single, web-based interface allows staff to manage both electronic and print collections.

This emergency management solution’s online dashboard lets organizations send emergency instructions to smartphones and tablets. In Case of Crisis can post emergency information with features such as maps, diagrams, push notifications and one-tap calling.

This web content management system for higher education provides web administrators with a personal dashboard to manage their pages and monitor projects. OU Campus can be used to manage a school’s mobile site, course catalog, calendar and faculty directory. Users can integrate their individual pages with social media channels and create photo galleries.

The LCMS+ learning management system is designed for health-care programs in higher education. It offers an individually customized schedule for students that uniquely fits the complex environment of health-care education. Other features include online evaluations, exams, patient encounter tracking and clinical skills assessment.

This workforce management application designed for higher ed can scale to support schools of all sizes. TeamWork is cloud-based, with both desktop and mobile access. Features include an employee scheduler, shift rotation management, attendance and leave management, payroll support, and employee collaboration tools such as messaging and calendaring.

A data backup system, CrashPlan PROe has no storage limits on backups and data can be stored in a public or private cloud. Using a single dashboard console, administrators can manage data backup for any number of users. CrashPlan PROe can also be operated via a mobile app, available for any iOS, Android, Windows Phone or Kindle device.

SOA Software’s Policy Manager makes applying service-oriented architecture governance easy by automating critical set-up and operations tasks. Policy Manager provides comprehensive tools for all the different roles in the organization, including service developer, consumer developer, architect, business stakeholder, IT operations and security operations. It uses a role-based security model that helps protect sensitive information.

The AV Bridge integrates soft codecs, such as Skype, Cisco Jabber, Microsoft Lync, and others, into traditional AV designs. The AV Bridge provides the USB connection to its AV system for classrooms using video calls or lecture capture. The AV Bridge can support a wide variety of video and audio platforms, including HD and HDMI.

This design software can be used to retouch images, create 3D artwork and edit video clips, as well as create robust, engaging web and mobile sites, with support for the latest advancements in HTML5 and CSS3. Designs function on iOS, Android and other popular platforms, and can adapt to virtually all screen sizes and form factors.

Halogen’s eAppraisal software automates, simplifies and streamlines the entire employee performance evaluation process. It lets administrators create strategic initiatives across all talent management programs, including recruiting, onboarding, performance appraisals, competency assessments, succession planning and compensation management.

This screen recording software helps users create professional videos. Camtasia can record on-screen activity, such as PowerPoint presentations or video lectures, and then be used to customize and edit the recordings. Users can also add interactive elements, like animations, and share videos with anyone, on nearly any device.

This CRM solution includes campaign management, real-time analytics, web portals, team collaboration, mobile access and the ability to build custom applications without having to code. Schools can also sync together information from other SIS, LMS and back-end systems.

nuCloud software creates interactive campus maps online. Mobile friendly, it allows administrators to add “flag stops,” to which videos, pictures, descriptions and/or audio can be added. This provides users with more information about specific campus locations. User activity can be tracked through Google Analytics.

With this software solution, admissions offices no longer have to rely on multiple systems and vendors. Slate allows administrators to manage the whole admissions cycle, from outreach communications to event registration, from campus visits to online applications and decision making, through one system.

SmartBelly, an intelligent waste and recycling collection system, lets customers use real-time data to drive operational decisions. From any computer or smartphone, a school’s maintenance department can see the entire portfolio of waste and recycling stations and determine if collection is needed and if waste was picked up in a timely manner. The enclosed design keeps animals out and odors in.

This hardware solution allows multiple physical switches to be connected and managed as a single unit with a single IP address. Summit switches offer various critical capabilities—from top-of-rack server aggregation to the processing of packets between core and edge switches—to simplify network management.

The CashPro Accelerate program can help business officers populate financial account information directly into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. It can eliminate manual data entry and simplify tracking of multiple accounts to achieve greater accuracy. Users can select standard spreadsheet templates or create customized ad-hoc spreadsheets.

Focusing on architecture, authentication, access controls and audits, Bomgar’s Remote Support Software gives centralized control over all remote IT support activity. Data is routed and stored centrally over standard ports, enabling auditing. Bomgar administrators can apply permissions and password policies on the group or individual level, ensuring only authorized users have access to the systems.

The Elkay water bottle station has an electronic sensor that allows for a touchless, one-handed and rapid fill. It also eliminates the need for disposable water bottles, thereby reducing waste. An optional Elkay WaterSentry Plus 3000 gallon filter can also reduce the amount of particle, chlorine, odor and lead in the water.