Summary
In October 2022, the École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon) embarked on a journey to identify a campus app that would create a consolidated and more personalized digital student experience. In March 2023, the university chose campusM as its mobile solution for interacting with students. The university is now using the app to optimize the information distribution and communicate individual timetables.
Key points to remember
- campusM was the only solution offering a complete back-office managed internally by the app admin.
- Admins benefit from a high degree of autonomy when it comes to configuring and customizing the app.
- Feedback from early user and manager trials has been very positive.
About École normale supérieure de Lyon
The École normale supérieure de Lyon (or ENS de Lyon) is an elite scientific and literary institution that trains motivated students with a desire to learn through and for research. It covers all disciplines apart from law and medicine. At ENS de Lyon, the educational approach is governed by three principles: fostering of multi-disciplinary approaches, individual monitoring of courses tailored to students’ projects, and a need to respect the long-term nature of research. This educational approach is closely associated with fundamental research which is recognized both in France and internationally.
Tackling a segmented student experience
The École Normale Supérieure in Lyon did not have a campus app before opting for campusM in 2023. One of the main drivers behind the introduction of a campus app was the feedback received from students regarding the modality of the information distribution. “Our students were frustrated by the fragmented nature of the information spread across multiple platforms,” explains Philippe Federici, head of the Training and Development of Digital Technologies Application for Education and Knowledge Team at the ENS de Lyon.
With information scattered across platforms, such as Moodle, the institutional website, intranet, departmental websites and email, students were finding it difficult to keep updated with the latest assignments, news and university services.
Optimizing and personalizing communication
The University uses campusM integration tools with systems such as CAS+TOTP, Moodle and Open Moodle, as well as Primo, to create a single reference source for students. campusM also enables RESTful APIs to be implemented, mainly for exchanges with the University’s Scolarité app.
At the same time, the ENS de Lyon is adopting a dual approach to guarantee user profiling and, by extension, personalized information:
- Automatic profiling based on the API querying the LDAP directory during authentication
- Self-declared profiling based on the choices made by the student in “My Profile”:
What the ENS de Lyon team wants to achieve with campusM
Use of a dedicated app for individual timetables. The university has developed an API that enables access to the internal Scolarité software, cross-referencing the list of courses taken along with the room booking system and displaying it within the integrated timetable module of campusM.
Full control of the App Manager. Mr Federici explains that of the other campus applications examined by the ENS de Lyon, campusM was the only solution that gave them access to a complete back office, the App Manager. This allows the team to manage the customization plan itself, as well as many other application parameters.
“When the project team leaves, they give us the keys to the house. We know that we won’t have to depend on them every time we need to make a change. That was really a key point in our choice,” says Mr Federici.
Specific messages by group. The Sympa mailing lists used by the University’s various departments are populated with CSV recipient lists. CampusM’s internal messaging system also offers this importing format.
“It’s a facilitating element for professions, a change that isn’t totally a change because it’s an extension of an existing practice”.
Presentation of classroom floor plans in the app, without the need for costly third-party solutions using Bluetooth beacons.
Ex Libris, part of Clarivate, is a leading global provider of cloud-based solutions that enable institutions and their users to create, manage, and share knowledge. In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement. Ex Libris serves over 7,500 customers in 90 countries. For more information, see our website and join us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
