Joliet Junior College Case Study

Joliet Junior College (JJC) serves over 10,000 students annually in credit classes and 21,000 in non-credit coursework. It offers pre-baccalaureate programs, occupational education, adult education, and comprehensive support services for students and workplaces. Founded in 1901, Joliet Junior College is the USA’s oldest public community college.

Streamlining Admissions Applications

Larger colleges are challenged with the need to process thousands of applicants every year. In 2006, JJC wanted to address the increasing costs of admitting and educating a rising student population and a more diverse applicant pool, all within budget constraints. With WebWizard software tools, JJC found a quick and effective way to streamline the admissions process.

The Admissions Department first offered a browser-based student application using the WebWizard form-building tools. JJC was able to develop the browser forms in-house to collect the information that traditionally would have been collected by paper. The new application allowed students to enter information directly into the database, offered real-time edit checking, and eliminated the need for data entry staff for all these applications.

About five years later, JJC wanted to update the look and feel of the application. The admissions staff also wanted to add additional programs to manage the thousands of incoming applications, with special attention to duplicate student checking and data validation. JJC engaged WebWizard inventor Mel Soriano and his team to create custom software that visually and automatically facilitated name matching and duplicate record identification. The project included redeveloping the admissions application using FormStack, an intuitive drag and drop form builder that allows the creation of beautiful Web pages and transferring information back and forth using XML-based standards.

New Needs, New Solutions

In 2018, Joliet Junior College chose to develop an updated admission application form using Drupal as its form builder. JJC again engaged Mel Soriano and the WebWizard team to re-engineer the database application from XML to WebWizard’s JSON interface. Tim Roessler, Director of Information Technologies at Joliet Junior College, welcomed the ability to use modern interfaces and tools with the existing legacy * Ellucian Colleague system. Soriano trained the JJC staff on ways to use the WebWizard suite of tools to connect the student information system to the new software applications they were developing.

Using the JSON interface, JJC can extend the functionality of the student ERP system using popular software such as Drupal. JJC was able to switch from FormStack to Drupal without completely re-writing the software because WebWizard supports multiple interface options. Students now have a relevant, attractive, and easy to understand Web form to apply to Joliet Junior College. The form can be accessed by desktop or mobile device and the admissions workflow was never interrupted.

Better Systems for Tomorrow

Joliet Junior College and Aptron are currently developing more solutions for the admissions department. Here’s a sample of the projects in development. Bookmark this page and find out how the projects are progressing.