Modernizing Academic Operations to Accelerate Student Success
The Intelligent Academic Operations Platform, Coursedog, was founded out of firsthand experience with a persistent challenge in higher education. While still students, the company’s founders encountered a problem faced by millions each year: the inability to register for required courses they needed to graduate on time. The more they explored this issue, the more they realized their struggle wasn’t unique, but a symptom of a much larger, systemic problem. “All the big decisions that shape a student’s experience, like what courses run, who teaches them, and how programs are structured, were happening in spreadsheets, email chains, and processes that hadn’t changed in decades,” explains Tara Stanzione, Director of Product Marketing, Coursedog Inc. “When those systems fail, it’s often the students who lose time, lose options, and end up carrying the burden of problems they didn’t create.”
What started as a personal pain point turned into the Coursedog mission. “Instead of treating scheduling as an isolated problem, the goal became to modernize academic operations and remove barriers to success before students ever experience them,” says Stanzione. “When campuses have accurate curriculum and catalog data, clear pathways, and simpler planning processes, students feel the benefits immediately. Their experience gets easier, less confusing, and institutions get time back to focus on strategic initiatives and supporting students in more meaningful ways.”
“What continues to drive our work today is a deep commitment to student success. We aim to break down the invisible barriers that prevent students from accessing the education they’re working so hard to achieve. At the end of the day, we see academic operations as a powerful way to support student success, and our mission is to make sure every institution has the tools to do that well.”
“Instead of treating scheduling as an isolated problem, the goal became to modernize academic operations and remove barriers to success before students ever experience them. When campuses have accurate curriculum and catalog data, clear pathways, and simpler planning processes, students feel the benefits immediately. Their experience gets easier, less confusing, and institutions get time back to focus on strategic initiatives and supporting students in more meaningful ways.”
Purpose-Driven Product Development
Coursedog’s founding experience continues to shape the company’s approach to product development and campus collaboration, reinforcing the need to reduce friction in the academic systems students and staff rely on. “We prioritize usability, adoption, and thoughtful change management because software only matters if it fits into daily workflows and leads to measurable improvements for students,” shares Mara Koval, Vice President of Product, Coursedog Inc. “We’ve also learned that meaningful progress depends on partnership, not just procurement. We’re not handing over a platform and stepping away; we’re working alongside institutions as they rethink how academic decisions are made. That means earning trust, understanding institutional policy, and meeting campuses where they are; whether it’s a small team balancing multiple roles or a complex university system coordinating across campuses and data sources.”
Most importantly, the founder’s early experience reinforced a simple truth: technology by itself doesn’t fix broken systems. “Real change comes from designing for people, understanding the processes they follow, the context they operate in, and the impact their work has on students,” states Koval. “During product development, every feature starts by asking, ‘How does this improve outcomes for administrators, students, and the institution?’ We replace legacy and disjointed systems with a unified platform that eliminates the silos that cause conflicting data and errors, ensuring that academic operations are always in sync. We prioritize an intuitive and modern user interface, because we know that confusing and clunky technology is a significant barrier for both students and administrators.”
In building collaborations with institutions, Coursedog Inc. approaches these organizations not as vendors, but as partners who share the same goal of improving student outcomes. “Our roadmap is collaborative and heavily influenced by our partners’ needs,” shares Koval. “We co-develop solutions to ensure they meet the complex, real-world needs of higher education, building features that truly transform academic operations, not just digitize old workflows that weren’t serving anyone.”
Addressing Graduation Completion Gaps
According to estimates based on federal graduation data, fewer than half of bachelor’s degree seekers finish within four years, and roughly six in ten complete within six years, highlighting a gap between academic planning and student progress.1 “When looking at completion gaps, it’s easy to focus on tuition or advising, but one of the biggest barriers is the way academic operations work behind the scenes,” says Stanzione. “Many institutions are still building schedules in disconnected systems. There’s no real-time connection between student demand and the courses being offered, which means students are often unable to get into the classes they need, or they find out too late that seats are gone. That alone can delay graduation.
“The same issues exist with curriculum. Program changes move through PDFs, unclear handoffs, and catalog updates that take months. By the time a new course or requirement makes it into the system, students are already a step behind. You end up with outdated requirements that don’t match today’s workforce needs, and students stuck navigating rules that no longer make any sense. Legacy systems make all of this even harder because so much depends on manual work. When departments are emailing spreadsheets back and forth, it’s easy for information to be out of date or inaccurate. Students might try to register for courses that aren’t actually being offered, or see prerequisites that changed months ago but never made it into the catalog. Additionally, without intelligent scheduling tools, campuses can’t forecast demand or identify bottleneck courses, so campuses miss opportunities to run the right classes, at the right times, in the right sequence.
“The lack of alignment negatively impacts student success by slowing students down, making pathways harder to follow, and increasing the cost of getting a degree. That’s why we see academic operations as a key lever in closing completion gaps. When systems are modern and connected, students get clearer pathways, better access to the classes they need, and a much stronger chance of graduating on time.”
Unifying Academic Operations
Historically, core academic operations including scheduling, curriculum development, catalog management, and assessment submission have been siloed across separate systems, teams, and manual workflows. Even with strong effort at the individual level, fragmented processes and unintegrated data have limited institutions’ ability to operate with a cohesive strategic vision. “Coursedog’s platform centralizes and standardizes data sets in a single place allowing institutions and teams to collaborate within the same place, looking at the same information and making data driven decisions holistically,” explains Patrick Manchester, Regional Sales Director, Coursedog Inc. “For administrators, scheduling follows institutional policies for instructors/times/rooms, aligns with instructor workload policies and proactively predicts section demand based on student need. The catalog is integrated with curriculum in real time so that as things change within curriculum, it is automatically updated on the public catalog increasing transparency for students, aligns with advisors’ conversations, and reduces inaccuracies and hours of data entry every year.
“For students, unifying scheduling, curriculum, catalog, and assessment processes significantly impacts their ability to access core pathway, high demand courses while reducing bottlenecks and hurdles to graduating on time. Defining it as an intelligence platform is intentional and important. While centralizing, standardizing and automating processes is essential, leveraging reporting and AI capabilities provide far deeper strategic alignment and insights than ever before in higher education. By forecasting student demand, leveraging real-time AI driven reporting, and reducing unoptimized scheduling and pathways for students, institutions can meet students where they are and start overcoming the perpetually shifting headwinds impacting student retention and success.”
For one institution, the adoption of the platform’s scheduling solutions translated into measurable operational and student-centered outcomes. “Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) was experiencing significant enrollment volatility and knew that improving access to the right courses was critical to retention and growth,” shares Jess Haviland, Customer Marketing Specialist, Coursedog Inc. “Their scheduling process was highly manual, and academic decisions were made in silos. After implementing Coursedog, HPU saw a 200% increase in graduate enrollment over five years, supported by better program planning and course access. The institution reported 40% revenue growth tied to time saved on scheduling operations, allowing staff to focus on building new pathways instead of reconciling spreadsheets. They also shared that since adopting the platform, they increased their balanced section by 54% and students gained clearer program pathways, fewer bottlenecks, and more predictable course availability.”
With the implementation of Coursedog, HPU benefits from a single, centralized platform for course scheduling that improves transparency and accessibility for all schedulers. Since the section editor allows staff members to quickly search by name, they no longer need to memorize system-specific codes, such as user IDs. Additionally, schedulers can instantly view room and time slot availability, eliminating the need to wait for confirmation from the registrar’s office.
Partnering with Edge
Coursedog recently partnered with Edge to bring their Academic Operations Platform to EdgeMarket’s cooperative purchasing system. Through this contract, Edge members can enhance enrollment and retention efforts, streamline event management, create more balanced workloads, and standardize assessment reporting and planning. Awarded through a competitive RFP, institutions immediately have confidence that the platform and Coursedog as a vendor have been fully vetted for security, compliance, and financial stability unblocking administrative concerns.
“Partnering with Edge has allowed institutions to move from excitement in a software solution through finalizing contracts in a fraction of the time while eliminating costly and lengthy red tape,” says Manchester. “Institutions appreciate how straightforward the Edge partnership experience is and its impact in removing complexity, accelerating approvals and giving institutions confidence that they’re working through a vetted, reliable partner that truly understands higher education.”
“We joined EdgeMarket because it supports our mission to make modern academic operations technology easier to access and more affordable, and allows modern academic operations to be accessible to every institution, not just the ones with the largest budgets and teams. Cooperative purchasing removes the complexity that slows institutions down. Instead of spending months on RFPs and contracting, campuses can move faster and adopt the tools they need. EdgeMarket also creates more equity in the system. Large universities usually have the budget and staff to evaluate and implement new platforms. Smaller institutions, especially community colleges, have the same needs but far fewer resources. Cooperative purchasing gives them a clear, trusted partner to evaluate and adopt modern technology while removing the obstacle of time and resource limitation to achieve their student success initiatives.”
“We joined EdgeMarket because it supports our mission to make modern academic operations technology easier to access and more affordable, and allows modern academic operations to be accessible to every institution, not just the ones with the largest budgets and teams,” continues Manchester. “Cooperative purchasing removes the complexity that slows institutions down. Instead of spending months on RFPs and contracting, campuses can move faster and adopt the tools they need. EdgeMarket also creates more equity in the system. Large universities usually have the budget and staff to evaluate and implement new platforms. Smaller institutions, especially community colleges, have the same needs but far fewer resources. Cooperative purchasing gives them a clear, trusted partner to evaluate and adopt modern technology while removing the obstacle of time and resource limitation to achieve their student success initiatives.”
With colleges and universities facing growing challenges related to enrollment, retention, affordability, and proving value, attention is turning to how technology platforms like Coursedog can evolve to support lasting institutional change. “Institutions today are navigating a set of pressures largely outside their control: the enrollment cliff, declining public confidence in higher education, evolving state and federal regulations, funding constraints, and shifting accreditation requirements,” says Koval. “What is within their control is how effectively they adapt. That means modernizing the way academic decisions are made and delivered, with student success as the guiding priority. The future of academic operations is fully connected, intelligent, and scalable: across departments, roles, and levels of technical expertise. Institutions can no longer afford fragmented processes or tools that only work for a handful of experts. Modern academic operations must support collaboration, clarity, and speed while remaining accessible to the people doing the work every day.”
“The future of academic operations is fully connected, intelligent, and scalable: across departments, roles, and levels of technical expertise. Institutions can no longer afford fragmented processes or tools that only work for a handful of experts. Modern academic operations must support collaboration, clarity, and speed while remaining accessible to the people doing the work every day.”
Shifting Toward Predictive Planning
Looking ahead, Koval points to a fundamental shift from reactive to predictive planning.
“Instead of rolling forward last year’s schedule or curriculum, institutions will increasingly plan around students’ actual needs. Data will be used to forecast demand, model different scenarios, and understand the downstream impact of academic decisions before they’re made. This includes simulating scheduling changes, optimizing instructional resources to reduce cost per credit, and evaluating the viability and impact of new courses and programs in advance.
“Interoperability will be foundational to this transformation. As one CIO put it, institutions are often ‘data rich but data blind.’ Key insights remain locked across student information systems (SIS), LMS, planning tools, and countless spreadsheets, making it difficult to act with confidence. Institutions that lead in academic modernization will break down these silos by establishing shared sources of truth that connect curriculum, scheduling, assessment, and resource management, so that everyone is working from the same data and toward the same goals. “
At the same time, the pace and complexity of academic change are accelerating. “Workforce demands, credential innovation, and evolving student expectations require institutions to move faster than traditional operational models allow,” continues Koval. “Modernizing academic operations removes structural delays, enabling institutions to respond more quickly, deliver meaningful improvements to the student experience, and scale innovation without adding operational burden. Coursedog’s mission is closely aligned with this future. Our platform is designed to serve as a connected and intelligent system of record for academic operations, bringing data, processes, and stakeholders together to support better decision-making. By reducing manual work and increasing visibility across the academic lifecycle, we help institutions plan more equitably, operate more efficiently, and stay focused on what matters most: student retention, progress, and success.”
Coursedog Academic Operations Platform Available through EdgeMarket
Unifying how higher ed manages scheduling, curriculum, catalogs, assessment, and more.
Academic Scheduling
Deliver student centric schedules, offer the right courses at the right times to strengthen enrollment and retention.
Event Management
Capitalize on your campus space, simplify event scheduling with real-time visibility of campus space usage.
Faculty Workload Management
Make data-driven workload decisions, build balanced workloads that eliminate overage costs and faculty under-utilization.
Course Demand Projections
Unlock pathways to graduation, project the right number of course seats to accelerate student progression and optimize campus resources.
Curriculum Management
Repository for all courses and programs, drive meaningful curriculum change with ease and speed via digitized forms and workflows.
Catalog Management
Automatically publish curriculum changes to a public facing catalog, offer students a catalog that’s easy to publish and even easier to navigate.
Syllabus Management
Empower faculty to create branded syllabi from form-driven templates, integrated with the LMS.
Curriculum Analytics
Proactive insights, clear the path to degree completion with curricular insights on student progression.
Assessment Management
Standardize assessment reporting and plans with integration with the LMS, set new standards for accreditation planning that drive better student outcomes.
To learn more, visit edgemarket.njedge.net/home/coursedog-academic-operations-platform.