NEW YORK — January 29, 2019 – Watermark, the largest provider of educational intelligence solutions for higher ed worldwide, is pleased to welcome one of its newest partners, Berkshire Community College located in Pittsfield, MA. Accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, Inc. (NECHE), BCC has selected Watermark’s curriculum and catalog management solution for its catalog management needs across the institution.
Focused on streamlining their catalog management activities, Berkshire Community College will use Watermark to edit and review, as well as implement a more effective catalog review and approval process prior to publishing. Before Watermark, when a department chair or dean emailed changes that needed to be applied to the catalog, updating the documents was a manual process handled by the registrar’s office. Managing this process manually became especially challenging as deadlines for changes to the catalog approached. Enforcing the deadline often involved sending multiple emails, or knocking on doors to get things submitted on time, which proved inefficient.
In moving from a manual, paper-based process to using technology to manage their catalog creation, reviews, and publishing processes, BCC will save time publishing course listings online in a course catalog and on departmental websites by leveraging connections within the academic content database. Approved curriculum changes, program requirements, and links between pre-reqs and co-reqs can be pushed right to the fully searchable catalog and used to populate course descriptions.
By leveraging course data from their Student Information System, Colleague, BCC can push catalog updates back to campus systems, as well as generate reports on changes, program requirements, and more. In addition, the College has the ability to more easily create program maps and guides with outcomes, document general education requirements, and include suggested sequences of courses right within the course catalog now. This will provide students with clear guidelines and resources to inform their academic planning and help ease advising processes, while supporting on-time degree completion.
With over 350 employees and more than 1,700 client institutions, Watermark has a proven track record with other institutions looking to improve their catalog management processes, including three other community colleges in Massachusetts, which helped further cement BCC’s final decision.
“We’re excited to begin working with Watermark. We’ve found Watermark team members easy to work with and responsive, and our decision to move from a paper-based process to a technology-enabled process will help us become more efficient. We look forward to being able to more effectively create both an online and print catalog that represents the full breadth of offerings BCC provides; it’s agile and puts the power of editing in the hands of the stakeholders. It’s helpful to have a technology partner that understands our challenges and recognizes the value of being able to streamline these kinds of processes,” said Christina Wynn, Dean of Enrollment Management for Berkshire Community College.
“We’re pleased to welcome Berkshire Community College to the Watermark Community. We are committed to developing the solutions that colleges and universities need to meet the challenges of managing core institutional processes, including catalog management, in a way that is efficient, effective, and engaging for users. We want our technology to ease these processes so that registrars and other administrators don’t have to spend their time manually managing these processes, but rather focused more on making meaningful improvements across their institution,” said Kevin Michielsen, CEO of Watermark.
Founded in 1960, BCC was the first community college established by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Today, there are 15 community colleges throughout the state. In 1984, a satellite facility known as the South County Center opened in Great Barrington. Each year roughly 2,000 students enroll in day or evening credit courses at the main campus, off-campus sites, and/or online. BCC is focused on providing quality programs that prepare students to enter the workforce and/or for transfer, while fostering a lifelong enthusiasm for learning.
With Watermark as their partner, BCC is poised to continue streamlining and centralizing its approach to keeping academic content up to date, accessible, and transparent to its stakeholders.
Watermark’s mission is to put better data into the hands of administrators, faculty, and students everywhere in order to empower them to connect information and gain insights into learning which will drive meaningful improvements. Through its innovative educational intelligence platform, Watermark supports institutions in developing an intentional approach to learning and development based on data they can trust.