Over the past year, the pandemic has forced the temporary closure of offices, institutions and public centres across the world. For many professional bodies and awarding organisations, home working has enabled them to continue administrating their learning or CPD services. But the examination of many high-level qualifications has been extremely challenging to manage remotely.

In these cases, and for those that prefer an in-person to an online learner journey, the reopening of learning centres is an important step in restarting their career development and returning to normality. This is also the perfect time for awarding bodies to examine the often-arduous administration entailed in supporting these centres.

The correct tool to streamline these processes are centre portals. These authorised-access websites integrate closely with the awarding bodies core CRM database to facilitate the far more efficient management of multiple learning centres and examinations. Centre portals allow administrators within these centres to log-in and access all the information they need to teach and test learners as they move through the course structure. And for the awarding body, this delivers a significant benefit in three key areas.

Centre accreditation

Learning programmes present a substantial revenue stream for professional bodies and awarding organisations. And just like any product, the course itself will have a brand value that dictates its popularity and thus, how much can be charged for it. Any learning centre is a primary touchpoint for this brand and so it is vital that only the best are successfully accredited.

A centre portal plays an important part in this process by helping new learning centres with access to all the information they need to become accredited efficiently. This is centralised within the portal and automatically updated with every correspondence and checklist item recorded. Once complete, the portal continues to support learning centres and maintain operational standards as they accept students and operate examinations. The design and usability of the portal also fulfils another important role by clearly demonstrating the standards that are expected of the organisation and its partners.

Administration

Once the learning centre is accredited and accepting students, the hard work of administration begins. With every learner comes a complete set of documentation that follows them throughout their learning journey. As they acquire qualifying experience, it needs to be added to their records and be available to them and the learning centres handing their examinations. Each module that is attempted, failed or passed then helps to determine the next stage of learning to be delivered. A typical learner journey can have multiple stages such as:

1. Learner signs up for a qualification
2. They make payments, complete a registration and a learner record is created
3. This allows access to a self-service function and a personalised repository of information
4. Access rights are granted for the appropriate learning materials via a single sign-on
5. Learner information is simultaneously shared with any e-assessment or essential platforms
6. Exams are scheduled and conducted either in-person or via a “remote proctored” method where a webcam ensures proper conduct
7. Results are process and shared with the learner and any necessary professional bodies
8. The next stage of qualification is determined and offered directly for continuation

Managing this manually is an enormous task for a single organisation. But ensuring that every part of each learners’ journey is current and correct across multiple centres can be exponentially harder. By allowing learner centres to self-service these documents and using an integrated CRM to securely manage the information and handle essential updates and communication, centre portals make this task achievable for all sizes of awarding body.

Centre management

To maintain the highest standards across all learner journeys, it is occasionally necessary to apply restrictions to under-performing or non-compliant learning centres. This can occur due to non-payment of fees to the awarding body or as a result of other concerns that might impinge on the brand value of the qualification itself. These restrictions can take a number of forms but can begin with updates and information being held back from certain centres until a situation is resolved.

Understanding where each centre is in its payment schedule and managing any subsequent restriction manually is extremely challenging. The matrix of CPD, qualifications and centres can be complex and overlapping. A centre portal simplifies this by providing clear analytics to spot any issues in their earliest stages, allowing awarding bodies to take prompt remedial action when required and providing the tools to easily lift restrictions when necessary.

CPD and qualifications products have the potential to support learners’ careers while growing revenue and building brand value for awarding organisations and professional bodies. However, without an integrated solution to reduce manual administration and ensure high standards, these offerings can carry significant risk. A modern centre portal solution places all the information and tools required in a single application and helps ensure that any return on investment is maximised.

Learn how Protech’s centre portal solutions can support awarding bodies by downloading our free eBook or requesting a free one to one consultation here

Do you have a passion for B2B digital marketing? Our marketing team within ClearCourse Membership Services is growing! We are hiring a full-time Digital Marketing Executive to help drive revenue by promoting technology products and services through coordinated sector specific digital marketing campaigns . Their primary role includes facilitation and implementation of campaigns across digital channels such as website, social media and email marketing

Skills and Requirements for our Digital Marketing Executive:

• 1+ Years of Experience in Digital Marketing
• Bachelor’s degree of 2:1 or above in digital marketing or relevant area
• Basic knowledge of marketing concepts and principles
• In-depth understanding of digital and social media marketing best practices
• Self-starter with the ability to work under own initiative
• Ability to work under pressure and without close supervision.
• Understanding of how to brand build through a social media strategy
• Copywriting, editing and proofreading skills
• Proficiency in MS Office, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel
• Working knowledge of content management systems and automated marketing software
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Incredible attention to detail
• Excellent organisational, time management and prioritisation skills
• Knowledge of video and picture editing software such as Adobe helpful but not essential

Key Responsibilities:

• Update and management of CCMS websites including creating and posting blog posts and articles on the company’s website and social media pages
• Manage all social media accounts, responsible for implementing the strategy for growth of each channel.
• Conduct social media audits to ensure best practices are being used
• Maintain digital dashboard of several different accounts
• Coordinate with marketing team to actiondigital marketing campaigns
• Prepare emails to send out to customers
• Monitor key online marketing metrics to track success
• Ensure that the brand message is consistent across all channels
• Drafting marketing materials for digital marketing purposes (e.g. social graphics, online leaflets etc)
• Support Marketing Manager (and wider team) to generate leads and opportunities for business growth
• Support events and webinar marketing and delivery

Who should apply:

Those who have held a position of Junior Marketing Executive, Digital / Marketing assistant with the relevant digital experience. Those having just received degrees with proven knowledge and experience within digital marketing.

Although this is a flexible working role where the ideal candidate will predominately work from home, you should be within a commutable distance of the office, based in Aldridge within the West Midlands.

Salary expectations:

£20-25k, dependent on candidate experience

When: Thursday 29^th July

Time: 12-12:45pm

Where: Online Zoom lunch and learn session

Who should join: This session is aimed at C-suite awarding organisations and membership organisations who have a qualification element to their value proposition. Employees who are responsible for their company’s digital strategy or academic/qualification delivery should attend.

Session overview

Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected the ability of awarding and membership organisations’ to continue to operate and deliver key services such as qualifications and events. As a result, many have lost large amounts of revenue.

We will share our expertise on how other organisations are overcoming the past 18 months and seeing growth, focusing particularly on how to unlock long term revenue enhancement through digital solutions. Our digital partner NetXtra, will then talk about how to bolster that revenue generation with intuitive websites and apps.

Learning Outcomes

1. Discover how reducing data silos and duplication in multiple, disparate systems can streamline processes and contribute cost and time savings.
2. Understand how digital solutions such as intuitive central portals, apps, and websites can improve learner engagement resulting in increased revenue
3.  Learn how optimising digital solutions will have a practical impact on enhancement of your revenue.

Every attendee will receive a complimentary copy of Protechs 20 page e-book: How to drive learner engagement beyond the pandemic

The MemberWise Digital Excellence report has been officially launched, with statistically significant research from 719 Association/Membership organisation managers/directors. The report provides an in-depth insight into the digital activity and strategy within the Membership and Association Sector and as an official recognised MemberWise supplier, Protech urges all of our clients and stakeholders to download a free copy of the report, as it provides some valuable and surprising results that could impact on your membership organisations overall strategy.

One of the most surprising statistics within the report is that only 32% of respondents said that they have a digital strategy and only 32% have a digital roadmap or plan – an alarming statistic considering digital solutions should underpin a memberships organisation strategy and Member Value Proposition!

The report also provides insight and statistics into the following areas:

• Goals Challenges and Strategy
• Member Engagement Measurement/Scoring
• Online Personalisation/Automation
• Member Value and ‘Digital Only’ Memberships
• Online Services, Online Communities & Mobile Apps
• Virtual AGMs/Events/Conferences
• Online Learning, CPD and Assessment/Examinations
• Data, Web Analytics, Websites/Integration/Hosting
• CRM/Membership Databases/AMS

The report is free to download digitally or as a hardcopy for Memberwise network members