Services Offered
University of East London (UEL)’s website is a platform that provides information on courses, admissions, careers, research opportunities, and more to students, research scholars, and employers.
UEL’s old website existed on Sitecore, and the platform needed better capabilities when it came to system performance, flexibility, and security. We enabled UEL to move to Drupal for an intuitive, accessible, and secure digital experience platform that also offers personalized experiences for its users.
With the use of Acquia capabilities, UEL achieved a platform that offered:
1. Powerful search functionality
2. Data-driven experience and content delivery through personalization
3. Stability and scalability
4. Inclusive accessibility
With five weeks of discovery and more than 2 years of continuous development, we were able to help UEL move to the top 20 in Silktide rating (site quality and accessibility rating).
The Problem
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The high-level challenge we needed to resolve was: “how might we ease the process of finding information, especially about courses, programs, research work, careers, and immigration, all in one place?”
This bigger challenge comprised several smaller yet tough challenges:
- Determining if Sitecore was the right platform for UEL’s future plans
- If not, what platform would be the best to move to?
- Creating a platform that engages multiple sets of users such as students, job seekers, employers, etc.
- Enabling UEL to use data for offering personalized experiences
The Solution
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The design strategy was initiated by Redweb, our former agency partner. Redweb’s team began strategizing with Design Thinking. With that as the basis, technical consultants from Axelerant laid out the technical implementation roadmap to create an easy-to-use, holistic, futuristic, and scalable platform.
We proceeded to audit the university’s existing Sitecore platform to assess the ease of use and functional agility for both sets of users—internal and external. We later started working as the leading partner to improvise on the same strategy.
With each technical delivery, we’d go back to the continuous discovery and see if the challenges have evolved since. This dual-track system helped us keep our solutions well-rounded.
To craft the website’s experience, we zeroed down on migrating to Drupal as the platform.
To achieve the goals UEL had in mind, we leveraged the power of Acquia solutions:
- Acquia Cloud
- Acquia Site Studio; Site Studio UIKit
We are, at present, strategizing on how we can best leverage Acquia Lift for Personalization
The Impact
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We successfully built a cutting-edge Drupal and Acquia-powered digital experience platform for the University of East London, significantly enhancing functionality with advanced course search, personalization, and a unified content hub.
These improvements led to remarkable outcomes, including a 13% average increase in student engagement across course offerings and a 32% increase in enrollments in the previous academic year.
By better understanding user access and evaluating site data, the platform is now equipped to drive student retention and success through targeted personalization.
