4 Ways Clean Catalog Saves Countless Admin Hours

How many hours a year does your staff invest in maintaining your course catalog? Hundreds? Thousands? It’s likely more than you think. The hours spent on catalog management add up over the years, especially for outdated, inefficient catalogs that make more work than necessary. When you invest in catalog software that is built for efficiency, the software will likely pay for itself in the number of admin hours saved. Check out several ways Clean Catalog gives time back to your faculty, freeing them to do more of the work they were (actually) hired to do.

Streamlined Editing, Publishing, and Workflows

One of our primary goals at Clean Catalog is to make content management simple and straight-forward for your staff. We do this through templated content, customizable workflows, a revision portal, and easy-to-use backend interface. When your staff wants to publish a new course, degree, or program, they will be able to simply fill in a template with fields for each key piece of information, such as credit hours, department, prerequisites, and more. Our editing features operate very similarly to Microsoft Word, so it should be intuitive to use for most individuals. These tools allow your staff to make updates more quickly, while streamlining the workflow process for getting content approved & published in a timely manner.

No Data Entry During the Build Out

Many software providers will put the legwork back on your staff, making them responsible for migrating existing course listings into the new software format. This can require hundreds of hours of extensive data entry and proofreading. With Clean Catalog software, on the other hand, all data entry is done for you. Your staff won’t lift a finger aside from sending over your existing catalog in whatever form it’s in. We then take care of the rest, using proprietary software to upload and reformat your catalog content. Rest assured, our team also reviews all content for any errors or misspellings. This free perk of our software is a gamechanger for your staff, who now will have the bandwidth to take on outside tasks while your new catalog is being built.

Catalog Staging for Upcoming Academic Years

Preparing your catalog for an upcoming academic year or semester can be a huge lift. This is likely where your staff consistently spends the most time working on your catalog each year. If you choose Clean Catalog for your course catalog software, however, you can request free staging each year. Catalog staging is essentially a safe space to review, edit, and add content to your upcoming year’s catalog without impacting your current catalog. This allows your staff to make edits over the course of several months rather than cramming all catalog editing into a few weeks or days. You can then simply publish the staged catalog when you’re ready to switch over, without any downtime to your catalog site. Having a staged catalog not only simplifies the approach to yearly catalog revisions, but allows you to distribute catalog updating responsibilities throughout your institution rather than placing the burden on one individual.

Empowering Students

A sign of an underperforming catalog is when students simply aren’t using it. This may be due to a lack of accessibility, poor searchability, or being difficult to navigate. No matter the cause, an underperforming catalog frequently means students are instead turning to academic advisors to ask questions that the catalog should be answering. This can be time consuming for advisors to field simple questions or share course information that is already publicly accessible. An effective catalog should instead empower students to search for information independently, without needing hand-holding from an advisor.

A Jumpstart on Accreditation Preparation

Preparing your catalog for an accreditation review or renewal can be a tedious task for your staff, requiring numerous hours reviewing catalog content for errors or inconsistencies. Here at Clean Catalog, we have recognized this pain point and released several features to help ease that burden. Your staff can easily access a Missing Information Reports page to locate any courses, degrees, or programs that have missing or incomplete information. The Course Catalog Reporting Dashboard is another helpful feature, allowing you to identify any broken links, missing information, or accessibility issues. Both of these tools can help your staff quickly locate missing pieces that need to be updated prior to submitting your application, without having to comb through all of your content.