3 Reasons to Adopt Course Catalog Software

If you’re still wondering if course catalog software is the right fit for your institution, here are some of the essential reasons to transition to an online course catalog.

Improve Access and Accessibility for Students and Potential Students

While some smaller schools may have catalogs that number 100 pages or less, students at most colleges have to schlep around books that are several hundred pages thick just to choose their courses or learn about their major. This is unwieldy and unrealistic for today’s digital natives. Even if they’re looking at a PDF catalog online, navigating between pages is cumbersome and slow.

By putting your course catalog online, you are ensuring students can access it anytime and anywhere. Clean Catalog software is device-adaptive, so users can check it on their phone, tablet or desktop computer and still get the same great experience.

It’s faster to move between different courses or programs, as all it takes is a click or two instead of trying to flip back and forth across hundreds of pages or scan through a long block of small-print text to find one specific course title.

It’s also easier to share: Students conferring with friends or parents about which course to take can simply send them a link to the relevant page.

Create an Adaptable Product

Professors retire; state requirements change; the job market is constantly demanding new professions and qualifications. Sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts, there might even be typos. When you’re working in a paper or PDF catalog, every alteration requires multiple steps and often a reprint. These can be time-consuming for already-limited staff, not to mention expensive.

In Clean Catalog, revisions can be made in seconds and are then immediately available to the entire student body. Staff and faculty members can be given varying degrees of editing access, so that no unauthorized person can publish an update. Multiple people can be in the system editing different pages simultaneously. And those with administrator privileges can view the edit log to monitor how and when pages are altered.

You Can Still Have a PDF Catalog — But Don't Have to Re-Create Your Content

Clean Catalog also includes a PDF generation for whole course catalogs, for the instances when you still need a physical copy of your course catalog. You can view or download PDF versions of each individual course or program, as well as the entire catalog at once. To update the PDF of the entire catalog after making changes, all you have to do is go back into the PDF generator and click Save again, and instantly the new file is available to everyone online.

So by adopting Clean Catalog software, you get BOTH the online version and the PDF version. It’s a win all around!