Case Study – Panola College

While many of our clients want a complete overhaul of their previous catalog, others want to keep certain aspects or layouts of their current catalog, just in digital form. This rings true for Panola College, who just recently launched their new course catalog with us. While there were many challenges with their traditional PDF course catalog, there were also sections they had poured hours into designing and that worked well for their institution. Rather than overhauling their PDF catalog entirely, we migrated the portions they liked into digital format and redesigned the portions they disliked. Check out how this seamless transition process unfolded, the tailored solutions we presented, and the advantages Panola College has enjoyed since going digital.

The Challenges: Navigating Obstacles in the Digital Age

Before implementing Clean Catalog software, Panola College experienced various challenges with their previous course catalog, ranging from user accessibility to ease of content management for staff. Texas Reardon, the Director of Distance and Digital Learning at Panola College, highlighted that "price, formatting, overall look, and search capability were areas where we faced difficulties. Our previous software lacked the flexibility and modern features necessary to adapt to our evolving needs." Since their previous catalog was a single condensed PDF, students struggled to find information they were looking for. There was no comprehensive search functionality or capacity to modify the catalog for disabilities, such as visual or motor impairments.

Editing and managing the course catalog was also a burden for the Panola staff, who had to route all edit requests through a few individuals who had backend access to the PDF. When revisions were made during the academic year, addendums would need to be issued or new versions published, leading to multiple catalog versions circulating. Not only was the management process time-consuming, but it led to inconsistencies and confusion for both the students and staff alike.

The Process: A Smooth Transition to Modern Software

To kick-off the transition process, Panola College simply emailed their preexisting PDF catalog to the Clean Catalog support team. From there, we began migrating their catalog content to their new digital version. Once the skeleton of the new catalog site was built, we began implementing customizations and design requests made by the Panola team. The process was simple, with a dedicated support team standing-by to assist Panola every step of the way. Texas elaborated, "the transition to Clean Catalog was remarkably smooth and straightforward." Clean Catalog's intuitive administrative interface significantly simplified tasks for the college staff, making the often intimidating process of adopting new software a seamless process.

Our Solutions: Customization for Maximum Impact

Clean Catalog's customization capabilities played a key role in Panola College's digital transformation. Panola wanted to emulate the degree plans they had meticulously built within their previous PDF catalog. That degree plan structure had worked well for their students and staff, and they simply wanted to digitize them rather than reinventing the wheel. "Clean Catalog's team collaborated closely with [Panola] to customize degree plans, ensuring they resembled their PDF counterparts closely. This customization was crucial for maintaining familiarity and usability for student advisors," Texas explained.

For other content types, such as degrees, certificates, and courses, Panola College did not have a preexisting format that worked well for their school, so they were open to our recommendations for maximizing accessibility. The Clean Catalog team reworked these designs and formatting, while initiating a consistent feedback loop with Panola staff, to be more readable and searchable. Our team also implemented custom designs to ensure the new catalog site reflected Panola College’s brand guidelines, logos, and color palette. We recreated the footer bar utilized on Panola’s home website to ensure their catalog is a seamless extension of their other digital publications.

Looking Ahead: Embracing a Digital Future

By embracing Clean Catalog's tailored solutions and modern features, Panola College not only overcame previous formatting and pricing challenges, but also set a new standard for staff efficiency and user accessibility for their course catalog. Their new system paves the way for improved accessibility, simplified content management, and higher user engagement in the future.

To learn more about Clean Catalog software or to schedule a free demo, feel free to reach out to us.