Request for Proposal

Details for RFP

Overview

ECMC Education strives for equal competition among all interested parties.

ECMC Education is soliciting Request for Proposals (RFPs) for a variety of projects to support the transition to distance learning that was required due to the current and ongoing pandemic. As part of the Digital Ecosystem initiative designed to improve current student’s access to campus resources and course materials, Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) funds will be used to cover such costs that are associated with a significant change in the delivery of instruction due to the coronavirus.

Solutions should integrate seamlessly across existing systems and facilitate a cohesive student experience from matriculation to graduation. Integrated technology promoting a holistic student experience will provide centralized data storage and retrieval capabilities, automatic early alert and at-risk tools, multiple communication channels, scalable and innovative career services solutions, and robust financial aid and student verification capabilities. Detailed requirements are outlined in each RFP.

Please complete and submit the online Request Form to obtain a copy of the RFP(s) in which your organization is interested in reviewing for consideration. You may opt to bid for a single project or multiple projects.

All proposals must be submitted in Word format via email to Chiquita Lane, Program Manager, at clane@ecmc.org by Friday, December 3, 2021.

Other key proposal activities and deadlines are as follows:

Bid 1.0: Student Advising and Related Services

Academic advisors at each Altierus campus engage with students from matriculation to graduation. In addition to helping students navigate their academic program, advisors provide guidance, help students remove obstacles hindering success, identify helpful resources and provide options to reduce external stressors. Advisors are a primary part of each student's support system.

To aid advisors in providing effective and efficient support to a diverse student population, across a multi-campus system, an electronic advising appointment scheduling solution that permits notation and proactive outreach is required. Your platform's calendar and scheduling features should integrate with Microsoft Outlook and Anthology Student, allowing advisors to inform students of their availability. Consequently, students should have the ability to request appointments, schedule and cancel appointments independently, and attend virtual meetings. An appropriate advising and guidance solution should also enable identifying and filtering all enrolled students by campus, program, and other unique characteristics. Finally, a robust platform that meets our objectives will offer early alert capabilities to help identify risk factors and patterns, track academic appeals and other workflows, and support chart boards.

Click here to fill in RFP request form

Bid 2.0: Career Services

Career services are as central to student success as the academic curricula. Therefore, we seek to expand opportunities to encourage active engagement between students and career advisors throughout the student lifecycle.

The appropriate career services platform should aid in the design of innovative services that bridge academics with career development and leverage current resources to improve retention, student satisfaction, and career readiness. Specific requirements include, but are not limited to, the ability of students to independently schedule their first career counseling session during Orientation, the ability to assign students to a career advisor based on their academic program, and capabilities to design thematic workshops and upload content from external sources. In addition, students must have the ability to register for career services workshops and subsequent counseling sessions, track workshop attendance, receive reminder notifications, sign-up on waitlists, build a professional profile and network, and participate in mock interviews and simulations. The solution should also enable various employer self-services, such as the ability to post externship and employment opportunities and view student profiles and recommendations. Finally, career services staff require a platform that permits the hosting of virtual career fairs and the dissemination of surveys that allow for the incorporation of several data collection fields.

Click here to fill in RFP request form

Bid 3.0: Financial Aid and Student Verification

Our centralized financial aid office is responsible for distributing support across each Altierus campus. The office handles the administrative processes involved in collecting applicants' demographic information, financial history, borrower data, and the issuing and management of financial aid.

We seek a robust platform to help minimize manual efforts, empower students to engage in the application and verification processes proactively, and improve disbursement activities. Specific requirements include, but are not limited to, the presentation of how-to videos that educate students on the financial aid process, a searchable FAQ and/or artificial intelligence chatbot, and a user-friendly interface for students to upload verification documents and view their award status. The platform should promote the seamless import of FAFSA files, the centralization of student enrollment and financial aid data, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), interfacing with the Federal Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System (Pell and Direct Loan), packaging simulations, the packaging, repackaging, and unpackaging of individual and batch awards, multiple disbursement schedules, and the automatic generation of award letters and financing plans.

Click here to fill in RFP request form

Bid 4.0: Course Creation and Scheduling

Our schedulers are responsible for assigning numerous course instructors, lab instructors, and students to multiple courses throughout the academic year. We seek a technology platform that will enable automated instructor and student scheduling, alert schedulers that maximum course and lab limits are impending, permit automated student messaging, track instructor availability, eligibility, and course assignments, and promote robust analytics and reporting.

For accreditation purposes, course instructors and lab instructors must accurately track students' class attendance, lab attendance, and assignment time. Therefore, we seek a technology solution that will enable instructors to tabulate and track student engagement time. In addition, each lab instructor should be able to seamlessly identify, track, and enter grades for their assigned group of students within each course. Finally, we seek a solution that will integrate seamlessly into our learning management system, student information system, and payroll system.

Click here to fill in RFP request form

ECMC Education strives for equal competition among all interested parties.

Request RFP

This RFP is no longer active