Background: Johns Hopkins University 

Pioneering Research, Transformative Education

Johns Hopkins University is an American private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1876, and named after its first benefactor, the American entrepreneur, abolitionist, and philanthropist Johns Hopkins. 

It blazed a trail among higher education institutions by being the first US research university, and today it puts more money into research than any other US academic institution. It’s also widely credited with revolutionizing higher education by being the first US institution to integrate teaching and research. To date, Johns Hopkins has spawned 27 Nobel laureates, including the former US president Woodrow Wilson. 

Challenges

Navigating Campus Fragmentation: JHU's Pre-CampusGroups Dilemma

Prior to launching CampusGroups (CG) university-wide in 2021, JHU had multiple instances of the same student involvement
platform at each of its 9 campuses (spanning 3 continents). The main challenges with the previous system were:

• Segmented View of Campus Life - Each of the 9 campuses had its own separate instance. Students did not
  have visibility into what was happening university-wide, meaning that interaction across campuses was very limited.
  
  
• Lack of System Integration - The previous system did not enable integration or communication between different
  systems.
  
  
• Inability to Generate Valuable Engagement Data - Accessing involvement figures from other JHU campuses and
  pulling university-wide stats was difficult.

The Ready Education Solution

All-in-One Community Engagement Platform

JHU needed an all-in-one community engagement platform. Due to the university’s structure, the system had to be highly
customizable. According to Calvin L. Smith, Jr., JHU’s Sr. Director, Leadership Engagement & Experiential Development,
“CG provided JHU with the solutions it needed in one place.” These include:

• Multi Community Hub Campus Portal - The implementation of the (“Hopkins Groups”) portal
  established a comprehensive platform university-wide, connecting students across campuses. Each campus also has its own Community Hub.
  
  
• Highly Customizable Platform - Each campus has created a custom landing page and menu. They can establish their own unique brand and send targeted communications to students.
  
  
• Multiple Engagement Tools - Available on the web and mobile, the platform has over 30 modules. These include group and event management, attendance-tracking and gamification.
  
  
• Robust Tracking and Reporting Features - All data feeds into an analytics and reporting dashboard. The university can monitor and assess student engagement over time, narrowing in on what is and isn’t working.

Outcomes

Inspiring Global Leaders

Student engagement has significantly increased since CG’s implementation. The portal has also created a better user experience for administrators and students. This growth is reflected in the following user stats: 

• Over 22,000 events were promoted on Hopkins Groups in the first two months of the 2021 academic year.
• In September 2021, there were 54,000 unique logins via the Hopkins Groups website and 19,000 mobile logins.
• Group membership is up 41.6%, increasing from 24,000 to 34,000 members.
• Over 80% of respondents are happy with the system and its functionality.