Bluefield College Implements Jenzabar’s e-Racer Learning Management System

Jenzabar®, Inc., a leading provider of software, services and strategies for higher education, announced today that Bluefield College based in Virginia has successfully implemented Jenzabar’s e-Racer^® Learning Management System (LMS).

From an IT perspective, Bluefield College was facing a number of challenges prior to implementing e-Racer, including a complete lack of integration, rising maintenance costs, and difficulty in applying upgrades each year. Bluefield began to explore multiple LMS solutions, from outsourced options to its current and costly hosted solution. e-Racer was chosen because it solved all challenges while offering a robust feature-set.

Director of Information Services and Technology at Bluefield College, Steve Kessinger, stated that “During the selection process, I offered to demo e-Racer head-to-head against any other LMS solution to prove its value. So, we had our own throw-down between e-Racer and another finalist. IT didn’t solely make the decision. We did our part to champion the product we believed was best for the institution but various faculty power users and members of our Leadership Team, including the President, chose e-Racer.”

From an administrative standpoint, Bluefield College has reduced hard costs and alleviated hundreds, if not thousands, of man-hours each term with e-Racer. Course shells no longer need to be created, and students and faculty do not need to be manually enrolled. The college also eliminated the need for building and maintaining a customized integration, and reduced strain on a limited IT staff by being able to support a solution that they know, understand, and work with on a day-to-day basis.

In addition, Bluefield College took a hybrid non-traditional program completely online with e-Racer and is delivering it successfully to students. The LMS usage across the college has also increased since the adoption of e-Racer, from roughly a 50 percent usage rate among faculty to 70 percent for traditional faculty and 100 percent for the new online program.

“Jenzabar has really gone above and beyond to help ensure that we were able to be successful with e-Racer,” said Kessinger. “Jenzabar listens to customers to improve and enhance its solution portfolio which is highly rare in the industry.”

“Bluefield College is just one of numerous schools replacing its former LMS with e-Racer,” said Rick Tomlinson, Academic Solutions Product Manager at Jenzabar. “e-Racer offers all the required functionality for the end users but at a much more affordable cost both upfront and down the road. Institutions that have adopted e-Racer are experiencing increased satisfaction and usage at a lower cost.”

Earlier this year, in a report published by the Ovum analyst group titled “Learning Management Systems: the Competitive Landscape*,” Jenzabar was declared the only enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider to offer its own LMS and stated that it “could also be considered by institutions looking to cut costs.” e-Racer helps institutions provide students and faculty with a dynamic learning platform designed to promote collaboration, engagement, and a learner-centric environment.

About Jenzabar, Inc.

Jenzabar, Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise software and services developed exclusively for higher education. With more than 40 years of combined experience offering technology solutions to colleges and universities, Jenzabar is the trusted partner of choice to more than 700 campuses worldwide, including private liberal arts, state, and community colleges and business, medical, law and other graduate schools. Jenzabar is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with regional offices located across the United States. For further information, please visit www.jenzabar.com.