RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is a software technology that liberates human intelligence from performing monotonous time-consuming tasks. While RPA is a crucial part of digital transformation across all industries, universities and other education providers are leveraging RPA too for gaining a competitive edge and bringing about innovation. 

Educators who faced COVID-related difficulties of remote learning turned towards RPA. Here are the top use cases for RPA in the education sector: 

1. Application processing

One of the primary challenges higher education providers face during admission season is the influx of new college applications. By using legacy systems, human workers manually browse each application and examine it against college requirements. Here is where RPA steps in and streamlines the process by setting up machine learning software that analyze the parameters for high-quality applications, and the RPA bots further process them automatically.

RPA bots automatically check the courses each student is applying for and compare their eligibility with the prerequisites for the courses. This way, qualified students receive the admission form automatically, and staff members are flagged if any application lacks a necessary prerequisite. 

2. Course scheduling

Use cases of RPA implementation in the education sector go beyond streamlining the admission process. Course scheduling is one such hurdle that education facilities contend with each semester, requiring collaboration between multiple departments. Using legacy systems, each department has its own data sets, and they manually share data amongst each other to determine the ideal times for student demographics. 

RPA helps staff employees of different departments to pool their data, and advanced data analytics systems check data between different student information and courses to determine the apt time to hold each course. This simplifies tasks for the faculty, especially with the course scheduling, while improving the student experience. This solution applies to other schedules as well, including sports, clubs, etc. 

3. Financial reports

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought financial hardships to almost all sectors, and education isn’t any different. The decrease in fundings further added to the chaos.

RPA helps reduce costs in financial planning by the automated accumulation of actionable insights backed by big data, enabling education facilities to plan accordingly for each semester. Further by setting up software bots to handle admission and course scheduling, the staff is freed to focus on core financial concerns. 

4. Chatbots

A chatbot is a virtual assistant that simulates a real human conversation. While educational facilities have human workers on hand for complex inquiries, the majority of queries can be answered by a chatbot on the school’s website. With the help of NLP (Natural Language Processing), RPA bots understand questions submitted in a conversational tone and provide accurate answers to queries regarding scheduling, financial aid, and admissions, from students, staff, or family. 

• Processing grades

Faculty members are expected to keep up with student reports which is an amalgamation of students’ grades, academic program, recommendation letters, etc. Certain tasks, such as writing and adding new recommendation letters, do require human involvement, but grade processing can be easily automated. 

Most teachers leverage an LMS (Learning Management System) to automate grade processing, leveraging bots to perform formulas calculating each student’s average. Once final grades are punched in after the exams, RPA pulls each student’s grade from their teachers’ LMS and adds it to that student’s report without any human intervention. 

Conclusion

These are just a few of the many use cases for RPA in higher education. By automating core education operations, RPA increases reliability and scalability ensuring a good ROI. Whether it’s RPA solutions for student servicing or simple automation of database operations, RPA helps achieve quick wins, increasing efficiency and productivity.

How can Neebal help?

Neebal developed a Learning Management System (LMS) for a leading EduTech startup that facilitated digitisation of the entire educational journey and enabled teachers to deliver education more effectively and help students succeed. The LMS supports the efficient distribution of study materials to all students in less time. Additionally, it  enabled parents to access class schedules, course outlines, and assessments, ensuring transparency, safety, and student wellbeing. Read the complete case study. 

Are you looking for Hyperautomation companies to innovate your educational processes? Schedule a call with our experts to discuss your automation requirements and kick-start your digital transformation!