Entrepreneurial Venture: Online Education Platform for Colleges

This project outlines an entrepreneurial venture for an online education platform designed to support college students. The proposal includes a 24/7 web portal with features like biometric verification for enhanced security and user-friendly interface. The project addresses the growing need for online education by providing a one-stop website for students, faculty, and staff. It includes market analysis, SWOT analysis, and a strategy for implementation. The platform aims to offer services such as online applications, counseling, registration, transcripts, and instructor evaluations, integrating features like Blackboard and document sharing. The venture aims to address the challenges of online education, such as impersonation and the need for professor training, by providing a secure and comprehensive learning environment. The project also considers the potential integration of the technology into other sectors, such as security. The project concludes with a cost analysis and a startup summary, showcasing the comprehensive plan for a successful online education platform.

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An Entrepreneurial Venture for online education website for college students
Name:
Affiliation:
Date:

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...............................................................................................................................2
Background information.......................................................................................................................3
Project goals/ objectives........................................................................................................................3
Mission statement..................................................................................................................................4
Target market........................................................................................................................................4
Start-up Summary.................................................................................................................................5
Products and services............................................................................................................................5
Market Analysis Summary...................................................................................................................6
SWOT Analysis......................................................................................................................................8
Strengths............................................................................................................................................8
Weaknesses.........................................................................................................................................8
Opportunities.....................................................................................................................................9
Threats................................................................................................................................................9
Strategy and implementation..............................................................................................................10
Strategy and Promotion......................................................................................................................11
Marketing strategies............................................................................................................................11
Management summary........................................................................................................................11
Cost Analysis........................................................................................................................................12

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Executive Summary
In the current world, investments have become a major part of most peoples' lives as they are a
stable source of income. Education as well has also been essential since it is termed that for one
to be successful in life, he or she should pursue education. As a college student, education is vital
at the moment and will be even more important to my university success, and the society at large
as the area population Grows's day in day out, economy decreases, and transport cost becomes
high in this process. My university is becoming a leader in this field of online student learning
support.
This force gave me the zeal to come up with a proposition of setting up the institution's
commitment to online student learning support by developing and launching of a new innovative
online 24/7 university web portal. The portal is designing will be user-friendly, a one-stop
website where students, staff and the faculties can access information about all services that the
college provide to them once enrolled. The requirements for one to obtain the information on the
web is a student ID, PIN that will differ for each student, biometric information, computing
device and access to internet connection.
The portal will be a Datatec product, referred to as Active campus portal will be able to monitor
all users whenever they access the server. It will be able to interact with the local university
servers, calendar, and different departments. This web portal will be a campus wide collaboration
which will be specifically marketed and practiced in the presence of students, departments, and
staff. At the moment that the portal will be active and live, students will able to access a one stop
shop for all their online requirements, the faculties will have simple ways to communicate and
disseminate information to all their students and also the staff will have a new method for
sharing and exchanging information.

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In other words, this proposal is aimed at being consistent with the purpose to exploit and take
advantage of the few resources within the institution and other local colleges that have not yet
launched online platforms to maximize their productivity. Through this website, students will be
in a position to access from their homes and reduce the expenses that they incur through
transport which is constantly fluctuating.
Background information
Online education has become most common in many advanced institutions. However, the quality
and credibility of these institutions web portal have been highly questioned. The idea of online
education was initiated so that institutions can provide education to a wide range and variety of
students at different places in the world. The online platform, however, has not been up to
standards as is possible that a person can impersonate himself or herself just to take the place of a
student on having access to the student ID and personal PIN.
It is the reason why I have come up with this website that will be specially customized to curb
such issues. The portal has designed specially in a way that it will require students who enroll
with college students provide their biometrics to the institution so that those who access the web
portal and attend classes are kept in check. This will enable eradicate issues where people who
have gone through higher education levels being hired by students to write their online
assignments and examinations. The web will also provide a live session where students can
communicate with their lectures online during classes to seek for clarification in areas where
they do not understand clearly.
Project goals/ objectives
 To make online college education more pleasing, credible and of a high standard to
students, colleges should provide students with one stop access to all staff members,
departments and the available programs that the institution offers.

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 The main objective of this entrepreneurial venture is to;
 Provide all information for qualifications and requirements for a student to enroll in
online classes program in the institutions.
 Launch a simple and secure user-friendly portal to students
 Provide access in 24/7 for frequently asked questions (FAQ) section
 Facilitate easy means of communication and distribution of information in the faculties
and all students in the institutions.
Mission statement
To set up a college website that will ensure commitment in online student learning support by
launching 24/7 campus website portal that captures and uses students biometrics to ensure
transparency, quality, and credible online studying platform.
Target market
The targeted organizations in this business venture are some local institutions that have not yet
adopted online classes fully. Also, this idea will be great boost to those who have already
initiated the program through without advanced features such as the biometric section that
increases answer the questions on the integrity of the service. The service will also provide the
institution to admit a larger number of students from the community as the technology offers
them a solution. The project will later be integrated to suit well for companies in other industries
after full adoption in the institutions.
I have already made a few plans be implemented at the college hence the presence of the
developed technical support team, a tech center, online registration of some students and services
to students, training programs on how to access services such as classes, online library, and other
more technological advancements.

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The future advancement that I will incorporate to the main server and the portal is to extend the
services from the education industry to the security sector of other organizations by introducing a
sensor such that the people who approach the organization's entrance will be seen from several
meters away. The tech will, therefore, inform the security personnel at the gate minutes before
the person arrives. This will help improve the security of the organization as there will be enough
time to act if the parties are termed as a hazard to the organization's security.
Start-up Summary
To present the new portal to universities and colleges within the society, the project needs a
biometric capturing device that will encourage the institutions to embrace it. As the owner of this
project, I recommended that there was a need to present the web formation to the university
committee that represents the entire institution from the administration, different schools
(faculties) and students. The committee recommended that an evaluation of the effectiveness of
the portal be carried out and provided a few inputs for selected students for providing inputs for
design and features. The school committee has agreed to buy my idea if I come up with a full
order for setting up the realistic plan. The start-up costs would involve labor and the product
development; these two costs are highlighted in details under the cost analysis area of this
business plan.
Products and services
 The top benefits and features that the web will avail include;
 Confirmation of user biometric information
 Customizable user interface
 Single password sign on
 Wiki
 Discussion board

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 Content and Document Management
 Blogs
 Outlook integration- campus E-mail, Class and work schedules
 Web advisor integration- application, transcripts, orientation, financial help, grades,
personal account information as well as all other necessary current web advisor functions.
 Blackboard integration
 Document sharing – easy access to files for collaboration, class documents and office
documents for different faculties.
Market Analysis Summary
Distance learning and online education services continue to grow at an alarming rate at
community colleges. Community colleges have been reporting a continuous increase in distance
education enrolments in the past years. According to a survey released in 2014 at an annual
meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges in Philadelphia, there an average
increase of 18 percent in distance education. The survey on these community colleges and
distance learning was in an annual report for the technology council which is an affiliate of the
AACC (Drucker, 2014). It was by 150 community colleges that were selected from the possible
sample frame.
However, the preceding years (i.e., 2014 and 2015) surveys show that most of this institutions
did not have any possible methods for solving the issue of impersonation that was common
among the students enrolled in online classes (Piva et.al, 2012). Most students from other
surveys acknowledged that they would seek for help during the times of exams in the online
platform and or when assignments were administered to them. There were also claims by
students that some colleges were offering a few courses online compared to those at the
institutions as well as program coverage (Stam, 2010). Majority of the colleges were offering

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degree programs online though they have no suitable way for making follow up activities
towards their students (Callison and Vestal, 2010).
The other challenge of offering online education that the colleges reported facing was the failure
of college students to fill out course evaluations (Breugst et.al, 2012). Though this was not
among the top challenges, it remains an issue not yet resolved and would affect the way people
see the distance education system. Training professors have been a major issue for the
institutions offering distance learning according to the reports from the surveys conducted
(Shane, 2012). Over 60 percent of the professors in the surveyed institutions required a training
of more than eight hours.
This was evident from the written responses that the professors gave with a lot of frustrations.
Most of them claimed that the faculty was so occupied such that it could not have a chance to
train them. They claimed to have little computer experience hence the difficulty in getting in line
with the proposed changes due to the introduction of distance education (Baron et.al, 2011).
They claimed to have no rich ideas on what can be accomplished in a well-designed distance
education course.
However, my project, most of this challenges will be addressed as the web portal will be
customized in such a way that there will be common information that can only be accessed by
both the professors and students and another specific information (Morris et.al, 2010). This will
be by the professor's faculty; the information will be only available on providing the server with
the user password and the biometric details. There will also be sample attachments through video
demonstrations that will show how one can use the web portal effectively to achieve the desired
outcome (Samila and Sorenson, 2011). The students will also be getting the same content as
those who are within the institution to ensure full coverage of course. Also, the web portal for

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each student will be customized into sessions and their specific time (Kuratko, 2009). This will
aid in curbing class skipping by students as the sessions will be expiring after the stipulated
period and if there were assignments submitted within that time.
SWOT Analysis
Every business venture has possible strengths and weaknesses (Onetti, 2012). The strengths
should always be able to out-way the weakness and threats for any business to become
successful in its operations. Those for the web portal am seeking for funds to launch it to
colleges are enumerated below.
Strengths
 Availing online services for students (Hsu & Ziedonis, 2008) such as application for
online classes, counseling to student in the distance education program, registration sites,
transcripts, class schedules, financial assistance, instructor evaluations and monitoring
platform, and orientation of new students
 Blackboard for the instructors
 Number of sections/ courses offers online and their names
 Professional development training and guidelines for instructors
 Online annual student survey –for students to give the ratings and recommendations for
the distance education web portal and the entire system.
Weaknesses
 The online services are common in different areas and thus not all in one easily
accessible place for students to find
 Assessment is not done online for students. The assessment test is only available online
for the colleges that adopt this type of customized web portal.

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 The technical support team is only available for a few hours and in low capacity, and
there are numerous pathways students have to take to get the help they need, regardless of
where they start looking for it.
 There is no consistency as each faculty is independent on how it handles support matters.
 Communicating with instructors is a major problem for many distance education sites.
However, this has been resolved in my business idea as there is a provision for the
section where the student interacts with the instructor at the end of the session to seek
clarification on points where he or she did not get the point well.
Opportunities
 Demand for classes is high
 Gas prices are high hence most people prefer enrolling in online classes where they can
save much as they do not require to travel
 100 percent guaranteed to get a degree through online class
 Inform high schools of the online opportunities for online classes
Threats
 The academic integrity of the online classes. This has however been addressed in this
web by providing a sector for biometric information for every student to ensure that no
one takes a student's place.
 Perceived quality of instruction. This is addressed by the provision of training and other
guidelines to the instructor in the web portal.
 Funding/ state budget. The college needs capital to hire a full developed web portal that
will operate within the country effectively.
 Student technology. The level of technology of students may not be up to the standards
where they can use the online platform for studying but for other irrelevant activities

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(Jackson, 2011). This is however addressed by this website in the sense that when the
student diverts to other websites, his or her session will become inactive and thus risking
the loss of marks in case an assignment is given.
From the above, it is evident that the strengths and the opportunities carry much weight
compared to the weakness and threats as most of the drawbacks have been curbed by putting up
standard measures in place.
Strategy and implementation
In line with the timeline I created together with the development committee, this idea needs a
team of both MIS staff and computer support services to evaluate the suitability of the web portal
to the institution and other organizations (Zahra and Nambisan, 2012). The implementing team
lead by me would need to involve parties on colleges that would be affected by the launch of the
product (Pinto & Blue, 2016). Instruction and student services will be needed to choose a
timeframe that they feel would have little or no impact on their daily activities/ functions that
students require on the Web advisor (Roure and Maidique, 2009).
Before the actual implementation, a test environment was established to assure that all parts and
sections of the website are fully functioning before the launching of the portal. The project team
also recommended that a student's panel to be assembled to check web portal and gather
information on whether it functions well or not. Other areas that needed evaluation before the
actual implementation were the board policy, technical support, user training, and security
permissions (Bruton et.al, 2009). As the owner of the idea, it was my goal that all areas of the
portal are well tested and examined before the release of the live web portal version to the
campus community.

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Strategy and Promotion
A crucial part of promoting the web portal is understanding the merits of products and services in
any market environment. In every promotional advertisements and article, the importance and
advantages of the new features of the customized features will be critically emphasized
(Overholm, 2015). The benefits that originate from the advantages will as well be put the
emphasis. Students look for certain benefits that have been addressed by this portal. These
include saving money, gaining comfort, saving time, lowering costs and many others. The
service and promotion strategy of this web portal is all about the benefits that it presents to the
users.
Marketing strategies
Mailing the college class schedule with simple instructions on how to use the web portal
Marketing flyers and pamphlets at senior centers
Promotion of online learning activities through other departments such as; admissions and
records, career services and community education.
Management summary
The portal will be implemented by a committee from the college where I will be the team leader.
There will need to represent other different areas of the campus in this committee. There will be
some students, staff, and Management Information Systems (MIS) who I involved to confirm the
suitability of my idea.
The portal is a Datatel product, known as Active Campus Portal. Therefore, we will require
support from Datatel and MIS to aid me in making this product a success. Nevertheless, the
portal interacts with the campus calendar, networks, servers and various departments. Thus, I
will need IT support throughout the lifetime of this product.

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This idea requires a lot of capital to commercialize it to a wide range of institution and other
organizations. In return, it is a promising business venture as it will plow back the invested
capital within a short span of time since many institutions are will to buy it.
Cost Analysis
Software
Intern Cost ($)
Datatel Student Portal license 30,000
Yearly maintenance 3500
Hardware
Database server 10,000
Indexing server 5000
Share point servers 15,000
Staffing costs
Full time staff 40,000

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