Learning Technology and Student Information Systems

Our strategic advisory for Learning Technologies and Student Information Systems (SIS) shifts the focus to the "Why" and "What" rather than the "How."  Whilst we can help with the how, the "how" should be executed against a clarity that is understood by the whole organisation.  This type of consulting is about aligning digital infrastructure with the educational mission and ensuring that the technology ecosystem is sustainable, compliant, and learner-centric. Our services include:

Digital Ecosystem Mapping and Strategy

Instead of looking at a single piece of software, this service looks at how all your platforms (e.g. SIS, LMS, LXP, and HRIS) interact. We focus on:

  • Gap Analysis: Identifying where manual workarounds are replacing system functionality.
  • Future-State Architecture: Designing a high-level "blueprints" for how data should flow between systems without naming specific vendors yet.
  • Platform Rationalisation: Reviewing your current "tech stack" to eliminate redundant tools and reduce "licensing bloat."


SIS/LMS Selection and Procurement Advisory

We act as an independent "buyer’s advocate" to ensure you don't buy more (or less) than you need.  We also encourage additional third party review to ensure your procurement integrity.  We provide advisory by:

  • Requirements Elicitation: Facilitating workshops with academics, administrators, and students to define what success looks like.
  • Independent Vendor Evaluation: Comparing market leaders (e.g., Moodle, Canvas, Ellucian, or TechnologyOne) against your specific operational needs.
  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Analysis: Projecting the 5-to-10-year costs including hidden fees like storage, integration, and specialised support staff based on your current and emerging business cycles.


Educational Data Governance & Compliance

In the education sector, (this includes higher ed, K-12 and corporate ed) data is highly sensitive and subject to strict regulatory reporting. Strategic consulting ensures your systems are built for this reality and can respond accordingly.  We can focus on but are not limited to:

  • Regulatory Alignment: Ensuring system designs meet standards like TCSI (for Australian Higher Ed) or Department of Education privacy requirements.
  • Information Management Strategy: Defining who "owns" the student record at each stage of the lifecycle—from lead generation to alumni status.
  • Ethics & AI Governance: Developing frameworks for how student data can (and cannot) be used for predictive analytics and AI-driven tutoring.
  • Risk Management: Ensuring that information and data risks are built into the organisational risk management framework in an appropriate manner and/or reviewing the risk management treatment for data and information management in the organisation


Capability and Operating Model Design

This service focuses on the people required to run the technology once the consultants leave.

  • Team Resourcing Models: Designing the structure of your L&D or Student Admin teams (e.g., Centralized vs. Federated support models).
  • Skills Gap Analysis: Identifying the new competencies your staff will need to manage modern, cloud-native platforms.
  • Strategic KPI Development: Moving beyond "completion rates" to measure "Time-to-Competency" or "Student Retention" as examples of the primary success metrics for tech investments.


Strategic Change and Transformation Roadmap

This is the bridge between the high-level vision and a project plan.

  • Readiness Assessments: Evaluating the cultural appetite for change across different departments.
  • Transformation Roadmaps: Creating a multi-year sequence of "waves" that balances technical urgency with the organisation’s capacity to absorb change.
  • Stakeholder Engagement Strategy: Developing the narrative for why a new SIS or LMS is necessary to get buy-in from often-skeptical academic or business leaders.

NSW Government

Experience of the resources that we supply to ensure your success.

Sensemaker has the resources that have had the experience of implementing some of the largest Learning Management Systems and student information systems in the southern hemisphere.  You can be well assured that when you engage Sensemaker you are bringing in some of the most advanced strategic skillsets that exist in the education technologies market. In particular, you bring in the skills to ask some of the hard questions as to whether you will even need a learning technologies stack in the future or will AI change the game entirely for you and your organisation?

Testimonial from Stakeholders:
"We started analysing professional development data and started looking at typically where we people were spending their time and what they were actually learning, then we were actually looking at other data, in terms of organisational data and other various aspects in terms of our business infrastructure data and realised that what we had been provided was a forward thinking perspective on infrastructure data, looking at socioeconomic impacts from the ABS and a whole range of other data that informed our landscape in terms of where we should be, putting resources for bang for buck, to improve our learning technology. "

Deliverables:

  • Learning achitecture Discovery Report
  • LMS Business Case
  • LMS Project Scope
  • Proposed Data Migration strategy
  • Proposed Change Management Strategy