Ex Libris is a wholly owned subsidiary of ProQuest, which is owned by Cambridge Information Group and Goldman Sachs.

Breeding, Marshall. New President at Ex Libris. January 2021. Smart Libraries Newsletter. ProQuest has named Oded Scharfstein the new president of Ex Libris, effective January 2021. He will succeed Bar Veinstein. Ex Libris has been a portfolio company of ProQuest since October 2015.

Breeding, Marshall. Smart Libraries Q&A. January 2021. Smart Libraries Newsletter. With the current ILS market constricting into only a few players for academic libraries, how sustainable for a long-term strategy is the current subscription pricing model of 5% annual increases? Especially when a library's ILS consumes a large block of operations budgets, which don't grow at that pace, if at all. Libraries can cut serials and book budgets, but there is little flexibility for an ILS. You either have one or you don't. Do you see a potential “crash” where the same libraries who migrated to Alma or World- Share a few years ago are forced to migrate to open source systems, given the projected declines in higher education in general? Also, what do you recommend as an appropriate ratio between the annual cost of a library's inventory management system and the annual cost of a library's inventory to use as a determining factor of when to jump away from a particular ILS?

Breeding, Marshall. Ex Libris Acquires RapidILL. August 2019. Smart Libraries Newsletter. In a move that expands its exiting involvement in resource sharing for academic libraries, Ex Libris has acquired RapidILL from Colorado State University. This acquisition expands the company's existing strategy to develop resource sharing products based on its Alma library services platform. RapidILL will continue as a service available to all libraries regardless of the automation systems used. Ex Libris and Colorado State University position this acquisition as an opportunity for RapidILL to see faster software development and to expand its presence globally.

Breeding, Marshall. ProQuest and Ex Libris Reorganize Latin American Operations. February 2019. Smart Libraries Newsletter. ProQuest and Ex Libris have reorganized and consolidated their operations in Latin America. This move is consistent with a longstanding strategy where Ex Libris has steadily shifted away from working through distributors for sales and support in specific regions to direct operations through wholly owned offices or subsidiaries. It also reflects a growing integration between ProQuest and its Ex Libris subsidiary.

Breeding, Marshall. New Leadership for ProQuest and Ex Libris. July 2017. Smart Libraries Newsletter. The board of directors of ProQuest has announced that Matti Shem Tov, President of Ex Libris, will assume leadership of the entire ProQuest organization, succeeding current CEO Kurt Sanford. This change comes a year and 4 months after the acquisition of Ex Libris, a move that significantly expanded the position of ProQuest as a content, services, and technology company for libraries. This move represents an interesting change in ProQuest where the top leadership comes from the technology sphere rather than the publishing industry.

Breeding, Marshall. ProQuest to Acquire Ex Libris. November 2015. Smart Libraries Newsletter. In a move that alters the business dynamics of the library technology sector, ProQuest has announced that it will acquire Ex Libris in a deal expected to close later in 2015. Ex Libris, under the ownership of Golden Gate Capital since November 2012, will become a wholly owned business of ProQuest. This merger significantly extends ProQuest's offerings of technology-based workflow and resource management tools and places a broader portfolio of products under the responsibility of Ex Libris. While this merger represents a major step in the evolution of the industry, it is not anticipated to compromise the availability of current product offerings. Longer-term product strategies will be developed over time in collaboration with the company's customer base.

Breeding, Marshall. Shared Infrastructure Projects Gain Momentum. September 2015. Smart Libraries Newsletter. Recent months have seen a number of announcements of large consortia or library systems that have chosen to implement library services platforms in a shared configuration. Ex Libris Alma has emerged as the leading product in this sector, with Innovative's Sierra, OCLC WorldShare Management Services and ProQuest Intota also represented.

Breeding, Marshall. Ex Libris Acquires oMbeil, Introduces Leganto. June 2015. Smart Libraries Newsletter. Ex Libris has made an incremental step in expansion beyond the library technology arena, acquiring oMbeil, a company based in the United Kingdom known for campusM, a mobile and portal platform that enables institutions to provide a variety of services to students via a hosted, software-as-a-service platform optimized for mobile devices. This acquisition does not involve further consolidation in the library technology industry, but reflects the increase dominance of mobile access and the interest of Ex Libris in serving the broader campus environment.

Breeding, Marshall. Crossing the Threshold: Boston College Places Alma into Production. August 2012. Smart Libraries Newsletter. On July 2, 2012, the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Library of Boston College became the first to place Alma, the library services platform created by Ex Libris, into production use. The library migrated from an Aleph system in place since 2000. Boston College had been working with Ex Libris since mid-2009 as a development partner, testing each incremental release of the software, and providing constructive feedback. The library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, with a staff numbering around 120, and a collection of 3.5 million volumes.

Breeding, Marshall. Ex Libris: Alma, Aleph, and Primo. March 2012. Smart Libraries Newsletter. Ex Libris has made progress across multiple products. There have been developments with Alma, its new unified resource management platform, Aleph, one of its integrated library systems, and with its Primo discovery product.

. Ex Libris announces the cloud-based Alma Library Management Service. January 6, 2011. . Ex Libris announced that the company’s next-generation library management solution has been named Ex Libris Alma. Harnessing the Unified Resource Management (URM) framework, Alma supports the entire range of library operations—selection, acquisition, metadata management, digitization, and fulfillment—for all library materials, regardless of their format or location. The Ex Libris Alma solution accelerates libraries' move toward next-generation services by consolidating, optimizing, and extending library workflows. Alma consolidates the disparate systems used by today’s libraries to manage print, electronic, and digital resources. Alma’s cloud infrastructure helps libraries improve their operational efficiency through data sharing and collaboration. As a result, libraries can focus their resources on extending services within and outside the institution and on supporting the institution’s teaching and research missions. The general release of the Alma solution is scheduled for early 2012.

Breeding, Marshall. Ex Libris Marks Progress in Developing URM. January 2011. Smart Libraries Newsletter. Ex Libris continues to make progress on the development of its next-generation library management platform called Unified Resource Management, or URM. This product, which was developed as the company's long-term strategic library automation platform, continues in the research and development stage, with expected release at the beginning of 2012. Although the product is still some time away from general availability, it has progressed from the proof-of-concept prototypes to a functional model. Though preliminary, some versions have been made available to development partner libraries for testing and assessment

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February 25, 2021. National Library of the Netherlands teams with Ex Libris for digital preservation. The National Library of the Netherlands (KBNL) has chosen the Rosetta digital asset management and preservation solution from Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, to ensure its fast-growing digital collections remain safe for future generations. Rosetta is an end-to-end solution that enables the safe and secure collection, management and delivery of all types of digital information.

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February 23, 2021. New Zealand's Lincoln University goes live with Ex Libris Leganto course resource list solution. The university is the first in New Zealand to implement the Leganto solution, which will strengthen the quality of teaching and learning and facilitate the management and reporting of copyright complianceAdelaide, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand—February 23, 2021. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that Lincoln University is the first institution of higher education in New Zealand to go live with the Ex Libris Leganto® course resource list solution. Leganto serves lecturers, librarians, and students at the university and provides the institution with a digital repository for course materials. Leganto is integrated with Lincoln University's Ex Libris Alma® library services platform and Ex Libris Primo® discovery and delivery solution.

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February 17, 2021. Ex Libris Esploro integrates with Knowledge Unlatched to support institutions’ adoption of Open Access publishing models. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced its partnership with Knowledge Unlatched, an open access service provider. The integration of the Ex Libris Esploro research information management solution with the Knowledge Unlatched Oable workflow management solution will provide research institutions with full article processing charge (APC) workflows, covering APC submission, approvals, and budget management in Ex Libris Alma library services platform.

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January 26, 2021. Als erste Universität in Deutschland entscheidet sich die Technische Universität Berlin für das Literaturlisten-Managementsystem Leganto von Ex Libris. Ex Libris, ein Unternehmen von ProQuest, freut sich bekannt zu geben, dass die Technische Universität (TU) Berlin sich für das Literaturlisten-Managementsystem Leganto® entschieden hat. Damit werden neue Lehrmethoden ermöglicht, das Fernstudium unterstützt und gleichzeitig die enge Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Bibliothekspersonal und den Lehrkräften gefördert. Die Leganto-Lösung ist in die Bibliotheksservice-Plattform Ex Libris Alma® eingebunden, die ebenso wie der Recherchedienst Ex Libris Primo seit mehreren Jahren erfolgreich von der Universität genutzt wird.

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January 25, 2021. Ex Libris introduces Pivot-RP, providing institutions with access to the most comprehensive source of research funding. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced the launch of Pivot-RP, which brings together the best of the Ex Libris Pivot and Research Professional solutions and unifies their funding databases. The unified funding solution helps institutions connect researchers to funding opportunities, offers insights and shortcuts that assist research organizations in winning a large share of available funding, and facilitates the discovery of potential collaborators.

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January 20, 2021. Technische Universität Berlin becomes first university in Germany to opt for Ex Libris Leganto course reading list tool. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced that Technische Universität (TU) Berlin has selected the Leganto course reading list solution to facilitate new methods of teaching and to increase support for distance learning. For a number of years, the university's library has been using the Ex Libris Alma library services platform and Ex Libris Primo discovery and delivery solution. Tightly integrated with the library services platform, the Leganto solution will help promote close collaboration between the library staff and teachers.

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January 14, 2021. Putting its digital strategy into action, the University of Stirling chooses Ex Libris campusM Mobile App and Web Portal. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced that Scotland's University of Stirling has selected the Ex Libris campusM mobile app and web portal as part of the university's digital strategy. Implemented at educational institutions around the world, the campusM platform provides university communities with easy, on-the-go access to personalized services and constantly changing information.

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December 15, 2020. Health Careers International (HCI) opts for Ex Libris Alma library services and Primo discovery solution. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced that Health Careers International (HCI) has selected the Ex Libris Alma library services platform and Ex Libris Primo discovery and delivery solution. Health Careers International is an Australian-based company that provides healthcare education and training programs for students who plan careers as healthcare professionals around the world.

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December 8, 2020. University of Waikato Launches Ex Libris campusM Mobile App to Boost Communication and Collaboration among Students and Staff. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, announced that the University of Waikato, located in Hamilton, New Zealand, has launched its WaikatoUni mobile app based on the Ex Libris campusM platform.

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December 2, 2020. Alphacrucis College enhances teaching and research capabilities for students and faculty with Ex Libris Alma library platform and Primo discovery solution. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that Alphacrucis College has selected the Ex Libris Alma library services platform along with the Ex Libris Primo discovery solution to streamline the management of library resources and research materials. These systems will replace multiple products.

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2020 Ex Libris Accomplishments Narrative

Summary:

2020 has been an unexpected year. Despite this year's challenges, Ex Libris has maintained the same pace of innovation, enhanced products and worked tirelessly on improving customer experiences. Ex Libris has created Covid-19' initiatives, focusing on providing institutions with tools and support to adjust to learning and working remotely.

Ex Libris didn’t stop at just adapting to the pandemic but continued to expand the product portfolio and customer base.

Alma

In spite of the challenges faced in a global pandemic, and a shift to working remotely from home, Alma has continued to grow and expand with more than 2,000 customers – an increase from 1,000 customer in just over 3 years. After adding a number of new customers in new geographic areas, our global reach has now extended to 41 countries.

The Alma team responded to the challenges facing libraries in face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ex Libris launched a ‘Best Practices for the Ex Libris Community During COVID-19’ initiative. Alma’s webinars, presentations and Q&A sections outlining suggested workflows for managing the library during shutdowns garnered 1000’s of views and downloads.

In addition, and more importantly, Alma’s cloud-based software allowed library staff to transit rapidly and smoothly to working from home with minimal disruptions for patrons.

2020 highlights:

New Cloud Apps

Created by the community for the community, Cloud Apps is an open framework which allows developers to write apps that run inside Ex Libris higher education products. Cloud Apps can add new features beyond core Ex Libris functionality, can integrate with other systems, or can provide shortcuts and efficiencies for institution-specific workflows. Many of the Cloud Apps developed are specific to Alma workflows.

As an example, a large library with extensive resources creates an Ex Libris Cloud App. All Alma institutions are able to benefit from this and install the Cloud App in their Alma installation.

New User Interface and Metadata Editor

2020 saw the rollout of a new interface for Alma. This initiative is a result of cooperation with Alma working groups and response to wider community feedback. The new features in the user interface help facilitate a smoother, user-friendly interaction with Alma while providing more control over the Alma layout and navigation options.

The latest evolution of the Alma Metadata Editor brings greater efficiency to processes, making them faster and simpler. The interface can be tailored to each user, depending on the user's level and type of expertise (original catalogers, copy catalogers, and light catalogers).

Migration of Alma Analytics to OAS (Oracle Analytics Server)

The migration of Alma Analytics from OBI 11 to OAS offers users greater flexibility in creating and managing reports, including a Data Visualization tool.

Alma/RapidILL Integration and Enhanced Document Delivery Workflows

RapidILL was integrated seamlessly into the Alma interface. All resource sharing workflow activities on both the borrower side and the lender side can now be performed in Alma.

Alma Digital

The new Alma viewer supports all formats which can be rendered by the browser as well as high resolution images. Non-supported formats can be offered for download. the new viewer can display a full text file along with the digital one.

Performance and Usability Improvements

As part of Ex Libris’ ongoing focus to improve customer experience and based on customer feedback, Alma’s performance and overall usability was significantly improved.

RapidILL

2020 was a significant year for RapidILL. Over the year, we added new RapidILL team members, developed a number of new features, completed a full integration with Alma, enhanced our customer-facing documentation, and worked to scale our support, customer onboarding, and technologies. Because of the pandemic, libraries worked to enhance their resource sharing, and many turned to RapidILL as a solution to help carry them into the future. The RapidILL community grew by over 100 libraries (to nearly 450 institutions), and expanded to several new countries.

RapidILL focus areas in 2020 included:

• Expanding the RapidILL team.
• Pandemic response – RapidILL COVID-19 initiative.
• RapidILL integration with Alma – all workflows are now available seamlessly from the Alma resource sharing flows.
• RapidILL serving as the Rapido document delivery platform.
• Increasing automation in the holdings load process – for both Alma and non-Alma.
• Continuing the tight integration with ILLiad.
• Expanding RapidILL’s international reach, including new copyright features such as watermark, footer notes and customizable copyright statement.

Rapido

Rapido was developed together with a group of development partners on the Ex Libris higher ed cloud platform and the first customer will be live by February 2021. During 2020 we recruited 14 Early Adopters that will go live with Rapido during 2021 and saw a great demand for the product from customers looking to replace their outdated solutions.

The aim of the Rapido solution is to make resource sharing an outstanding experience for patrons and staff. For staff, the solution automates and simplifies the borrowing and lending processes, thereby helping staff manage a high volume of requests efficiently. For patrons, Rapido provides a central location where they can find the materials, they need in a frictionless process that provides the item they require as quickly as possible.

Rapido product focus areas include:

• New discovery services to provide an intuitive and consistent experience for patrons
• A central holding index which includes what library holds which items and the conditions for lending them
• Highly automated, unmediated, interlibrary borrowing and lending
• New staff interface for monitoring and working on resource sharing requests
• Support for the full spectrum of delivery options in a simple and intuitive manner covering physical, electronic, and digital resources
• Open solution with a wealth of APIs to integrate with third party systems, including other resource sharing technologies
• Support for Control Digital lending as well as ebook lending – part of our 2021 targets

Rosetta

Rosetta is an end-to-end digital asset management and preservation solution for libraries, archives, museums and other institution types. Rosetta enables the safe and secure collection, management, and delivery of all types of digital information, ensuring its preservation for generations to come.

2020 Highlights:

• Support integration with local Object Storage via S3, enriching the suite of out-of-box configuration tools, already including local NFS, Amazon S3, Google Cloud and many more.
• Initial drop of REST APIs for Deposit and SIP processing services, as an eventual displacement of SOAP APIs.
• Upgrade to IIIF Presentation API v3 and equivalent Universal Viewer version, to support delivery of non-image formats such as PDF and audio-visual.
• Unique test environment setup at Ex Libris to simulate repositories of over 1bn files of diverse types and structures, designed at identifying and remediating any issues encountered and providing preemptive fixes before customers reach such scales of content.

Esploro

Ex Libris Esploro paves the way to maximum impact of academic research by elevating visibility, efficiency, and compliance of research activities. The Esploro cloud-based solution helps institutions showcase their research and measure its influence by systematically capturing, managing, and disseminating research output and data, leveraging library expertise and technology, and seamlessly integrating with existing library and research workflows.

The Esploro Research Information Management solution continued to grow in 2020, with 29 institutions that are now part of the Esploro community, 20 of them live with the system. In 2020 we have continued to expand Esploro and have introduced around 200 new features and enhancements in all Esploro functional areas. 2020 highlights include:

Research Repository

A research repository contains rich information on the institution research assets, researchers, research units, grants, projects, research activities, and more, providing repository managers efficient management capabilities through automated workflows.

• Teaching and Learning Material Handling
• Researcher Engagement Fields
• Assets and Researchers Bulk Update Workflows
• Regional National Assessment Reporting Support
• Multiple loaders for Grants, External Organizations, and Non-Affiliated Researchers
• Handles Support

Smart Harvesting

Automatically populate the Research Repository and Researcher Profiles with research outputs belonging to an institution’s researchers.

• Smart Harvesting Launch to the Development Partners
• Dedicated Task Lists for the Approval Process

Research Portal

Equip the institution with a dedicated state-of-the-art Research Portal for showcasing an institution’s outputs and experts.

• Research Assets Searchability in Google and Google Scholar

• Multilanguage Support

• Asset Usage Interactive Map

• Organizational Structure Display and Filtering

• Full-Text Search and Display

• Open Access Asset Showcase

Researcher Profiles

Provide rich, up-to-date researcher profiles enabling researchers to manage and showcase their research achievements.

• Multilanguage Support
• Researcher Proxies
• Export Assets in RIS and BibTeX Formats
• Register an ORCiD Profile from a Researcher Profile
• Profiles for Previously Affiliated Researchers
• Researcher Grants

Analytics

Providing repository managers, research office staff, and faculty management with valuable insights into institutional research outputs, research activities, and researchers.

• Researchers Subject Area and Dashboards
• Enriched Research Assets and Research Assets Usage Subject Areas
• Grants Subject Area and Dashboards
• Cross Esploro-Alma Reports

Open System

Providing an ability to integrate with an institutions eco-system and other third-parties to facilitate workflow automation and an open and easy transfer of information and knowledge.

• Research Asset Retrieval API
• Researcher API
• Research Asset Update API
• Research Unit Retrieval APIs
• Multiple OAI Publishing Formats
• Integration with ProQuest ETD Administrator
• SWORD Deposit

Leganto

In 2020 we were delighted to welcome 68 institutions to the Leganto community, which, by the end of the year, included over 230 institutions across 28 countries. With University of Oxford joining in December, Leganto is now the resource list tool of choice of four of the top ten universities worldwide: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and Imperial College London. It is also the tool of choice of three out of the eight Ivy League members: Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and Brown University. The impact of the pandemic, and the subsequent shift to distance learning around the world, was evident across the board: further adoption at institutions that have already used Leganto, and new institutions adopting Leganto.

Leganto highlights in 2020:

• 73 institutions went live.
• Number of unique, active students—students that accessed their course materials through Leganto for at least one of their courses—has doubled to over 1,328,000 individuals.
• 157 product enhancements added, 71 of which were suggested by the community.
• Continued improvements of the user experience for all users—instructors, students, and libraries. New developments included various UI changes; bulk changes to citations on lists; easier workflows for instructors when adding materials; guided workflow training; resource list import from a PDF reference list or by ingesting a directory of files; and expanded student success measurements.
• Increased efficiencies for the library, including bulk updates; more streamlined workflows; synchronization of changes to bibliographic records with reading list citations; further list reset options; automated reuse of scanned materials; and insights regarding underused or overused course resources for both local and licensed materials.
• Enhanced analytics for both the instructors and the library, including personal engagement information (opt-in service).
• Integration with ProQuest Rialto for easy, streamlined acquisition process.

Primo

This past year demonstrated how important delivering access to e-resources is for libraries and how discovery services are used as digital front doors to library resources. Our Primo install base expanded by over 100 libraries in 2020 and we launched numerous enhancements throughout the entire year to support both librarians and their patrons. More than 2,100 Primo customers upgraded to the Central Discovery Index (CDI) during the course of 2020 and more than 1,000 libraries are using the higher-education platform version of Primo with Alma (Primo VE) to deliver significant efficiencies to both librarians and patrons.

2020 highlights:

• Launched CDI to increase resource coverage and provide a one-stop-shop activation process from acquisition to discoverability of e-resources.
• Delivered enhanced capabilities to configure and expose FRBR Preferred Records.
• Offered UI improvements and improved the user experience for mobile devices.
• Enhanced searching of external indexes through webhooks.
• Embedded Alma Digital Viewer in Full Display.
• Launched data visualization and enhanced analytics with Oracle Analytics Server (OAS) upgrade.
• Improved system performance (speed and uptime) and WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance.
• Released online chat support for library staff.

Summon

Summon continues to flourish as part of our two-pronged discovery service strategy, as more customers were added throughout the year and current customers took advantage of key features during the COVID-19 pandemic. Existing customers were able to also benefit from the new Central Discovery Index launch, new user experience capabilities and integrations, and nearly 100% system uptime along with increased search speed. Towards the end of the year, development work was also initiated to integrate Summon with Sierra to provide a better user and library experience which will be completed in 2021.

2020 highlights:

• Launched CDI to increase resource coverage, and services.
• Released new customizations, including Spring share Database A-Z list and WhatsApp integrations.
• Implemented several new faceting (author/creator and collection) and filtering (title and author) capabilities.
• Offered new usage reporting capabilities and moved to Oracle Analytics Server (OAS).
• Improved system performance and WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance.
• Made available a new API for the 360 Knowledgebase.
• Released online chat support for library staff.

Central Discovery Index (CDI)

We launched and upgraded over 3000 libraries with the Central Discovery Index (CDI) in 2020. A key component to our discovery service strategy today, and for the future, CDI streamlines library management to provide a one-stop-shop experience from acquisition of e-resources to their discoverybility. It delivers a central unified index now containing 4.5+ billion records and provides customers with , enhanced performance, easier resource activation, and continued content neutrality. Records expanded by more than 400 million records in 2020.

campusM

campusM provides quick, easy and powerful apps for Higher Education, empowering users to manage their academic, administrative and social activities on campus. campusM is in use in over 100 institutions worldwide, with over 2.6 million active users in 2020.

2020 highlights:

• Product Integrations - New way for customer's integrations allow universities to configure integrations with key university system using campusM App Manager, with no extra cost or need to involve the campusM development team. Product Integrations are part of the monthly release and therefore are continually maintained and improved with the product, including enhancements, bug fixes, and quality assurance checks. Additionally, Product Integrations offer specific flexible configurations for each product integration that allows you to decide on a specific look and feel and integration behaviors.
• 42 product integrations were released during 2020 including, but not limited to, O365 emails, Banner, PeopleSoft, Colleague, Canvas, D2L, Blackboard, Moodle, Library, Reading List, Print Credits…
• Quick Polls -campusM Quick Polls allows customers to create short, single question, multiple-choice polls to distribute to students to answer. Role can be added to users based on their selected response to personalized their app experience.
• Covid19 response – Covid19 changed the way many universities provide their students and staff with certainty. The following was developed in order to support universities with the new normal:
  • Linking to online sessions from native timetable/ class schedule
  • Contact Tracing
  • Health declaration Quick Poll

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