Pennsylvania Western University – PennWest

At the heart of the project was PennWest’s mission to stay competitive in a rapidly changing higher education marketplace. With state institutions across the nation feeling the pinch from declining enrollment and shrinking budgets, integrated services across state schools have become a lifeline. By consolidating resources, universities like PennWest are able to deliver more while keeping costs in check. But the key here was ensuring that these cost-saving measures didn’t compromise the student experience. After all, prospective and current students were skeptical of this whole “shared services” thing—was this a bait and switch?

The new site is designed to confirm otherwise, living up to PennWest’s “better together” motto. By merging the three sites into one streamlined, user-friendly interface—without sacrificing the distinct character and personality of each campus—we gave students access to the full range of academic, student life, and career-readiness resources from across all three locations.

Prospective students get immediate answers from the homepage through student stories, an “Explore Programs” widget customizing results by interest, degree, and learning method, and easy access and the ability to estimate costs through an interactive cost calculator.

We held every aspect of the public-facing PennWest and Global Online websites to the highest standards of user experience, ensuring a seamless and intuitive digital presence. But idfive didn’t stop there—we brought the same level of precision to the university’s intranet, transforming it into a user-friendly hub for faculty, staff, and students. With streamlined navigation and centralized resources, the intranet became a model of efficiency, delivering cost savings without compromising service or accessibility.

The post-launch data is dramatic. Engagement increased by 83.5%, page views per user were up 132%, and time spent on the site also increased by 19.4% in the first six months compared to the previous six-month period.

Our partnerships across all three campuses and their Global Online team highlighted both tradition and innovation, proving that you really can have it all—even if the “campus” is more than 160 miles wide. PennWest’s digital landscape is living up to the University’s “better together” motto, maintaining individual campus integrity while combining all of the resources: proving that PennWest.edu is a model of how an institution can meet the moment, without losing sight of what’s most important—the students. Being recognized with the 2024 EDMAwards—Gold for Best Website and a Silver Award for their Global Online—was an affirmation of the calculated risks and rewards of finding ways to be better together.