Introduction:

This document is to serve as a high-level overview of where ScholarshipUniverse (SU) differs from and overlaps with Blackbaud Award Management (BBAM) to facilitate Phase I & II of the SU onboarding process.  The SU onboarder will go into more specifics with the institution throughout the onboarding process.  

Data to Extract from Blackbaud: 

It is advised a school transitioning from BBAM to SU not plan to have both systems open to students simultaneously. The systems are not designed to work with each other and having students go to two places for scholarships ultimately will be counterproductive and confusing. The School should plan to start fresh with SU and plan out the timeline transition with their SU Onboarder. 

To assist the transition from BBAM to SU, the school should at a minimum try to extract their Fund Details, Fund Codes, Staff Users, and Donors (if relevant) from BBAM before BBAM is no longer accessible at the school. With some modification this data can be imported into SU. 

However, the following information cannot be imported into SU because the two systems vary too greatly. The school is encouraged to extract this data for reference for assisting the setup of SU and for long-term record keeping if needed since BBAM will no longer be used at the school.  

  • Fund Matching Criteria – reference for setting matching criteria on scholarships in SU 

  • Application Forms – for reference for building new applications in SU 

  • Student Submitted Applications or Documents – for historical purposes if needed 

  • Student Thank You Letters – for historical purposes if needed 

  • Other Data the School may want to retain if needed 


Importing Student Information System Data (SIS): 

If the school is already importing SIS data into BBAM, the school should share a sample file of the fields with their SU Onboarder. The SU Onboarder will review with the school and make suggestions for possible modifications. The School will work with CampusLogic’s Customer Integration Team to setup automatic imports of the data to SU via CampusLogics’s (CL Connect) API. 


Key BBAM Terms and SU Equivalents: 

In Blackbaud Award Management (BBAM) 

In ScholarshipUniverse (SU)  

Fund & Opportunity:  

A "Fund" is the name that's given to a scholarship (e.g., “The Jane Doe Family Scholarship”).  An "Opportunity" is an available scholarship out of an individual fund.  

Funds and Opportunities are called Scholarships in SU that are assigned Cycles which have open and close dates.  

 

For example, the institution has a donor funded scholarship called “The Jane Doe Scholarship Fund”. This scholarship would be assigned a Cycle with an open and close date for applying. If the Scholarship has multiple application or awarding Cycles in the same year, a version of the scholarship can be created for each Cycle.  

 

For example, “The Jane Doe (AY) Scholarship, “The Jane Doe (Fall) Scholarship” and “The Jane Doe (Spring) Scholarship” each belong to the same donor fund but would each have different Cycles assigned within a given Award Year. 

Auto-Match & Create Users Upon Import (CUUI): 

CUUI is for automatically applying and awarding students using Student Information System (SIS) data only.  It is frequently used by institutions not requiring a scholarship application. All evaluation is based on the Fund’s criteria. 

SU also has a SIS Data Import that can be automated with CampusLogic’s (CL) Connect API. The SIS data can be viewed in SU and utilized to auto-match students based on the SIS data alone, or in combination with additional data that students self-report in SU.  

 

Scholarships can be set up as either Direct Award or Application-based.  

 

Direct Award Scholarships automatically “apply” students based on the scholarship criteria without the student having to apply and without the students knowing they are being considered for the scholarship.  

 

Application-based scholarships require students to complete applications assigned to scholarship(s) utilizing the application assigned to the scholarship(s). 

Qualifiers: 

Qualifiers (such as GPA, credit hours, or major), are used to sort and filter down an applicant pool.  

Qualifiers in SU would be a combination of imported SIS data and any self-reported data provided by students.  

 

Scholarships also use a combination of these two types of data for matching purposes to satisfy each scholarship’s requirements/criteria outlined in donor agreements.  

 

In addition to the data being used to match students to scholarships, the data can be sorted and filtered as well as utilized in SU’s SmartRank and Match Explorer features. 

Applications:  

General Application: 

The General Application is the primary or "global" application students are required to complete upon logging into BBAM.  This is a “catch-all" application that EVERY student would have to complete. For example, if an institution has 500 scholarships and every scholarship required 1 letter of recommendation, the general application will require the recommendation letter from every student. 

 

Conditional or Departmental Application: 

The Conditional or Departmental Application is reserved for instances when a college or department (i.e. College of Engineering) has a large subset of scholarships with its own unique set of questions. Such as a unique essay question “What do you plan to do with your Engineering degree?” 

 

Fund Specific/Recommended: 

"Fund Specific" or "Recommended Opportunities" or "Apply-To Opportunities" are the only scholarships that students actively "Apply" for at the fund/scholarship level. For example: An engineering student logs in and is prompted to complete the general application. Once completed, they are taken to the College of Engineering's Conditional application (if one exists). Once completed, students would be automatically navigated to a list of these "recommended opportunities." These are scholarships that the student has been pre-qualified for but require additional information. The "Smith Family Endowed Scholarship" may only consider Engineering students that have a 3.5 or higher and played the Tuba in high school. 

SU does not use a general application or applications at all to determine scholarship eligibility. Rather, SU takes all the individual scholarship requirements/criteria (a.k.a. matching logic) and asks students questions through an interview-like process to determine eligibility for scholarships.  

 

An algorithm determines the order of the matching questions to ask the students. 

 

Students match to scholarships (both internal and external) and then complete application(s) associated to the scholarships they have matched to for internal funds. 

 

Applications in SU are meant to collect more qualitative information to help differentiate the student from other eligible applicants. This means applications are shorter and more relevant to the student in SU. 

 

Application questions in SU tend to be essay questions, short-answer prompts, recommendation letters or other questions not required for eligibility but rather to help make selections. 

 

A school switching from BBAM to SU is advised to breakup their general application into smaller applications that are relevant to the scholarships they are associated to. It is recommended departments with scholarships have their own application(s).  

 

SU supports a one-to-one (one application to one scholarship) and a one-to-many (one application to many scholarships). This allows tailoring of applications that are highly relevant to the scholarships using the applications and helps review committees focus on relevant information for the scholarships they are reviewing for. 

 

 

Scopes: 

Scopes are a function of roles and allow/disallow Read/Write access across the role. In other words, a scope is an organizational label used in the system to indicate an area of interest, focus, or responsibility.   

Roles or User Assignments to Orgs & Departments – Users in SU are assigned various roles that have specific rights. Users are also assigned to Organizations and/or Departments that fall under the organizations.  

Rubrics: 

Scoring rubrics are part of the review process and allow a member of the review committee to review applicants and provide a score on a student by student basis.  

Scorecards & Recommendations – the equivalent of a Rubric in SU is a Scorecard. Review pools also can use a recommendation scoring method (default 1 – 5 Likert scale) scoring method. Review pools also can interchangeably use these two methods if the review has multiple review rounds.  

Post Acceptance: 

Post-Acceptance is the step in the process whereby a student has been offered a scholarship, but must submit information before the funds are disbursed.  In BBAM, this can include a number of things such as a photo, thank you letter or any additional documentation that is being asked. 

Thank You Letters – 

Individual scholarships can require a thank you letter from the student before funds can be released. A photo can be part of the thank you letter. Thank you letters must be approved before funds can be posted from SU. 

Engage: 

Engage is the "package" that includes all three BBAM modules: Award Management, Renewal Management, Stewardship Management 

 

SU is an all-in-one package. Any School using SU for internal scholarship management automatically can use renewals and SU’s Donor Portal.