Already deployed at nearly 30 universities and community colleges throughout the nation, CAS enables college and university students, advisors, faculty and administrators to use the Web to obtain consistent and accurate information about transfer courses and their applicability toward degree completion. By providing a more efficient, accessible, and virtually paper-free process, CAS helps transfer students move smoothly from school to school, earning degrees in a timely manner. CAS also helps save funds for state-supported schools by ensuring that students do not have to repeat coursework. Using Bluestone's infrastructure, Miami University will be able to scale to meet growing demand for Web-based CAS services, while providing a high level of performance, fault tolerance, and security. We currently have about 3,000 students in Ohio alone actively using CAS, and that number is growing rapidly each month.
Bluestone also streamlines our development and support costs.
With its comprehensive J2EE-based open standards, we can essentially write an application once, then customers can deploy it using any type of computing environment. Students had to rely on hard-copy course equivalency guides outlining how courses applied toward specific degree programs. CAS gives students a much more timely, accessible way to plan their degrees up-front and the confidence that they are taking the correct courses toward degree completion. One-third of entering freshmen rank in the top 10 percent of their class and the university is fifth nationally among major public universities for its graduation rate of 80 percent. The Ohio institution regularly receives national recognition for its emphasis on undergraduate education.