If you’ve ever tried to force an ‘out of the box’ monolithic student information system (SIS) or learning management system (LMS) into your university, you’ll no doubt have experienced for yourself the missed deadlines, fragile integrations, and a campus-wide chorus of “this isn’t what we asked for.” The good news? You don’t need another ‘Big Bang’ to create a solution that meets all your needs, and you probably don’t even need to rip out and replace your off-the-shelf solution either.
How? By taking a modular, API-first approach that allows you to develop your SIS/LMS gradually, making sure you keep what works, can replace what doesn’t, and provide future-proofed value.
In this article, we explain how to approach this.
At the heart of this approach is a simple USP: custom-build your SIS/LMS where it counts, configure and integrate everywhere else. It’s how registrars, heads of student systems and PMO leads can move fast and keep the institution safe. If you need to arm your stakeholders with the “why now” and “how exactly,” start here and keep these NashTech articles handy:
Custom-build the moments of institutional differentiation.
These are the workflows and experiences that make your university, yours. Think unusual progression rules, complex accreditation pathways, degree apprenticeships with employer co-assessment, or the micro-credential catalogue that underpins lifelong learning. If the requirement is core to your identity and subject to frequent change, custom keeps you in control and shortens the feedback loop.
Configure the standards.
For mainstream capabilities i.e. timetabling, attendance capture, assessment workflows, and generic messaging, don’t reinvent the wheel. Use configurable modules from your existing platforms and only extend where an evidence-backed gap persists. Configuration gives you speed without technical debt, especially when you’re leaning on cloud patterns from modern SIS/LMS vendors (see cloud migration considerations).
Integrate for the ecosystem.
Your SIS/LMS is part of a broader constellation: identity and access management, finance, CRM, library, data lake/warehouse, and analytics. Prioritise open APIs, event streams and standards (i.e. LTI, xAPI, IMS OneRoster) so systems are loosely coupled but highly coherent. Integration is how you create cross-functional journeys like admissions-to-enrolment, module selection-to-billing, or learning analytics feeding pastoral support.
API-first means that each module - custom or bought - provides clear, versioned APIs, allowing microservices to evolve independently. This approach lets you swap components without widespread disruptions and keeps user experiences consistent across platforms. With event-driven systems, you can set up near-real-time triggers for processes like enrolments, updates, and communications.
Bonus tip: API-first makes reporting sense. Rather than scraping screens or running midnight CSV exports, you can stream curated datasets to the warehouse, supporting The Office for Students (OfS) returns and faculty dashboards without paralysing operational systems.
Carefully considered change management is vital to success when it comes to modernising your SIS or LMS with custom elements. Embed comms, training, and adoption into the roadmap with the same discipline as sprint planning. Equip registrars and departmental super-users as product champions. Measure adoption weekly. And budget for the humans, not just the servers. If you need a narrative to bring finance along, this breakdown of custom build costs is a sensible starting point.
Where to start?
1) Pilot. Begin by addressing the most pressing issues with limited impact. For many institutions, this may involve module selection, assessments, or placements. Introduce a custom microservice to handle specific logic, integrate it with the legacy SIS through APIs, and conduct a trial with a small group. Collaborate with key users, monitor the process, and collect before-and-after data such as processing time, error rates, and student satisfaction.
2) Migrate. Once your pilot is successful, move forward one area at a time. For example, migrate all assessment processes for a few schools first, then expand. Shift from direct system connections to event-driven setups. If your platform is hard to change, use a façade so new services can use the same API, making it easier to replace old modules gradually.
3) Optimise. Once the primary processes are reliable, focus on scalability and efficiency, implement automated testing, infrastructure-as-code, blue/green deployments, and feature flags to streamline releases. Utilise feedback loops to remove unnecessary features and enhance popular ones. Standardise design systems across student and staff portals to ensure consistency, even when supported by multiple underlying services.
Students expect accessibility in the systems they use. For your LMS modernisation, build WCAG 2.2 AA as the default, not an afterthought. That means semantic markup, keyboard-first navigation, alt text everywhere, captions and transcripts for media, and colour-contrast that passes on the first try.
For your SIS data protection, design for GDPR with clear purposes, minimal data collection, role-based access, encryption, and lawful bases documented for each processing activity. For UK providers, align data models and audit trails with Office for Students (OfS) reporting, and architect a repeatable pipeline to assemble statutory returns from your warehouse, not from someone’s desktop spreadsheet. Moving parts of the SIS to the cloud can strengthen your security posture and availability when done with least-privilege, managed services and standard hardening patterns (check out SIS cloud considerations for more on this).
If you need to socialise the case internally, these explainers help ground the conversation in business value, not just technology choices: why a robust SIS is foundational (read the overview) and what moving to the cloud unlocks for higher education (cloud pathway).
At NashTech, we’re privileged to have worked with many educational institutions including Trinity College London and have many stories that providers can learn from.
Here’s How the Open University undertook a major upgrade of its OpenLearn, free online learning platform
Map your differentiators. Identify the 5–7 workflows where your university must be different.
Ready to take the next step? Whether you’re exploring a modular upgrade, mapping your institution’s differentiators, or looking to future-proof your SIS and LMS, our experienced team is here to help.
Contact us to discuss your goals for a smarter and more flexible student experience.