Mount St Benedict College Case Study
format_quote format_quoteWe have found that the ease with which Box of Books facilitates the connection between our students and publisher interactives has been excellent. Having the students able to connect directly with publisher assets from the Box of Books platform is a marked improvement over our previous efforts.
Mount St Benedict’s digital strategy includes a well-defined identity and access management plan. Each student and member of staff is given their own Single Sign On (SSO) account that authenticates their credentials across school services.
Oscar Kirby, College Librarian at Mount St Benedict, has shared his school’s experience using Box of Books, “Box of Books is an excellent platform upon which students and teachers can connect with and experience the products of a wide range of educational publishers. The rollout went so smoothly.”
format_quote format_quoteBox of Books is an excellent platform upon which students and teachers can connect with and experience the products of a wide range of educational publishers. The rollout went so smoothly.
One of the major pain points with the ebook platform used before the school switched to Box of Books was the degree of effort involved with signing on and gaining access to textbooks and resources. Students were given complicated instructions to set up accounts across all services, with limited support for troubleshooting and reportedly slow response times.
Oscar described the impact, “We had a significantly poor experience with our first attempt at using an educational ebook platform, so much so that we seriously considered creating our own in-house platform for future years. Box of Books has entirely turned around our point of view by the level of value they have added with their platform.”
Box of Books’ first point of contact with students was a friendly welcome email, sent to their MS Ben email address. Oscar felt, “The welcome email worked really well”. Students clicked a link from the email, and if they were already logged into their browser they were passed directly through to their books.
format_quote format_quoteWe had a significantly poor experience with our first attempt at using an educational ebook platform, so much so that we seriously considered creating our own in-house platform for future years. Box of Books has entirely turned around our point of view by the level of value they have added with their platform.
If not already logged in, they were directed to the school’s authentication service (Microsoft ADFS SAML) and passed back to Box of Books in a logged-in state. Box of Books authenticates students against their existing school SSO account. This is true SSO, not a separate account storing their school email address as a username with a separately stored password.
One of the key features of Box of Books is that the student doesn’t have to set up anything. Oscar explained, “Box of Books worked with our IT administrator to ensure the SSO connection was in place before students returned to school. It was really easy for students to authenticate with their existing school SSO account and it’s so much more convenient for both teachers and students to not have to remember different emails and passwords.”
On login, Box of Books detected Mount St Benedict students were on a Windows laptop, and provided targeted Windows messaging, giving them only the information they needed, as they needed it.
Box of Books also handled access to all publisher accounts on behalf of Mount St Benedict users. Access to resources was provided as a passthrough authentication service via the LTI industry standard, a seamless connection experience. Oscar highlighted the benefits, “We have found that the ease with which Box of Books facilitates the connection between our students and publisher interactives has been excellent. Having the students able to connect directly with publisher assets from the Box of Books platform is a marked improvement over our previous efforts.”
Help was available via in-app messaging, email, phone or the help forum. Oscar is impressed with the responsiveness of customer support, saying “Box of Books responded very quickly and students found the in-app messaging particularly useful. Any contact we have made has been met promptly and with a satisfactory outcome. I especially respect their ability to keep us informed of the progress of our query and how it is being handled. Both students and staff alike felt like valued customers.”
