Web Platform for UNC Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill needed a purpose-built web platform to rank U.S. universities by how supportive they are of academic couples — scholars and their partners seeking jobs at the same institution. The platform had to serve two audiences simultaneously: prospective faculty exploring options and an internal UNC team managing the data behind it. Intellectsoft delivered a scalable, easy-to-manage solution on time and within budget.

Type

Scorecard-Style Website

Platform

Web

Industry

Education

The Challenge

UNC’s research team had no existing tool to present partner-friendly university rankings in a structured, accessible format. The platform needed to:

Display rankings in a clear, engaging format that non-technical users could navigate easily
Give visitors the ability to filter and compare universities based on their specific criteria
Allow internal staff to update content independently, without requiring developer involvement
Launch on schedule and within a fixed budget, with room to accommodate evolving requirements

Our Approach

We built the platform around a dual-audience need: it had to work for visiting researchers and the UNC team maintaining it. Usability, flexibility, cost efficiency, and schedule adherence guided every decision.

Designed UX and filtering logic around how researchers search and compare schools
Added Excel import for fast ranking data updates, no manual entry
Built a non-technical admin panel for independent content management
Set up cost-effective hosting and post-launch support

The Solution

The delivered platform brought together four core capabilities:

A custom scorecard interface designed to make university rankings easy to browse
Filtering tools that let users sort and compare institutions based on the criteria most relevant to their situation
An intuitive admin panel enabling staff to update rankings and content in minutes, without technical support
Cost-effective hosting selected to match the project’s budget while meeting the platform’s uptime requirements

Results

The platform launched on time and within budget. UNC researchers and their partners can now browse and compare universities directly, without waiting on reports or intermediaries. The UNC team manages updates independently, with no developer dependency for routine data changes.

As new feature requests came in during the engagement, the team absorbed them without disruption, a result of deliberate architectural flexibility from the outset. While formal ROI metrics were not shared, the internal time saved on content management is significant, and the platform is built to scale as the program grows.

technologies

Node.js

React

Client Feedback

Project Leader, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“The Intellectsoft team was friendly, competent, and professional. They worked closely with us to achieve our goals while staying within a tight budget. We especially appreciated their responsiveness to revisions and their ability to deliver on time and efficiently. We look forward to collaborating with them on future projects and would gladly recommend their services to others.”