As colleges and universities look for new ways to engage prospective students, traditional campus marketing is increasingly being supplemented by interactive and immersive experiences. For Joliet Junior College (JJC), the goal was to create more opportunities for students to discover the college, experience its campus, and connect with its brand both in person and online.
JJC partnered with CampusXR to develop a comprehensive collection of immersive experiences designed to support recruitment, campus exploration, events, and digital engagement.
Rather than creating a single virtual experience, the project brings together multiple XR technologies, including augmented reality campus tours, interactive maps, 360° imagery and video, browser-based experiences, interactive kiosks, holographic displays, and an interactive 3D mascot.
The result is a flexible ecosystem that allows JJC to bring its campus and brand to students wherever they are, whether they're visiting campus, attending a recruitment event, or exploring JJC remotely.
Bringing JJC's Campus to Life Through Augmented Reality
Joliet Junior College's main campus spans 368 acres, with additional satellite campuses extending the college's reach throughout the region. That scale creates an opportunity for immersive technology to help prospective students explore spaces they may not be able to visit in person.
CampusXR developed an interactive AR experience designed to help students discover JJC's campus through their mobile devices.
The experience includes interactive tour stops across the main campus as well as additional locations at JJC's satellite campuses. These stops can highlight academic programs, student services, campus facilities, and student life, giving prospective students a way to discover JJC through interactive digital content.
Each location can incorporate text, images, video, audio, 360° imagery, and 3D content, allowing individual spaces to tell their own stories.
For JJC, this means a student exploring campus can do more than simply look at a building. They can interact with content that explains what happens there, discover programs and resources, and get a better sense of what life at the college could look like.
An Interactive AR Campus Map
A central component of the experience is JJC's interactive AR campus map.
The map provides a visual way for visitors to navigate campus and discover individual locations. Interactive points can connect visitors to multimedia stories, 360° imagery, and other digital content.
Google Maps integration also provides wayfinding capabilities, helping visitors navigate between locations while exploring the physical campus.
The experience is designed to work across devices without requiring students to download a dedicated application. Visitors can access the experience through web and mobile browsers, making it easier to incorporate into campus visits, recruitment campaigns, and other outreach efforts.
Built for More Than Campus Visits
The AR map isn't limited to students who are already on campus.
JJC can also use an AR map poster or card as a recruitment and outreach tool at college fairs, admissions events, and other off-campus activities.
This gives admissions staff another way to bring an interactive piece of the JJC experience with them wherever prospective students are.
Turning JJC's Mascot Into an Interactive Experience
Another part of the project brings JJC's brand into the XR experience through an interactive 3D mascot.
CampusXR developed a customized 3D mascot model along with animations designed for use across JJC's immersive marketing experiences. The original project scope included three mascot animations, allowing the character to become more than a static graphic.
The mascot can also be deployed through an AR sticker experience, giving prospective students and visitors another opportunity to interact with JJC's brand through their mobile devices.
This approach transforms a familiar piece of college branding into something students can actually interact with and share.
Bringing the Campus to Life Through an Interactive Kiosk
A key part of JJC's immersive technology strategy is an interactive touchscreen kiosk, giving students and visitors another way to explore the college directly on campus.
The kiosk brings JJC's digital content into a physical, self-guided experience. Rather than requiring a visitor to use their own phone or download an application, students can interact directly with a touchscreen to explore campus information and multimedia content.
The experience can bring together many of the same interactive elements found throughout JJC's broader XR ecosystem, including images, video, 360° content, interactive 3D models, maps, and informational stories.
This creates a particularly useful tool for admissions offices, visitor centers, campus events, and other high-traffic areas, where students and families can independently explore JJC's programs and campus while waiting for a tour, between events, or simply while visiting the college.
Extending the Experience Beyond the Campus Visit
The kiosk also demonstrates how JJC's immersive content can be repurposed across different environments.
The same digital assets created for the broader XR ecosystem can support multiple touchpoints, allowing JJC to create a more consistent experience across its website, AR experiences, physical campus, recruitment events, and interactive displays.
That flexibility is one of the advantages of building the project as a connected ecosystem rather than as a collection of standalone technologies.
Making an Impression With Holographic Displays
JJC's immersive strategy extends beyond mobile devices and websites.
The project also includes holographic displays designed to create a visual centerpiece for campus events and other activations.
CampusXR's project included a portable HoloFan display and a larger holographic wall, along with custom 3D content including JJC's mascot, animations, and branded visual elements.
Because the displays are physical, they create an opportunity for JJC to bring immersive technology directly into recruitment events, presentations, campus programming, and other high-traffic environments.
Instead of simply showing students a video or image, JJC can use holographic content to create a moment that draws people in and encourages them to stop, interact, and learn more.
Bringing the Campus to Students Anywhere With 360° Experiences
While AR helps students explore JJC in the physical world, 360° technology extends the experience to students who aren't on campus.
The project includes 360° photo and video capture, along with integration of that content into the AR tour, interactive map, and web-based virtual tour. The project also includes a mobile-optimized virtual tour designed for students exploring JJC remotely.
Within the virtual experience, students can explore 360° environments and open interactive "Stories" containing additional information, photos, video, and audio.
These features allow JJC to turn individual campus locations into richer digital experiences rather than simply presenting a collection of photographs.
One Campus, Multiple Ways to Explore
One of the most important aspects of JJC's project is that these technologies aren't being developed as isolated experiences.
The different components work together across physical and digital environments.
A prospective student might encounter JJC through an interactive kiosk during a campus visit, explore the college through an AR map at a recruitment event, interact with the college's mascot through an AR experience, use the AR tour while walking around campus, or explore the same campus remotely through a web-based 360° virtual tour.
Together, these experiences give JJC multiple ways to engage students depending on where they are and how they prefer to interact.
Designed for Recruitment and Engagement
JJC's immersive experiences aren't simply designed to showcase buildings. They're designed to communicate the people, programs, facilities, and experiences that make the college unique.
Individual tour locations can contain customized stories, allowing JJC to highlight specific academic programs, campus resources, events, student experiences, and other information relevant to prospective students.
The platform can also support lead-generation and CRM connections, allowing engagement with the experience to become part of JJC's broader recruitment strategy.
With Google Analytics integration, JJC can also track engagement and monitor how visitors interact with its virtual experiences. The project includes the ability for JJC to maintain control of its analytics and connect the experience to its existing reporting infrastructure.
Built to Evolve With JJC
An immersive project doesn't have to remain static after launch.
As JJC's campus changes, new buildings open, programs evolve, and recruitment priorities shift, the digital experience can be updated accordingly.
CampusXR's support includes updates to tour imagery, story content, maps, tour paths, and new campus properties or construction.
That flexibility allows JJC to continue using the platform as a living recruitment and engagement tool rather than treating it as a one-time marketing campaign.
A New Way to Experience Joliet Junior College
Joliet Junior College's partnership with CampusXR demonstrates how multiple immersive technologies can work together to create a more connected campus experience.
From holographic displays that capture attention at events, to interactive kiosks that bring digital content into the physical campus, to AR experiences that bring the campus to life, to 360° virtual experiences that allow students to explore remotely, JJC now has multiple tools to engage students across the college search and campus visit experience.
The project reflects a broader shift in higher education marketing: instead of simply telling prospective students what a college has to offer, institutions can give them new ways to experience it for themselves.
For JJC, that means the campus doesn't have to stop at the edge of the physical campus.
It can come to students wherever they are.