Lightcast Career Widget Project

Executive Summary

  • CU Denver is implementing the Lightcast Career Widget across degree program pages to provide prospective students and families with consistent, data-informed career and salary information.
  • The widget supports more informed enrollment decisions by connecting academic programs to career pathways, employment trends, salary ranges, and job openings.
  • This work supports the chancellor’s request to use career and labor market data to better communicate CU Denver’s value proposition to students.
  • Lightcast provides a visible and consistent way to present career-outlook information across program pages.
  • The university is providing Lightcast as a shared resource so colleges and schools do not have to independently gather and maintain labor market data for every program.
  • Academic units will have opportunities to review career mappings before implementation is finalized and during ongoing maintenance.
  • The widget is intended to supplement, not replace, faculty expertise, advising, or program-specific career guidance.

Project Purpose

The purpose of the Lightcast Career Widget project is to provide a consistent, data-informed view of potential career pathways, salary ranges, job openings, employment trends, and related labor market signals connected to CU Denver programs.

The widget is a student-facing exploration tool, not a guarantee of outcomes or an exhaustive career list.

Source of Lightcast Data

Lightcast combines government, education, job posting, profile, and workforce data, including BLS, Census, IPEDS, and O*NET. Data is refreshed through recurring “dataruns.”

The widget should be treated as a helpful labor-market signal, not an official advising, accreditation, or guaranteed outcomes document. Its value is that it gives students and families a consistent, data-informed starting point for understanding potential career pathways connected to CU Denver programs.

Benefits to Colleges and Schools

Lightcast offers a scalable way to display career-outlook information across program pages. Because the university is providing the tool, colleges and schools can offer consistent data while reducing the time needed to independently gather, update, and validate labor-market information.

Example of a Lightcast Widget 

This is the live widget on the Master of Science in Information Systems program on the CU Denver online programs website.

 

screenshot of lightcast widget

Phased Implementation

The goal is not a perfect product at launch, but a sustainable, centrally coordinated tool that can improve over time as labor-market data changes and academic units provide feedback.

Where We Are Now

We are in Phase 2: Widget Creation and Page Insertion.

Phase 1 focused on removing careers that clearly did not fit. Placing a widget does not finalize the data. Review and refinement will continue in later phases.

Project Timeline

  • Phase 1: Existing Data Review
  • Phase 2: Widget Creation and Page Insertion, target Aug. 17
  • Phase 3: Final Review, through September/Fall 2026
  • Phase 4: Maintenance and Change Requests, Fall 2026/ongoing

Career Fit and Missing Careers

Mappings should reflect jobs meaningfully connected to the program and reasonably aligned with the knowledge and skills associated with that degree. Careers requiring a substantially different degree, intensive retraining, or many years of unrelated experience should generally be excluded.

Some missing careers may already exist in Lightcast’s broader taxonomy and can be reviewed for later addition. New or emerging careers with little or no labor-market data may not be immediately available. In those cases, schools and colleges may add supporting page copy, alumni examples, testimonials, or other sources they can maintain over time.

What We Need from Stakeholders

Please keep feedback specific and actionable. Focus on careers that clearly do not fit, missing careers that already exist in Lightcast, special cases that need brief context, and page-level feedback once widgets are placed. Keep notes concise.

Audience and Distribution

This page is intended for school and college communicators, program stakeholders, academic leadership, and other partners involved in reviewing or implementing Lightcast widgets on CU Denver degree program pages.

We recommend sharing it proactively as Phase 2 continues, rather than waiting for questions or concerns to arise. It can also be used as a reference when faculty, program directors, or college leadership ask about the purpose, source, or review process for the widget.

Governance

University Communications will coordinate implementation and maintenance in partnership with academic units. Please route feedback through the project manager, Daniel Ruzich, at daniel.ruzich@ucdenver.edu to ensure updates remain organized and consistent.

Longer-term maintenance details will be shared as the project moves into Phase 3 and Phase 4.