Use of Technology in Higher Ed

With the growing number of students YOY, it becomes difficult for universities and colleges to manage queries raised by their students. These queries revolve around knowing their grades, semester schedules, faculty availability, class schedule, exam dates, events planned, on-campus or off-campus activities, etc. Institutions can’t share the information manually with the students. Gone are the days when advisors used to maintain a register to note down the info.  

With the advancement of technology, every student wants to become independent and know where he/she stands in his/her class or university. They want to know what has been planned for their entire year and want all the necessary information to be shared at one centralized location. Not to mention, this information should be available online.

Similarly, faculties and admins desire to use one tool to upload all the data to share with their students. For example, sharing examination dates, updates for class schedule, lab assistance, or any event planned etc. Likewise, HRs want to share their piece at one centralized repository, to save their time rather than scheduling a one-on-one session with tons of students. 

This is where higher ed platforms, like Unifyed, help in making your students independent. Let’s see how these platforms help you serving your students and making them succeed.

Easy accessibility

In today’s era, students desire to have access to all the guidelines and important details online. Like knowing their courses guidelines, selecting their preferred subjects, selecting class schedules for the Spring/Fall semester, checking grades, planning their day per the events planned etc. Students require to have every information obtainable either through web or mobile devices.

What is the best practice followed by institutes?

Higher education platforms offer one one-stop shop which integrates the power of web as well as mobile. It allows students to login to the portal and check all the information using this one platform. The tool has the ability to integrate with different LMS, ERP, SIS, etc. to pull all data and help students on the go.

The platform not only helps the students to access updated information, but also helps in providing self-service support the students. Students get benefits using the portal or mobile app to stay updated. Processes becomes easy for students and so does their journey on campus.

Collaboration

Every institution aims to reduce barriers between students and faculties to scale their support and provide better services. But what could be the approach to reduce these barriers? Are you thinking to have all-hands on deck for student support? No, this is not the real answer. All hands support has been touted as the pinnacle of cross-company customer service collaboration, yet, it has its cons too.

Institutions should focus on having one consolidated platform where students and faculties should collaborate with each other. The platform should allow faculties to easily connect with students belonging to same group. Using the same platform, students could connect to their Faculties and acquire the sought information. 

Advantages of using an unique platform - easy to connect, ability to team up, access to the same set of information. This will actually help everyone to save time and save oneself from duplicity. One of the examples; faculties could send a global message to the selected group of students of similar stream to share bits of information, avoiding time spent on sending multiple messages to different students separately. 

 Scale the engagement

Every year, we have thousands of students getting enrolled to one or the other program in a university. Having said that, with the rise in the enrollment rates, steep raise in the dropout rates must be expected as well. Well, it all depends on the student engagement way outs institutions are relying on. Needless to say, it is very important to engage students to the level they expect and this could only be achieved when an institution has leveled up the support for the students. 

The more an institution delivers, the more the students feel engaged. Students feel engaged when they feel themselves as a part of campus community. Howbeit, the questions that still stand prevalent are:

• Who decides the expectations? 
• How would it be possible to answer all the queries raised by the students? 
• How your students will get to know the new things happening in the university? 
• How will you engage the students to different activities? 

One of the basic metrics followed by Universities is to track ‘how many times they have talked/emailed/engaged the students. Majority of the institutions attempt to get in touch with every student at least once a month. However, the major focus for this engagement shall be done by providing the quality updates.

The frequency and quality come post understanding student journey, this is where you need to scale the engagement.  

Let’s see a few benchmarks derived for student engagement:

• Level of academic challenge
• Active and collaborative learning 
• Student – faculty interaction
• Enriching educational experiences
• Supportive campus environment

Higher education platforms allow institutions to increase student engagement by offering various features. To name a few, communicating to connect - like sending personalized messages to the students, make them feel more connected.  

Takeaway

?Higher education platforms benefit institutions in building the bridge between students and faculties/staff to have a strong influence on student engagement, satisfaction, and retention. To boot, consenting institutions to be intentional, help students, and communicate more effectively. What do you say?