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Among the education technologies used on campus that potentially support learning is the student engagement platform category. While these are commonly perceived to be most relevant in student affairs, there are ways in which these platforms intersect with work faculty to promote engagement in a course.
Student engagement platforms document everywhere a student potentially interacts with the institution by observing logins, communication, and performance to build a comprehensive institution-wide view of engagement. They then enable analysis of student progress and manage interactions to encourage greater engagement in campus resources and activities. Some of these platforms power many of the chatbots, automated messaging, and academic alerts faculty may be familiar with.
“Educators may be familiar with the saying about students, ‘If they can make one connection on campus, they’re going to be successful,’” says Dr. Joshua Schwartz, Vice President, Marketing, for Element451, one of the vendors in this area.
“If they made 20 connections — either with peers in the classroom or their faculty or the advisors — imagine how successful they’re going to be.”
Individual platforms and tools can vary widely, but Schwartz says the best platforms share several common traits, including:
- Maintaining student success
- Ease of use
- Integration with other systems
Uses and integration
Some student engagement software platforms offer complete admissions-to-alumni tools that resemble the customer relationship management (CRM) software used in the for-profit world.
Others focus on student experience in the classroom, prioritizing tools like first alerts and peer-to-peer messaging. In that case, the most common experience faculty will have with these platforms is in the form of LMS integrations.
Schwartz emphasizes that student engagement platforms are effective only when they are actively used. While consulting with a community college in Florida, he observed firsthand the disconnect involved with students unaware of resources.
“They didn’t know where the Student Success Center was located,” Schwartz says, “They were hesitant to use the disability services because it was the Office of Disabilities, not realizing that it’s a resource there for them to utilize.”
Normalizing student support services is one way educators can make students more aware of the available resources. Schwartz also suggests utilizing student-focused language to create clearer terminology about support systems, along with peer-to-peer learning communities.
“That’s why when you see a lot of institutions utilizing these new tools and platforms, they’re also trying to leverage mentors to make them successful,” he says.
Challenges
In some ways, the influence of student engagement platforms on academic success is unproven. The algorithms depend on giving numerical weights to different activities and touchpoints. For example, so many points go into the formula if a student logs in daily, and so many points if they complete an exercise on a certain timeline.
But, Schwartz says, “The struggle is that no one knows enough to actually say, ‘This gets this many points to determine the true benchmark of a successful student.’ It doesn’t exist.”
Colleges also struggle with limitations on sharing data from different functions. Adopting new platforms necessitates united effort across the institution, posing challenges on a larger scale.
Because cybersecurity and privacy are so challenging, IT colleagues are often very cautious, creating long lead times for implementation.
“As a faculty member, if I want to utilize a tool, it may take me two years to get it approved,” he says.
CRMs present an especially difficult security and privacy challenge since they can include sensitive student information about financial aid.
Collaboration
In selecting a new student engagement platform, involving both full-time and part-time faculty in the process provides a valuable and diverse perspective.
Student engagement software platforms also enable collaboration for educators. In many platforms, faculty who notice a student struggling can trigger an alert to advisors, tapping into the administrative potential of these tools.
Coordinating an efficient and early effort to offer support is just one way faculty can mobilize to increase student engagement. Another example of academic affairs oriented use is through student admissions.
By using student engagement platforms, educators can focus recruitment efforts in ways they were previously unable to. If recruitment efforts are strong, says Schwartz, then those resources and attention can be shifted toward alumni or vice versa.
Ultimately, the key to unlocking student engagement platforms, he says, is through picking the right tool for the right job.
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