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League for Innovation in the Community College - Learning Abstract


Making Distance Education More Personalized and Student-Friendly - Walden University's Online Concierge Service is as high-touch as it is high-tech. It makes the distance-learning experience smoother, smarter, easier, and more personalized. But perhaps the most valuable aspect of the service is the freedom it offers instructors to focus entirely on teaching. Discover the concierge's applications for the community college in the October Learning Abstracts.
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Making Distance Education More Personalized and Student-Friendly
Jonathan Kaplan (<mailto:Jonathan.Kaplan@educate.com>) and Vi To (<mailto:Vi.To@educate.com>)
As online learning goes, Walden University is something of an eminence gris. Established in 1970, the university is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, and has graduated students from all 50 states and 30 countries. It offers graduate degrees at a distance in education, business, public health, and the social and behavioral sciences, as well as bachelor degree completion programs in business administration and information systems. And beginning this year, Walden is partnering with community colleges nationwide to make these bachelor completion programs available to a broader range of students.
More than its relative age, however, its emphasis on student-centeredness makes Walden stand out in the distance-learning crowd. At Walden, student-centeredness means combining a superior student experience with a high-quality education. For distance learning to succeed, an institution must focus on both of these components with equal commitment and vigor. Walden's approach has been to allow students to pursue career-enhancing, advanced degrees without sacrificing their personal and professional commitments.
Superior student experience within distance education is predicated on two concepts. First, although it may seem counterintuitive, distance learning is all about personalization and community. Second, technology must not be an end in itself but a means of making the student's educational experience easier and more efficient. In short, combining high-tech with high-touch makes for high-level customer service and a strong student experience in distance education.
High Touch: Personalizing the Online Experience
Based on its commitment to a superior student experience, Walden University has developed and is rolling out a service that makes the entire distance-learning experience smoother, smarter, easier, and more personalized. As a result, more than 90 percent of Walden's students find online learning to be as good or better than traditional classroom learning. Through Walden University's Course Management Team (CMT), or Online Concierge Service, every student has a personal concierge who helps ease the transition from the classroom to the Internet. Recognizing that the online learning process can be disorienting for new students, the concierge serves as the students' primary guide and support, ensuring a trouble-free and rewarding online experience.
More than mere customer-service representatives, members of the CMT act as student advocates and proactively walk students through their online learning experience with the personal and professional touch of a concierge. This promotes greater comfort for many students who are taking courses online for the first time.
The Walden online concierges have taken on a leading role in online education services, helping to define a new medium of learning that allows individuals to have access to education any time and at any stage in their lives. The concierge is available to his or her student client via e-mail, live chat, and phone to provide this service. Ninety-eight percent of Walden's students utilizing this service have indicated that the concierges are very responsive and efficient.
To date, over 25,000 students have used the online concierge service through Walden and its affiliated institutions.
High Tech: Using Technology Creatively
The CMT members, or online concierges, employ a set of technology tools that increases efficiency and enables the concierges to manage a larger number of active students. These tools include a software orientation, a customized database, a personalized student home page called the personal start page, and integrated back-end services.
Getting Each Student Started Right. New students who participate in an interactive online orientation prior to their course start dates have a much more fulfilling and successful learning experience. For students who complete the orientation, the software becomes more transparent, allowing them to focus on course content. The training also minimizes technical problems and questions that can be distracting for both the student and instructor during the course. For these reasons, Walden is requiring all new students to participate in an orientation session.
The orientation consists of four interactive lessons that require from each student approximately 30 minutes to a few hours to complete, depending on user experience. Screenshots help guide students step by step through the functions of the software. This orientation even mimics an actual course and requires students to practice sending and replying to messages. The concierge monitors the orientations and answers all student questions. As soon as students complete the orientation, they receive a "Happy Graduation" message telling them they are ready to proceed with the course.
The orientation has been well received by students, with 99 percent of all students who start the orientation completing it within the allotted time.
Keeping the Information Current. The concierge uses a sophisticated and customized SQL database to track the progress of every student from registration through the conclusion of each course. The database lets the concierge know when a student is new or returning and when a student has logged in to orientation, completed orientation, checked into a course, and participated in the course. Every contact with a student is logged in the communications history within the database so that every member of the CMT is equipped to help an online student.
Through the database, the concierge sends welcome e-mail messages, creates user accounts, posts welcome messages to the virtual classrooms, posts orientation lessons, and reminds students to complete orientation - all automatically. This tool enables the concierge to appear omnipresent, lending a greater degree of personalization to the student experience. The database also sends automated reminders if a student is not active in a course for more than a few days. This database tool creates great economies of scale, so that the concierge may manage more students each quarter.
Personalizing the Process with a Personal Start Page. Another tool the concierge uses to serve the students is the personal start page in the student services area of the website. The personal start page is dynamically linked to the database and provides customized information for each student. It introduces the concierge to students as soon as they log on to the site and walks students through an easy-to-follow three-step process to get ready. More importantly, the design of the personal start page is tailored for the beginner, through the use of graphic cues that guide each student slowly and carefully.
The personal start page serves as each student's personal portal; everything a student needs to get started is available there. Students can review the courses in which they are enrolled, see who their instructors are, and determine the start and end dates for each course. Students can also order textbooks on the start page and learn how to use the software to take their course. Hyperlinks exist for students to request immediate help from the concierge, who is always just one click away. So far, the feedback on the functionality and intuitiveness of the personal start page has been excellent, and each quarter the concierge adds improvements to the website to streamline the extraordinary customer service it provides.
Letting Teachers Teach
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the CMT, or online concierge service, is the freedom it offers faculty to focus entirely on teaching.
The concierges begin their relationships with faculty the first time that the faculty members are contracted to teach an online course at Walden. They first help faculty get online and connect to the software. The concierge monitors the flow and progress of each online course and works closely with faculty to ensure success. Concierges look for warning signs such as the lack of interactivity and participation from both students and faculty and act quickly to prevent any problems. Faculty members often have questions about a specific function of the software, and the concierge is there as a constant. This level of support for faculty helps inspire confidence and helps build a cooperative relationship that adds to the quality of the course. It also encourages faculty to continue to teach for Walden and adds to the reputation and strength of its educational program.
Concierges and faculty members work together to ensure that students have a smooth online learning experience. The concierge communicates with faculty about students who are absent. For example, when a student is inactive for five or more consecutive days for the first two weeks of the course, the concierge sends a courtesy e-mail and calls the student.
Concierges often act as advisers who guide students through many issues, such as how to get grades and transcripts. Often, a student will have software questions during a course and will contact the concierge to answer questions about a certain feature of the software. The concierge also helps with logistics, such as dealing with reimbursement and registering for the next course. A student who is too embarrassed to approach the faculty for help will often turn to the concierge as a go-between to catch up. The cooperative relationship between the concierge and faculty adds to the smooth running of every online course and helps ensure that faculty members spend their time and energy doing what they do best: teaching.
As an online university, Walden must ensure that the student experience is of the highest possible caliber. Toward that end, the university seeks to minimize the "distance" in distance education by making the overall experience more personalized and student-friendly. The online concierge service combines the use of technology tools and the human touch to shrink that distance and make online education easy, meaningful, and productive for every one of its students.
Jonathan Kaplan (<mailto:Jonathan.Kaplan@educate.com>) is Vice President, Undergraduate Programs, Walden University
Vi To (<mailto:Vi.To@educate.com>) is Executive Director, Course Management & Customer Service, Walden University

** To view the web version of this abstract, in printer friendly layout,
go to <https://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/learning/lelabs1002.html>
**

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Dr. Susan Salvador
Office for Student Services
11/12/2002