How did we do it?
The Faculty team deployed University Assistant to more than 1,000 incoming students in the run-up to welcome week to support them as they prepare for university life, help them get to know their course and tutors, and make sure they get the best out of the events and provide real-time support during welcome week itself.
In addition, the faculty team are deploying the platform to all second-, placement-, and final-year undergraduates.
With this wide deployment across the faculty, University Assistant has become the primary digital engagement channel for all student success matters; providing support and advice, gaining student feedback, and targeting cohorts with high importance articles, videos, and collections.
“Our students are always on the move, and always on their smartphones. University Assistant give us a fantastic engagement channel that’s always within students’ reach. It helps us target our communications, it provides an intuitive support channel, and provides the leadership team with real-time analytics - so we can react and adapt to student feedback and insight in a more agile way.”
Professor Hanifa Shah
Executive Dean, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment
What we achieved together
Significant demand among students for smartphone-based engagement drove over 97% adoption of University Assistant during welcome week.
Articles, videos, events, and notices were seen by students more than 165,000 times, and any last minute changes to details (such as room changes, timing alterations, or new information) were made centrally, and sent directly to students via push notifications.
The high adoption, automatic push notifications, and ease by which changes can be made resulted in a smoothly delivered welcome week with high satisfaction levels.
Students asked in-the-moment questions with University Assistant’s low-friction real-time chat. The chat was instantly recognisable (the 2018/19 intake have grown up with real-time chat as their primary communication platform), and the university support team received insights into common, recurring questions, which were then addressed en-masse with articles and notices.
Faculty leadership were also able to analyse usage statistics from the platform to understand—in real-time—which articles and events were gaining traction with students, and which were struggling. In doing so, they were able to push notices out to targeted groups to nudge student behaviour and increase the attention to content and events that were known to be important to student success, such as academic skills workshops and mental wellbeing support services. Daily analysis of the analytics enabled the leadership team to rapidly intervene where necessary, and helped optimise welcome week for students and staff.
University Assistant is now being used to prepare students for the year ahead, with a focus on assessment readiness, placement year preparation, employability skills development, and ongoing social and wellbeing support. Course Leaders are creating tailored content and engaging their students in a highly targeted manner. A Digital Pioneers group has been formed to provide content governance and support the wider adoption of the platform, under the guidance of the Associate Dean for Student Learning Experience & Academic Quality.
