widening the enrollment pool with content solutions

March 2017

Widening the Enrollment Pool Content Solutions

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Your Presenters

David LungrenVice President,Digital Content SolutionsCollegis Education

Steve Taylor, Ph.D.MBA Curriculum CoordinatorUniversity of North Alabama

Solutions That Activate Online Learning

Collegis Education provides innovative learning technology solutions for a range of academic partners. With more than a decade of experience, our team designs, develops, licenses and deploys digital content that is fresh, interactive and scalable. From custom-developed learning solutions to our large library of training modules and competency-based courses, we enable you to reach your enrollment growth goals.

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Engage: Support your students at every turn.


AgendaIntroductionUNA Case StudyImpact on Student SuccessDevelopment ApproachFlexible Solution5 Things We LearnedQuestions


IntroductionCollegis works with partner institutions to deploy prerequisite learning solutions that increase opportunities for both the student and the institution:

Students benefit from enhanced prospects for success.

Institutions benefit from a wider pool of student prospects for the program.

Partner Case Study: University of North Alabama (UNA)


UNA Case StudyWell-established MBA program looking to grow enrollments

Mid-sized regional university in a rural setting

“Dwarfed” by two major state universities


Four Challenges at UNA

1. Increasingly competitive market for MBA students

2. Faculty/student dissatisfaction with current prerequisite

courses

3. Unsuccessful enrollment of non-Bachelor of Business

Administration (BBA) graduates

4. High percentage of “lost” new admits


Non-BBA vs. BBA Enrollment

46% 85%

44%

68%33%

73%


94 “Lost” Admits

????45%

Only prerequisites22%

Prerequisites/1 course22%

Went elsewhere6%

Postponed4%


SolutionMG 600 “Foundations of Business” course

Task force with faculty representative from each academic area

Survey course to cover the fundamentals in basic business disciplines

Required of all incoming MBA students

Accreditation implications

Competitive review


Solution4-hour course for academic credit

7 ModulesAccounting (14 hours)Business Information Systems (8 hours)Economics (6 hours)Finance (4 hours)Management (4 hours)Marketing (4 hours)Quantitative Analysis (16 hours)

Content is a combination of faculty-developed content and content drawn from the Collegis library


SolutionFall 2016 course introduced

Enrollment was 232

Course functions in a largely self-paced fashion

Single faculty member serves as course administrator

Course developers serve as content experts

Lesson learned: Set deadlines for students!


Results

Spring 2015 Summer 2015 Fall 2015 Spring 2016 Summer 2016 Fall 2016 Spring 2017

100 77

174 146 137209 210

7468

11096 103

170 144

4434

76

77 83

157

103

Applications Admission Registrations

MG 600 Course


Outcomes

Substantial percentage of new student enrollments were students who would not have been qualified without the prerequisite course

Costs shared with the students as students make a one-time payment via PayPal to access the content on the Collegis LMS

Course was designed and developed in compressed time frame due to leveraging of existing content from the Collegis library

Impact on Student Success


Immediacy of LearningResearch indicates that the timing of prerequisite learning can impact student success

Positive correlation between prerequisite learning taken immediately before MBA program start and student success in the next course

“The quantity of prerequisite courses and their timing are found to significantly influence student performance in the introductory finance course. This shows that adequate and timely exposure to prerequisite subjects are helpful in learning finance” –Blaylock & Lacewell

Blaylock & Lacewell (2008). Assessing Prerequisites as a Measure of Success in a Principles of Finance Course. Academy of Educational Leadership journal (12)1, pp. 51-62.


Academic Preparation in Discipline A student’s undergrad program may provide minimal academic preparation for the student’s graduate program

Research shows that prior coursework in the specific discipline of the program is correlated with student success

“… It may be helpful to offer differently structured introductory accounting courses. Accounting departments could, as do some economics departments, offer a pre-introductory, survey-type course … that examines some of the important concepts and procedures for students with inadequate or no prior preparation in accounting.” -Eskew & Faley

Eskew and Faley (1988). Some Determinants of Student Performance in the First College-Level Financial Accounting Course. The Accounting Review (63)1, pp. 137-147.

Development Approach Leveraging Collegis Module Library


UNA RequirementsContent covering the multiple disciplines in the MBA program

Rich, engaging learning experience that supported self-paced student work

Desire to speed the development process so students could be enrolled as early as July for the Fall semester

Minimize impact on faculty subject-matter experts


Collegis Module Library400 individual online modules in multiple disciplines

Modular design; each module organized around single competency

Media rich

Interactive

Support self-directed student work


The CourseBuilt upon content developed by UNA faculty integrated with content drawn from the Collegis library

Instructional Designer from Collegis collaborated with the UNA faculty to ensure a cohesive learning experience across all the content in the course

Flexible Solution


Prereq Learning Deployment Options

For-credit course that is designed as part of the program curriculum and is eligible for financial aid

Non-credit offering that serves as a requirement for admission with a fee paid directly by the student

Non-credit offering that is offered for free or at a greatly reduced cost to the student as a resource

All delivery options may be used to support the admissions process by enrolling students into the learning before the Term start

5 Things We Learned


5 Things We Learned

Faculty commitment, not involvement, is critical

Students must be mentally prepared for course

Critical to set student milestones with carrots and sticks

Hands-on attention is critical

Student discussion board for each module is very beneficial

Questions?


Thank you

CollegisEducation.com