Faculty, staff and student feedback is just one component of measuring the success of the implementation. Other benchmarks are the responses to the messages and the usage data from Blackboard Connect.
“As the overall administrator of the Blackboard Connect site, I can see the number of students that sign up for Blackboard Connect for Learn,” Curbeam said. “Within the first year, over 500 students signed up for Blackboard Connect for Learn so they could receive messages from their faculty members. In addition, the portal also allows me to measure the number of students who are receiving messages and which campus departments are sending messages to students.”
The success of the two-prong implementation gave Coppin the confidence to expand how and when the systems are used.
“The vision is to use Blackboard Connect to increase student engagement and retention by tailoring solutions to the new communication attitudes of students — such as text messaging and social media,” sa
ys Dr. Ahmed El-Haggan, Coppin’s chief information officer and vice president of IT.
In that spirit, academic and administrative departments are strategically using Blackboard Connect to bolster enrollment for Coppin, which improves student retention rates. In July 2012, the university’s enrollment management department sent voicemail and text messages to more than 1,000 returning students who were eligible to enroll, but had not yet enrolled for Fall 2012. This tactic aided in an immediate increase of students that enrolled for the Fall 2012 semester. In addition, Coppin’s school of business has used Blackboard Connect to push text, voice and social network notifications to continuing and potential students.
“Blackboard Connect is a critical piece in the school of business’ enrollment and recruitment plan,” says Dr. Sadie R. Gregory, dean of the school of business. “Blackboard Connect has been instrumental in increasing our school enrollment by 20% for the Fall 2012 semester.”
Solution Has Curbed Tuition Non-Payments
Today, Coppin uses the Blackboard Connect for Learn service to help students stay on top of their coursework. For example, students can receive direct phone messages, E-mails and texts from professors with information on anything from office hours to tutoring. They can also receive automated exam or assignment reminders for their specific classes.
“I love the professor notification tool (in Blackboard Learn),” says sophomore Dawnn Johnson. “I get reminders about tests, announcements and assignments directly to my phone. I never miss anything.”
Another student, Blair Ricks notes, “As a non-traditional student who attends school and works full-time, getting text reminders and notices from my instructors helps me to manage and keep up with my schoolwork. It’s helping me maintain my good GPA.”
According to Curbeam, the technology has made a difference in the academic lives of students.
“In the past, some students would forget to complete their weekly quizzes. Now we just send a weekly notification and quizzes are completed on time,” he says.
Blackboard Connect also plays a key role in the university’s enrollment communications strategy. The university relies on the service to remind students of financial aid deadlines, upcoming retention-driven events and tuition nonpayment.
“We’ve had great success using Blackboard to remind students of late tuition payments,” says Curbeam. “It’s worked so well the bursar’s office was flooded with students ready to pay tuition after they received text messages stating they would be dropped for nonpayment.”
The service also allows the university to rapidly reach the entire campus via text, E-mail and phone — even social media — for both emergency and non-critical updates. When Hurricane Irene threatened the region, Coppin’s public safety department relied on Blackboard Connect to inform students that the campus would remain open.
“Fortunately, the university was not affected by Irene, but people assumed we would be closed,” says Curbeam. “We sent a text notification informing everyone we had power and classes would be held as scheduled.”
The system also cross-posted the notification to Facebook, resulting in a spike of social media engagement among students.
Currently, Coppin is in the process of setting up a Blackboard Connect portal for the community. Within the scope of the Clery Act, the public safety department wants to be able to notify the community in case there is a campus-wide emergency that directly impacts the surrounding community. Once the portal is launched, the department will work with the area neighborhood associations to have area residents sign up so they are prepared to receive information via phone and text, should an incident occur.
Teachers Now Help More Students
Coppin State University faculty and administrators agree that the main benefit of deploying Blackboard Connect and Connect for Learn is that teachers spend less time managing messaging and more time helping students. While Coppin’s previous emergency outreach software met basic communication requirements, it limited the college’s ability to regularly engage students in a positive way on the platform they prefer most.
“Our educators don’t have to waste time doing all these senseless, time-consuming reminders,” says Curbeam. “They’re not duplicating efforts. They save time and can instead focus on developing lessons.”
