In recent years, online education’s selling propositions have included convenience and flexibility. Although I am convinced that those propositions will remain part of the equation, I see an underlying current that will in the near future bring to the surface ‘performance indicators” as key metrics in evaluating online institutions. Those indicators will include retention and graduation rates, learning outcomes, course section sizes etc.
An important building block to these performance indicators is Student Services. In today’s virtual space, those services include academic advising, orientations, resource and library services, tutorials, academic advising, and technical support. These certainly are the most common Student Services but as this market becomes more competitive, these foundational services need to be consistently enhanced and improved. It is also critical that additional, less common services be introduced that enhance that all important student experience.
If you are a prospective online student, these services should be an integral part of what the school you are interested in is providing. If you are currently a student, you need to take full advantage of any Student Services that your school offers, and even make suggestions for new ones. If you curently work at an institution that has online offerings, you need to champion how to enhance what I call that all important “student experience.”
More to come …
