Study Identifies Website Flaws

Colleges and universities want their websites to attract prospective students, but too often fail to make a good impression, according to a new report from the higher-education web development firm KDG.

“Our research revealed five mistakes that colleges often make on their website,” Kyle David, CEO of KDG, said in an article for eCampus News. “These mistakes may seem trivial, but they are the primary reasons many students often choose an inferior college that just happens to have a better website.”

The first problem for many college websites is that most incoming freshmen use social media regularly and have become accustomed to reading short chunks of information. Long forms that must be filled out are another issue that prompt prospective students to leave a website.

Institutional sites should guard against cluttered home pages that force students to click several times just to find out about a single aspect of the college. Fake imagery of college life and clichés can also send students looking elsewhere.

“A poorly organized site loses visitors and applicants, and you can ill afford to lose either,” said Rick Martin, a writer for the KDG blog. “Your biology department may be on the verge of curing cancer, but if your website wastes students’ time, you will fail to attract the bright minds that you need to keep your college strong.”

Strong Websites Help Attract Students

A recent study found that online information helps students decide on the institution they want to attend. Digital Search for Education surveyed more than 1,500 full- and part-time students in the United States to learn how they interact with colleges before enrolling.

According to the report, 58% of the students said online reviews were highly important to the school-selection process, while 20% said online reviews had the most influence on their choice. The school’s website was the most important factor in the selection process, with 56% of students saying that was their primary source for information about programs of interest.

More than half of the students said they used search engines to research the schools they were interested in attending and 43% reported being most influenced to click on search results that had information that was relevant to them. However, 32% also said they would leave a school’s site if it had poor navigation tools.

The study reported that 32% of students follow the schools in which they are interested on social media, with 62% using Facebook. At the same time, 41% said they contact the school through email directly and 75% added they preferred schools to contact them by email, phone, or text message.

Despite the emphasis on digital communication in the selection process, 31% of the students also cited an on-campus visit as the primary reason for enrolling in a particular institution.

Expectations of Online Learners

Distance learners expect a lot from their online courses, and sometimes those expectations can be rather contradictory. That was the finding of a nationwide survey of 1,500 students taking online courses, according to a report in eCampus News.

Nearly 75% of the students who responded said online programs must help with their careers and must offer personalization choices. When asked, 43% said they preferred electronic course materials and 33% said they wanted paper textbooks.

Respondents also said online courses should include shorter terms, generous transfer terms, and fast responses on admissions decisions, credit review, and financial-aid packaging. At the same time, students want the school to have a strong local brand because 65% live within 100 miles of the institution offering the online instruction.

About 30% of the students said they wanted their courses to be fully online, but nearly half said they would take a blended course and 22% said they found the option of on-campus courses very attractive. Students are interested in features such as low price, self-study options, and job placement rates that set a school apart from its competitors.

The institution had also better market to all ages with a great website that makes it easy to gather a wide variety of information, including tuition costs, admission requirements, and the online programs available. Students also said an online program should be affordable and provide easy access to instructors.

“The patterns and preferences of the sample of individual interviews are reflective of online students as a whole, and the data reflect a national template of the behavior and preferences of these students,” the authors of the report wrote. “College and university leaders can use this information to attract and serve this growing population. Individual institutions should also consider regional data and their position in the local marketplace.”

Website Helps Chinese Grads Find Jobs

Colleges and universities around the world try to help students find employment after graduation. A university in China has taken that effort online.

The Kunming University Talent Shop is an online site that features top graduates on the Alibaba retail platform, Taobao. Students are divided into four categories that “promote Chinese infrastructure investment and manufacturing power,” according to a report from CNBC.

The site includes a photo, a summary of career goals, and salary expectations for each student. Prospective employers are then able to bid for the right to offer a student a contract. The bidding fees start at $160, according to a report in People’s Daily Online.

Chinese officials expect more than seven million graduates to be looking for jobs in the country in 2015. At the same time, the number of new jobs created has fallen from 3.44 million in the first quarter of 2014 to 3.24 million during the same period this year.

Educators Asked about Digital Tech Use

A survey by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt found that 97% of K-12 educators and school administrators used some kind of digital content and more than 50% used apps, websites, and digital games in the classroom. The 2015 Educator Confidence Report also showed gaps in how teachers and administrators view the way technology was being used.

For instance, 71% of the responding teachers said they used free or open educational resources (OER) in their classrooms, while 87% of the administrators thought OER content was being used. Teachers and administrators also have different opinions on the use of online assessments (42% of the teachers said they used the tools, compared to 66% of administrators), learning management systems (36% vs. 64%), and adaptive learning content (35% vs. 49%).

Most educators said technology improved student engagement (66%) and provided students with better access to instructional content (55%). A majority (58%) were also either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about student privacy issues, according to the eSchool News report.

However, just 41% of those responding said they felt positive about teaching and 23% of teachers with less than 10 years of experience said they plan to leave the profession within five years.

“There is no denying that the education sector is undergoing an exciting—and challenging—transformation,” HMH Chief Content Officer Mary Cullinane said in a release. “Understanding the views of the teachers who are navigating this transformation is crucial. There is no one size fits all, which is why it is so important educator voices are heard and their real needs understood.”

EdX, DOJ Reach Accessibility Agreement

A compliance review by the U.S. Department of Justice has led to an agreement with edX to make its massive open online courses (MOOCs) more accessible to people with disabilities. EdX agreed to make its website, mobile applications, and learning management system fully accessible within the next 18 months.

As part of the settlement, edX will provide guidance for course creators on best practices in creating accessible online courses, hire a web-accessibility coordinator, and develop a web-accessibility policy. The settlement acknowledges that edX has taken steps to improve access, but needs to do more.

“We were very aware in 2012 or so about the emergence of MOOCs and the importance, or the potential importance, that they offer to students who have distance barriers and cost barriers to getting good educational content,” Eve L. Hill, deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “And they offer a potentially really good avenue for students with disabilities.”

Details of what was wrong with the edX platform were not provided, but Hill told The Chronicle that common website accessibility problems include videos without captions and pop-up windows that can’t recognize screen-reader applications used by the visually impaired. 

No-Pay Way to an MBA

A master’s of business administration (MBA) can cost nearly $170,000 from a prestigious institution, such as the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. A former Philadelphia schoolteacher has created a way around that.

No Pay MBA is a blog and website where users can find a collection of massive open online courses (MOOCs) focused on an MBA-track of study organized into three semesters. The courses are taught by some of the top business professors from around the world and are offered by the online-learning platforms edX, Coursera, Open2Study, and Udacity.

While the courses are free, there’s also no degree at the end of the road. Several of the MOOC platforms do offer certificates of completion for a small fee.

“There is a great potential for someone to create an alternative, especially for that segment of the market which is already working and doesn’t want to spend what business school costs, and doesn’t necessarily need the launchpad that business schools offer because they’re already midstream in their careers,” said Laurie Pickard, who created the website while working as a development and entrepreneurship specialist for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Rwanda. 

RetailU -- a resource for retail technology ideas.

About a year ago Chain Store Age launched a virtual resource center and learning portal called Retail U. Retail U offers retail executives the opportunity to discover cutting-edge business solutions being developed by today’s leading technology providers.

Many of the technologies discussed do not fit small businesses, and as the site has mostly corporate white papers and webinars. However, for the store manager looking to understand some of the trends and future of technology in retail, the site has some useful resources. The site covers a range of topics: ECommerce, Multi-channel, Mobile commerce, Merchandising, Promotions Management, Supply Chain, Payment Systems, Finance, Loss Prevention and Workforce Management.