Another outstanding session at the DLA 2008 was Spotlighting the Often Ignored Area of Online Student Services: Five Initiatives Your College Can Use, presented by Catherine Binuya and Stefanie Wright of Georgia Perimeter College. They presented a model of student services that has supported an increase in online enrollments of close to 400% over the past couple of years.
Of note was their focus on the student as customer. They emphasized personalized services and mentioned how students are having to fit education into other areas of their live rather than making education the primary focus.
Marketing of online programs was key to increasing enrollments. This was done using Google, Yahoo, and MySpace. They also split out the tuition and fees so that distance students would be paying only for the services received. Thus, online students would not pay parking fees but may pay for a technology fee.
Online students received extended hour email support. They also have a new fully online student orientation, learning styles assessments, life skills training, and an online student success course that is auto-loaded into their CMS home page. Welcome letters are mailed to all distance students prior to the start of the term. Formative eval is obtained using a student satisfaction survey.
GPC provides these services using an online student services director and student success coordinators. Current initiatives include marketing, ID on all PR materials, presence on college Web site, and advocating online services for both seat-based and online students.
Additional resources:
GPC Online
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