“Accudemia helps Tutoring Services at Monmouth University to meet its operational goals and objectives by providing a service that is flexible, meets individualized needs of tutors and tutees and provides data on student usage and demand that helps drives future programming and hiring decisions.”
-Dorothy M. Cleary, Director of Tutoring Services, Monmouth University
Path to Selecting Accudemia
Prior to Fall 2015, the Tutoring Services Center of Monmouth University utilized the Tutortrac software platform; however, this software did not fit the center’s needs. They found the reporting capabilities were insufficient and students had difficulty making appointments online. This led Dorothy M. Cleary, Director of Tutoring Services, and her colleagues to seek out a better solution. Soon, Accudemia was selected and became the primary software and self-scheduling tool for all appointments within the center.
Students can easily make appointments utilizing the embedded wizard and then the director and office assistants can monitor all appointments through Accudemia’s administrative tools. Staff can also schedule appointments manually for students when they need assistance specifically from the Academic Coaches rather than tutors or when students need help outside normal operating hours.
Engineerica Accommodated Monmouth’s Needs
In the early phases of software adoption, there was a mismatch of data entry options due to the way courses are coded at Monmouth. Engineerica made adjustments to Accudemia to accommodate this issue and accept this data. The use of Accudemia at Monmouth expands to other centers at the college and Accudemia teams have worked in partnership with Monmouth’s staff to meet the specific needs of each of these centers.
How Accudemia is Utilized by Tutoring Services at Monmouth
At the front desk reception area, an iPad has been set up with an Accudemia sign-in kiosk that students use to check into the center for their appointments. Additionally, the front desk student employee uses a desktop computer to assist visiting students with scheduling new appointments.
Tutors receive automated emails from Accudemia letting them know about all appointments and any status changes to these appointments (i.e. changed dates or times, cancellations, etc.). These confirmations include the student’s name, date and time, the reason for the visit or services requested, as well as the course for which the student needs assistance. Tutors can log into Accudemia at any time to view all of their upcoming and past appointments. They also access the “Who’s In” screen to make sure their tutees have checked in for their appointments.
Monmouth’s tutors are required to enter session logs, recording additional details regarding the appointment. Accudemia makes this possible.
Goals of Monmouth’s Tutoring Services Center and Staff
The mission of Tutoring Services is to assist the students of Monmouth University by strengthening their skills in various content areas, as well as time management and study skills. Tutoring Services provides quality tutors who excel in their areas of expertise and offers a series of workshops covering specific study skills. The department promotes and fosters independent learning and thinking to enhance confidence in the students to achieve in all aspects of their learning and enable them to attain continued success throughout their academic career.
The goal of each tutorial is to assist students in developing strategies that will help strengthen their knowledge, develop transferable learning skills, and achieve academic success. Tutoring Services staff will work with each student individually to provide the best type of tutorial. Each student will then be scheduled for a tutorial with a peer tutor, Academic Coach, or Professional Content Specialist.
All Peer Tutors are students who have excellent academic standing and excel in the areas in which they tutor. The role of a tutor is to enable students to do their own work using the best learning approach possible. The ultimate goal is to assist students in discovering how he or she best learns and to help students develop the skills to achieve his or her best educational outcome.
Academic Coaches are faculty members with strong teaching backgrounds and knowledge of study strategies and learning styles. They provide a comprehensive service for students who want to improve their academic and self-management skills, such as time management, organization and study skills. Tutoring Services at Monmouth University offers this support to help students achieve their academic goals along with self-advocacy and independent, life-long learning.
Professional Content Specialists are faculty members with strong teaching backgrounds and knowledge in content-specific disciplines. They are committed to helping students by providing positive tutorial experiences in these content areas. The goal of each tutorial is to assist students in developing strategies that will help strengthen their knowledge, develop transferable learning skills, and achieve academic success.
How Tutoring Services Measures Success Through Accudemia Data
One method by which success is measured is in the number of unique students and visits, although qualitative information about the student experience and what was accomplished during the session is also important. Tutoring is just one aspect of a student achieving success, therefore session notes are very important and highly valued.
“Session notes also clue me into what is going on with the student body as a whole within their courses, as there tend to be patterns (exams, big projects, new textbook issues, online program issues, etc.),” reported Dorothy M. Cleary. She examines the data collected by Accudemia, looking at subjects and courses that have a high frequency of tutoring sessions.
“I also look at the time of day graph in Accudemia – I love this – to see when peak tutoring periods occur,” said Cleary. “This helps me with scheduling and payroll management. I also compare this data to previous semesters and look to see if the variety of course-specific help available, as well as the number of tutors, has changed from year to year.”
Cleary has been collecting data long enough in Accudemia to be able to see trends, which prove to be valuable as she moves into programming for the upcoming year.
She says, “As I am the only full-time person in my department, Accudemia plays a vital role in letting me know the activity within the center. It gives a lot of valuable, quick data (especially from the appointment screen). I certainly cannot observe every session, but I can see activity and read about what is going on to determine if I need to follow up. It is also valuable to other departments on campus because they know they can contact me at any time and I can report exactly how much student activity occurred for any one student.”
Cleary believes that her colleagues are beginning to recognize when they reach out to her, that she can easily pull reports and provide data because of Accudemia. “When I am looking for support for an initiative, they know I can back it up with facts and figures, as well as narratives and examples,” states Cleary.
“I love the group reporting function and typically use this for student-athletes, student veterans, etc. It’s a great way to look at a group at a glance.” – Dorothy M. Cleary, Director of Tutoring Services, Monmouth University
UPDATE: How COVID-19 Affected Tutoring Services at Monmouth
When everything had to become remote practically overnight, Cleary reports having very little trouble moving all of her tutors into the remote world.
“Accudemia was quick with updating software, putting out instructional videos, and making software updates at a rapid pace,” stated Cleary. “This made a big difference, especially in Spring 2021, when Zoom fatigue and patience with online learning was at a low. I was able to say with confidence that you just need to click Join Session from your appointment screen and your tutor will be there.”
When telling others about Accudemia, Cleary pointed out, “it’s a good value, easy to use, relatively intuitive, visually friendly, and has lots of capability.”
“Accudemia is a stable, useful product that has the potential to help many learning centers.” – Dorothy M. Cleary, Director of Tutoring Services, Monmouth University