How to Increase Traffic to Your Virtual Academic Center
Chadd BlodgettWhy do we want to increase our traffic?
Most student services are available to support students and increase overall student success. Whether it’s an advising center helping students plan their courses, a tutoring center providing services to pass those courses, or even a counseling center supporting students through the stresses of college, they all play an important role. Increasing traffic to student centers gives us the best chance to improve student success.
Which students do we want?
If our overall goal is to support students and increase overall student success, we want to target those who would most benefit from our services. An example would be student groups such as students at risk, students on probation, first-year students, first-generation students, student-athletes, etc. These are all examples of groups that have an overall lower rate of success. Also, targeting specific majors or even courses that are more difficult and have a higher attrition rate, would be another example of students who could benefit most from our services.
How do we increase traffic to our virtual academic center?
- Increase Visibility and Accessibility
Increasing visibility and accessibility are perhaps the most effective way to increase traffic to your virtual center. Just as centers have had to adapt to the way they offer support, students have had to adapt to the way they receive support. Here are a few ways we can increase our visibility and accessibility:
- A cloud-based system that supports virtual appointments and/or virtual walk-ins like Accudemia. We need an accessible and seamless way for students to connect and stay connected with staff virtually. Also, a system that will send confirmations and reminders is always a great way to decrease no-shows.
- Email and/or text message campaigns are a great way of staying visible to students. Sometimes students don’t know where to get support or that your center supports what they need. The most effective way to reach students via email or text is by using groups in Accudemia. Cater your email and text message to groups that might benefit from your services the most (at-risk, probation, first-year, first-generation, or case-load).
- Joining class sessions to inform students of your available services has always been an effective way to increase visibility. We can still accomplish this in a virtual environment. Attend virtual classes that you believe would have the most impact on student success, such as classes that have a higher fail rate or even classes that aren’t utilizing your services. A system like Accudemia would enable you to view which classes are and aren’t utilizing your services.
- Increase Availability to Accommodate Students
Now that we know why we want to increase traffic and which students would most benefit from our services, we need to know who has been using which services and when if we want to be an effective center for supporting students’ success. Utilizing a tool such as Accudemia would enable us to track virtual and face-to-face appointments as well as live virtual and face-to-face check-in sessions. The traffic analysis provided by Accudemia will show us which students are coming in for which services and/or courses and when. We can now cater our services and availability according to the traffic data.
- Collect Feedback & Improve Services
Another way to increase traffic is to keep students coming back for your services. If students believe they are benefiting from your services, they will return. One of the best ways to get feedback from students visiting your virtual center is through the use of online surveys. Accudemia will help you track each virtual visit and allow the student to complete an online survey. We can now take the results of the survey and apply any changes to ensure our students are provided with what they need to succeed.