It was a demanding year for education with the ongoing need for modernization in technology and the refocus on the student experience in a post-pandemic world. As 2022 comes to a close, we decided to look back on some of the ways SEAtS education solutions have been used by institutions globally. This has includes enhancing digital strategy, addressing crucial issues in education, and improving student and staff experiences.
The following are some of this year’s key use cases for SEAtS education solutions that will help institutions kickstart their 2023 initiatives.
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- UKVI Compliance / Visa Compliance
- Professional Accreditation Management
- Title IX and Federal Funding Compliance
- Widening Access and Participation in Education
- Prioritizing the Student Experience
- Improving Student Welfare
- Blended Learning Solutions
- Offsite Scheduling for Work Integrated Learning
- Optimized Campus Sustainability and Efficiency
- Mitigating Circumstances and Extension Request Management
- Personal Tutoring Dashboard
- Process Efficiency and Automation
1. UKVI Tier 4 Sponsor Compliance
Compliance with UKVI Tier 4 sponsorship is one of the most significant challenges for Higher Education institutions in the UK. As 2022 saw the largest number of international student visas granted in the UK, it is clear this issue will only become more pressing for HEIs in 2023. Many institutions struggle to implement an effective student attendance management system that can ensure their compliance with their Tier 4 Sponsor license. UKVI compliance can be an administrative nightmare, requiring attendance tracking for thousands of students and detailed reporting.
Fortunately for HEIs, we have just the education solution for Tier 4 Sponsor compliance. With our student attendance management system, you can send reminders to international students before their required class. Also, ensure student attendance is recorded via a variety of methods including Bluetooth beacons or QR codes. Our solutions allow you to automatically alert staff and students when student attendance is falling below required levels. In addition to this, you can use specific UKVI compliance workflows to fulfil all Tier 4 Sponsorship reporting and audit requirements.
University of South Wales, a Cardiff based public university with three campuses and over 23,000 students combine SEAtS attendance data with student data from campus systems to generate accurate engagement analytics that inform retention strategies for international students. They use SEAtS pre-built UKVI workflows to handle the time-consuming tasks fulfilling tier IV reporting requirements.
2. Professional Accreditation Management
Further issues in education around attendance tracking and stakeholder reporting, are with professional and trade accreditation management. Many work integrated learning programs have compulsory attendance and reporting requirements in order to achieve accreditation. Whether managing student placements, apprenticeships, or another work integrated learning program, we have the education solutions to help.
With our professional accreditation solution, students can check into their programs using Bluetooth or GPS check-in. This means you can be confident of student attendance at off-campus sites. Tracking of students on WIL also helps ensure student welfare. Program coordinators can get automatic alerts if a student hasn’t turned up for their program and book remote check-up appointments.
A Mississippi based health sciences school of a public research university use SEAtS to schedule their junior doctors for clinical placements. In order for these junior doctors to graduate, they need to meet a minimum requirement and provide evidence for their attendance at these placements. The student’s check-in to their clinical placements via the SEAtS mobile app recording their attendance. Administration staff can easily generate comprehensive and accurate attendance reports.
3. Title IX and Federal Funding Compliance
Some challenges for educational institutions in the US include compliance with federal funding laws such as Title IX or Title I. For example, Title IX reporting requirements and student case management can be a major headache for Title IX coordinators and officers. The Title IX grievance procedure is extensive and carries a significant administrative burden. Our Title IX case management solution means automated workflows do the heavy lifting for coordinators, freeing their time to investigate reports effectively.
In addition to Title IX, many public educational institutions in the US receive additional federal funding. Kingsman Academy in Washington DC, as a public charter school, receives funding from the state. As a result, they need to fulfil federal funding reporting requirements.
Kingsman Academy connect SEAtS to Google Classroom, pulling grades and assignment data into our platform, and use engagement analytics to identify students who may be struggling. Through these actionable insights, Kingsman develop personalized intervention plans and can easily generate reports on the improved student outcomes that result.
4. Widening Access and Participation in Education
Equitable access has been hugely topical around issues in education in 2022. This was amplified by the release on NEON’s stark report on ‘World Access to Higher Education’ Day last month. The message is unfortunately clear. The pandemic has set education backwards in terms of widening participation and improving equitable access for disadvantaged students. However, with our widening participation education solutions, institutions can successfully support equitable access to education.
By analysing both real-time and historical student data, including student engagement, institutions can identify attrition trends and implement proactive student service support. Use custom tags for disadvantaged students and at-risk cohorts and create personalized early intervention strategies for students. As well as widening participation, improve student welfare, student engagement and completion rates.
Kingston University, a London based public research university with over 18,000 students use SEAtS engagement analytics to view how their student population is engaging with their classes and online materials. It has led them to change their approach in how they support students more proactively with additional time and resources being allocated for repeat and late enrolling students, commuter students, and students from specific identified areas/localities.
5. Prioritizing the Student Experience
Throughout 2022, education institutions across the world experienced challenges in student retention. As institutions and students alike adapt to the ‘new normal’ of education, research is pointing to improving the student experience to maintain student retention. Luckily, we have education solutions to help. A crucial part of students dropping out of education is a lack of personalized, effective support. To implement effective student retention strategies and early intervention strategies, student service support staff need to know which students are struggling.
Tracking and analysing student progression indicators such attendance, engagement, academic success will create the actionable insights needed to improve student outcomes. Tag students based on their needs and provide effective academic, financial, or welfare support to those who need it most. Improving the student experience is the best way to engage students and improve completion rates.
Solent University, a Southampton based public university with over 10,500 students were able to see improvements in student attendance rapidly. They saw an 8% increase in student attendance per week in the first semester after implementation. The increased attendance combined with better data insights allowed them to implement informed retention initiatives. These initiatives resulted in a 9% improvement for suspended returners, and a 14% improvement in repeat level students.
6. Improving Student Welfare
Off the back of the pandemic, a ‘student welfare emergency’ was identified as one of the key issues in education this year. In response, educational institutions are struggling to find the most effective way to identify and support students. Our student welfare solution gives student support services the actionable insights they need to implement proactive and personalised support. Track key student engagement signals and get automatic alerts when a student is identified as being at-risk or in need of support.
Connecting campus systems and centralising student data in one real-time student welfare dashboard, means implementing a whole-institutional approach. This is the most effective way to ensure staff can support students, and that no student gets lost in siloed data.
A London based public research university with five campus and over 33,000 students use SEAtS case management and early warning system to prioritize student welfare. Students use SEAtS mobile app to ask for help from support staff. A case is instantly opened for support staff to action. This ensures no time is lost addressing student concerns or wasted manually identifying dips in engagement or activity.
7. Blended Learning Solutions
Despite many institutions resuming traditional on-campus activities and teaching in 2022, plenty of blended learning elements look set to stay. Students and staff alike have enjoyed many aspects of the ‘digital campus’ experience over the last few years. However, the modern mode of teaching and learning delivery has brought unique challenges for educational institutions. With our blended learning solutions, your institutions can easily manage online attendance and hybrid scheduling of classes or events. In addition, you won’t lose any oversight of student engagement. Our tools for blended learning gives you actionable insights into how students are engaging online.
HELBUS, a Helsinki based private university specializing in business use a combination of SEAtS hybrid scheduler, student attendance management system, and student engagement analytics to power-up their blended learning offering. Students use the SEAtS mobile app to check-in to class. Online attendance is automatically captured using SEAtS with pre-existing connectors to Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Panopto. SEAtS attendance tracking data is combined with student touch points from across campus to formulate an accurate engagement score. This gives support staff accurate actionable insights to work from. Student outreach can be facilitated via SMS, email, or by directly booking time in the student’s calendar for interventions.
8. Offsite Scheduling for Work Integrated Learning
Next up in our top education solutions for 2023, is managing offsite scheduling for work integrated learning. As the demand for vocational education grows, the demand for effective blended learning solutions grows too. Part of our tools for blended learning, we specifically designed a solution to give institutions and education providers the flexibility they need. Staff can schedule off-campus events such as student placements, training, and apprenticeships within minutes. Not just that, but scheduled events can be synced to student and staff calendars in Microsoft Teams, Outlook, or Google. Importantly, all updates happen in real-time with staff and student calendars instantly up to date.
An Irish, agricultural training provider is using SEAtS to schedule and block study programs for apprentice farmers and horticulturists. They also track attendance at these events for reporting purposes, including EU funding. Using a combination of our mobile app and beacons, they have oversight and control over their work integrated learning programs.
9. Optimized Campus Sustainability and Efficiency
With rising energy costs around the world and an increased focus on campus sustainability, many institutions are wondering how best to improve efficiency and institutional effectiveness. To help address these issues in education, our campus management solutions are aimed at institutions transitioning into a smart campus or looking to reduce costs and enhance space utilisation.
We connect SEAtS to your existing campus systems and use this data to generate real-time, actionable insights into space utilisation, energy optimisation and campus sustainability planning. Our partnership with Juniper Mist means there’s no need for physical Bluetooth beacons. Combining virtual BLE technology and data analytics will result in substantial cost savings and improved efficiency for your institution.
After plugging their systems into SEAtS, Aston University discovered where they were wasting valuable space and resources. Some hidden costs surfaced by our system included multiple rooms being booked for a single teaching event, as well as large lecture halls scheduled for events with low class attendance. Our actionable insights have not only removed the need for manual room audits but improved their space utilisation and boosted campus sustainability.
10. Mitigating Circumstances and Extension Request Management
Mitigating circumstance and extension of time requests have always been key to the role of student service support. However, due to the pandemic there has been a decline in student mental wellbeing, and an increase in the special circumstances of students. As a result, many institutions have found themselves receiving and processing far more requests than usual. Fortunately, we’ve created task management software which can help institutions improve process efficiency, reduce staff workload, and enhance student welfare support.
A long-term partner of SEAtS, the University of Roehampton reported their challenges with mitigating circumstance and extension of time requests to us in 2021. Staff at the University in London were processing thousands of requests every month. The sheer number of requests and the highly individualized nature of the requests created a need for a task management system that could automate processes, improve efficiency, and ensure requests were handled by the right student support staff. Our solution will not only give staff back their time for outreach or learning but will improve the student experience too.
11. Personal Tutoring Dashboard
As we mentioned earlier, of the most topical issues in education in 2022 was around the student experience. Evidence has shown that for improved student welfare and optimal student engagement, students need a personalised educational experience. One of the best ways for institutions to provide this is with a personal staff or tutor dashboard. Both academic and support staff benefit from access to real-time, actionable insights on student’s progression, engagement, and overall academic journey. This helps enable personalised communications, intervention strategies and support.
A Sydney based public university with 7 campuses and over 23,000 students use SEAtS personal tutor dashboard and early warning system to track lead indicators for student retention and promptly notify staff to reach out. The solution is used by course coordinators and faculty staff to identify students with low engagement and at risk of dropping out. They have implemented targeted interventions for students to proactively reduce attrition and enrich student engagement with the university.
12. Process Efficiency and Automation
To sum up our top education solutions for 2023, one of the biggest challenges in education in 2022 has been process and task automation. Institutions are simultaneously attempting to achieve operational excellence, have a digital transformation and improve institutional effectiveness. To do this, efficient process and task management is a necessity. Our solutions combine student and institutional success to deliver better student outcomes and improved campus efficiency at the same time.
In 2023 there will be little question of whether a digital or smart campus is the way forward, it will simply be a question of which education solutions are right for your institution.
Our automated workflows allow institutions to create student success and campus management processes from scratch. Process automation simplifies student case management, stakeholder and compliance reporting, and campus sustainability. As seen in our partnerships with modern institutions such as Aston University or the European School of Osteopathy. ESO use SEAtS hybrid learning timetable solution to reduce the time take to create and share a timetable for a term from 2 weeks to one day, which is a 93% reduction in wasted time. As well as optimizing staff time, improved process efficiency will enhance staff and student experiences and reduce institutional costs.
