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5 Mistakes to Avoid when Seeking Vendor Partners for Online Programs

by Deb Gearhart

EVALUATING AN EXTERNAL PARTNER External partners can provide boosts in quality, capacity and enrollment numbers for universities’ online programs. However, decision makers must be diligent in choosing who to partner with and examining which services are most efficiently outsourced.  A lack of comprehensive preparation can lead to wasted resources, unnecessary costs and stagnant enrollments. In this article, Deb Gearhart, vice provost for e-learning and strategic partnerships at Ohio University, offers: Podcast: Rethinking Vendor Partnerships Checklist: 5 Mistakes to Avoid When developing a vendor partnership to help deliver your online program, these items are too commonly overlooked: MISTAKE #1. NOT BRINGING THE RIGHT PLAYERS TO THE PROCESS. Identify the key stakeholders early on. Ensure that all areas of the University that will touch your online program and its students are represented in both the planning and the evaluation of the partner vendor. This would include: Always work through your procurement office. MISTAKE #2. NOT CONSIDERING YOUR BUDGET. What are the costs to provide the services within your institution, compared to the expenses of bringing in a vendor partner? Online education is an upfront investment with costs recouped from enrollment. When reviewing vendors, be sure to gain a clear understanding of what […]

Detailed Checklist: One Scenario in Planning for Advancement Efforts Overseas

by Gretchen Dobson

Happy New Year! As we saw in the first installment in my series on international advancement efforts, it is critical to know key international holidays to best inform staff or a delegation about when (and when not to travel). Once you understand those parameters, the planning must begin and adequate time is necessary to create a successful advancement initiative based on strategic outcomes. I suggest working from nine months out. This advance planning with the academic year is necessary and intentional for several reasons: Advancement officers are not holding the responsibility alone for reaching out to constituents abroad. It is critical to keep the institution’s entire international agenda in mind and that requires a coordinated effort from alumni, development, special events, communications and marketing, and other departments such as admissions and graduate schools’ external relations offices. Advancement officers will also need to communicate with campus leadership and with volunteers abroad on a regular basis to best manage the expectations for everyone’s participation and support. Everyone involved is a “brand manager” and will have a piece of the promotional timeline. TWO DETAILED SCENARIOS I want to offer two scenarios — one in this article (below), and one in a follow-up article. […]

Detailed Checklist: A Second Scenario in Planning for Advancement Efforts Overseas

by Gretchen Dobson

In the companion piece to this checklist, I suggested that it’s critical to plan for international advancement efforts nine months out, for three reasons. This allows you time to plan and manage your resources systematically, plan ahead and confirm your spot on your volunteers’ and donors’ calendars, and identify cost-effective travel options. TWO DETAILED SCENARIOS I want to offer two scenarios for planning an advancement effort overseas on such a nine-month timeline. I offer one scenario below, and one here. These two scenarios are precursor events or meetings that will support the overall goals of a new comprehensive campaign. I offer these scenarios in a “timeline” format to guide the staff when working with volunteers and campus VIPs. I have also included tips and checklists for each month of the planning process. If you find these scenarios useful, please share them with your colleagues! Scenario B: A Campaign Prep Launch Event – Asia, Spring 2015 Context:Northbridge University, a mid-sized, comprehensive research university in the Midwest, will embark on a $2.0 billion capital campaign in Fall 2016. The last campaign successfully raised $1.0 billion and concluded on June 30, 2011. Goal:Alumni, family and friend engagement and qualification visits with prospective donors […]

Social Media Triage: How to Create a Social Media Incident Command

by Cindy Lawson

The number of current and emerging social media tools seems never-ending. By the time you master some of them, others quickly arise. As such, managing conversations on social media sites also becomes a never-ending challenge. Some would say it’s impossible. After all, in any given crisis, there usually are multiple responding agencies assisting the university with its crisis response.  Each agency uses multiple social media tools to reach multiple audiences with multiple messages.  And, as we all know too well, in a crisis situation, countless questions invariably arise, as do rumors and the proliferation of misleading or downright incorrect information. These challenges are exacerbated by the fact that: And, let’s admit it, in a crisis, most of our staff are probably focusing the majority of their efforts on responding to countless traditional media requests, as well as crafting  messages to faculty, staff and students, and posting critical information to university websites.  It’s the nature of the crisis beast. Tackling the Problem Upon arrival at DePaul nearly two years ago, I learned there were 178 individuals on campus who regularly managed more than 183 different university-related social media sites.  I asked myself: How can I best leverage not only the tools […]

The Critical Step in Allocating Resources Across Alumni Relations and Annual Giving

by Bob Baer, Kylie Mitchell

Most alumni relations and annual giving operations have limited intelligence about who will be a strong reunion volunteer, annual giver, or alumni travel prospect—if the person has not previously participated in any of those activities. But rather than pulling a random database query and then reaching out at random to the contents of the entire resulting list, applying predictive analytics can help provide a more targeted allocation of your resources and more targeted messaging. Why Predictive Modeling is Critical Many organizations seeking to improve operating performance are turning to predictive analytics and predictive modeling to either increase revenues, decrease costs, or both. The size of our alumni population and database at Penn make focusing resources critical to fundraising success. The objectives of our early pilot projects in predictive modeling have been to reduce fundraising-related marketing costs and/or increase the dollars raised, or improve business performance in some other way. Here are examples of how our recent analytics efforts at Penn have informed critical resourcing decisions: The Steps for Effective Predictive Modeling The steps in the predictive modeling process are: Identification of the business need and a proper problem definition are critical for a successful project. In most data warehouse systems, […]

The Most-Needed Competency for Online Instructors

If you find these practical strategies useful, please share this article with faculty at your institution. In this updated and revised edition of a popular 2012 article from Academic Impressions, we have turned to Larry Ragan, Susan Ko, and Brian Redmond for tips on how faculty can develop a key competency for online teaching. Debates continue in the public sphere over the quality and efficacy of online instruction, with research studies citing quite different outcomes confusing the issue. The heart of the matter is that not all online instruction is equal –- institutions still differ widely in the level of planning that goes into the online instruction they provide and in the level of preparation and training provided for online instructors. To see success with an online learning initiative, hiring and training for specific competencies is critical. Director of Penn State’s Center for Online Innovations in Learning (COIL) Larry Ragan and a number of his colleagues at Penn State (including Janet May, Paula Bigatel, Shannon Kennan, and Brian Redmond) have for some time been engaged in defining competencies for online instructors with some specificity. We have interviewed Larry Ragan and Brian Redmond, who guided the panel of researchers for the […]

Tailoring the RCM Model to What Works For You

by Linda Kroll, Casey Hudson

In an era of public scrutiny and requests for increased financial accountability, higher-ed leaders are looking for ways to show the public that they are addressing the issue of rising college costs. Many have turned to responsibility-centered management (RCM) as a way to reduce costs and encourage financial responsibility within individual academic departments. While many institutional leaders see RCM as a way of decentralizing financial decision-making, allowing vice presidents and deans to take responsibility for their own budgets, they may not realize that certain principles of this financial structure can be tailored to fit the distinct culture of their campus, even without wholesale adoption of an RCM model. The University of Notre Dame recognized how they could adopt some principles from RCM to meet their institutional needs and goals. Here is what they did, and what you can learn from it. Adopting Elements of RCM – Not the Whole Model Linda Kroll, associate vice president for finance at the University of Notre Dame, states that when their institution looked at some of the fundamental elements of the RCM model, university leaders liked that the model allowed for: Distribution of responsibility to unit leaders Creation of a culture that rewards lowering […]

Help Your Faculty Manage Online Workload

We turned to Larry Ragan and Susan Ko for tips on how department chairs and faculty developers can help faculty manage online workload. We hope you will also invite your faculty to review our recorded webcast, Managing Online Course Workload. Because online and blended courses require more preparation than most traditional courses, faculty often find that they are committing significantly more time than they would for a face-to-face class. In the absence of specific guidance from department chairs or faculty developers on how to effectively structure an online course or how to manage their growing workload, faculty–especially faculty new to online learning–are in jeopardy of over-committing their time. For practical tips on how to assist faculty with online course workload, we turned to experts Larry Ragan, director of the Center for Online Innovations in Learning (COIL) at Penn State University, and Susan Ko, the faculty development director for CUNY School of Professional Studies. Managing and Setting Expectations In the absence of a set period of scheduled classroom time, it is critical to discuss with faculty the need to define structured, set time periods for their online communication and instructional work. Otherwise, faculty may underperform — or over-perform. “If we don’t help […]

Is Crowdfunding Right for You?

by Erin Swietlik and Gwen Doyle (Academic Impressions) In our introduction to crowdfunding published this past fall (“Higher-Ed Crowdfunding: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?“), we outlined what crowdfunding is and what distinguishes it from other fundraising and donor acquisition tools that are gaining popularity across higher-ed fundraising shops. In this article, we will examine: The pros and cons of employing a crowdfunding model to attract new donors and increase annual fund giving. How to account for the dollars raised via a crowdfunding initiative. How to measure the success of a crowdfunding initiative. As crowdfunding continues to be a key buzzword across college campuses, institutions are leveraging crowdfunding platforms to fund a variety of initiatives, including: faculty or student research (including efforts at the University of Virginia and the University of Utah), student organizations and projects (see Cornell University), and other assorted institutional initiatives (such as the University of California system’s “Promise for Education” campaign). In our research into crowdfunding initiatives, we interviewed a variety of advancement and alumni relations professionals in higher education and providers of crowdfunding tools; these experts had differing perspectives, and here are some of the insights they provided. To help you decide if […]

Practical Strategies for Partnering with Faculty in Student Recruitment

by W. Kent Barnds

W. Kent Barnds offers seven strategies for involving faculty in student recruitment in ways that are meaningful and effective. Here’s how to do it right. Admissions teams often ask: “How do we effectively involve faculty members in student recruitment?” This question has even more urgency now, given enrollment pressures throughout higher education. It only makes sense to look to the faculty; they remain the most credible messengers on a college campus. A LOOK AT THE DATAIn fact, in Academic Impressions’ 2013 survey on enrollment declines, 47% of the 190 institutions participating in the survey missed their enrollment targets last year–many by a significant percentage. Years ago I heard Robin Mamlet, who at the time was the dean of admissions at Stanford University, remind a room full of admissions officers that “we work for the faculty.” I’ve been guided by this idea and recognize admissions officers are an extension of the faculty, rather than vice versa. Involving faculty in recruitment activities should be guided by this premise. Admittedly, I don’t always get things right. But, based on more than 20 years of experimenting and listening, I’d like to suggest: 7 Keys to Encouraging Meaningful Involvement 1. Provide guidance, not direction.I once […]

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