Online Welcome Platform for First Years

Main idea

Boosting academic and social integration of new students and facilitating the transition to higher education by offering a warm word of welcome, crucial practical information and relevant extra information immediately after enrolment.

Outline

There are many pre-entry initiatives preparing prospective students for higher education and motivating them to enrol at Artevelde University of Applied Sciences (AUAS). However, there was a gap of initiatives between enrolment and start.

To use that initial enthusiasm and to improve the onboarding, we developed an online welcome platform accessible from immediately after enrolment. The platform aimed to combine the crucial information for the start (e.g. documents, programme of first week…), to boost motivation (e.g. by setting a positive tone and providing career information), and to improve social and academic integration.

Detailed description

The Online Welcome Platform for First Years contains a word of welcome to the students, need-to-know information (e.g., where to buy your coursebooks, a timetable…), information about their department and study programme (e.g., introducing staff and lecturers), information on which support and guidance initiatives are available to them, etc.

Main purpose

The main purpose of the Online Welcome Platform for First Years is to boost academic and social integration.

Goals

• Reducing stress and anxiety before the start of the academic year
• Offering crucial information at the right time and in an easy way, and encouraging students to explore these
• Setting a positive tone
• Using time between enrolment and the start of the academic year to develop students

 

Students involvement

Prospective students were asked what information they would need if they were to enrol. Their answers to this question influenced the design of the platform.

Inspiration and evidence

• Sally Kifts’ work on transition pedagogy
• An analysis of the information provided to students at the start, which happened independently of programme, and the programme-specific information

Success criteria

• Students can find all the relevant information on the start in one place which is programme-specific.
• Pages with the same information are managed centrally – implying it only takes one change for all programmes (e.g. on requesting official documents or accessing timetables)
• It’s available 24/7.
• It makes good use of the time between enrolment and the start of the academic year.
• It’s easy to use.

Points of attention

• It’s important to make sure that students who enrol right before classes start don’t miss any important information because they accessed the platform a bit later. You can offer information, but you can’t expect students to be fully informed and prepared just because of the online welcoming platform.
• There are opportunities to already connect students to each other before day 1, and to the work field in order to help with career orientation (e.g. video testimonies of alumni, videos on future jobs…).
• The platform must be checked and updated each year.
• You need to move students away from this as it shouldn’t be a platform to find all information. It focuses on information relevant for the start.

Effectiveness

The effectiveness of the platform was evaluated with students after one week of classes. These students were asked whether they found all the information they needed, and what information was missing.

Do you feel you can effectively provide the support that students require?

We do agree.

Would you recommend this to other institutions?

strongly agree

Evaluation

• The platform was evaluated with prospective students. These students had to search for information to see if it was easy to use. They were also asked what information they would need if they were to enrol. Additionally, AUAS used eye tracking software to analyze what was being looked at most.
• The platform was also evaluated with students after one week of classes. These students were asked whether they found all the information they needed, and what information was missing.
• The platform is evaluated through a questionnaire after the induction week.

Adaptations

• Changes were made to make the layout (e.g., where do students find which information, colours of pages…) more visually appealing and consistent.
• Some information was added to the platform.

Communication

In a mail confirming the enrolment, a student receives one link, the link to the Welcome Platform.

It is prominently featured as a button on the home page of AUAS’ online platform (MijnDinar).

Timing

Even though the online welcome platform for first years is meant to help students at the very start of the academic year, it remains available throughout the whole year.

Resources

• The platform must be re-evaluated and updated each year.
• There are many different roles and stakeholders involved.
• You need a responsible for the Welcome Platform who yearly launches a request to check the information.

Transferability

We think it is quite easily transferable to other contexts or groups.

It’s important to match the content and communication style to the context.

Universal design

The design of the online platform was not based on the principles of universal design.