“Are universities of the past still the future?” challenges higher education leaders to consider a scenario where campus-based higher ed never bounces back post-pandemic. As a result, institutions must consider moving past its foundational model of fostering coming-of-age experiences for young adults to a knowledge service whose programs are as fluid as tomorrow’s digital native students.

“The business reinvention that is taking down giants in media, retail and energy is coming for higher education—and it is coming fast,” wrote the report’s authors. “This will threaten the very existence of those universities that cannot adapt to the sector’s new realities.”

The primary drivers of tomorrow’s higher education landscape are demographic shifts due to falling birth rates, geopolitical challenges, changing workplace demands and high student expectations for a quality digital experience. Below are some ways those drivers will manipulate higher education.

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The student of tomorrow is far from today’s

Higher education will have to adapt to a new cohort of students that are older, busier and digitally native. As a result, the way they interact with students will need to dramatically shift.

Soon, no institution will be able to rely on high school graduates for enrollment, as birth rates continue to drop across the U.S. Demographic shifts were a critical factor in the closings this year of Medaille University, Finlandia University, and Iowa Wesleyan.

Additionally, the advent of companies and services opting for a digital model that prioritizes customer convenience and accessibility, coupled with the higher demand for remote online work, will inevitably reach higher education. “In a world of ‘work from anywhere,’ people also want to ‘learn from anywhere,'” wrote the report’s authors.

As industries adapt to a customer-first model, new challenges arise as students inch their way into the driver’s seat. First, colleges must embrace program personalization models that can compete with private sector programs. The report notes that a significant reason private liberal art institutions are failing is that their programs are broad and are not strongly differentiated from others. Secondly, colleges must focus on student engagement through the gamification of online content and leveraging professors’ abilities to inspire and effect critical thinking.

While the report does concede that there may always be a cohort of students who desire the traditional college experience, higher education must leverage what makes student life so unique while cutting out any redundancies, such as providing course content that is subpar to online content.

“We have a whole generation of young people who are more open to online learning and, given a choice, might opt for different formats,” said Soumitra Dutta, a professor at Cornell University. “They might actually want 60% of the class online and maybe 20% in lectures, then maybe 20% through internships or other kinds of experiences.”

Looking ahead

One potential step colleges can take to build around students’ changing preferences is providing them with government-funded “learning wallets” to customize their academic studies.

Take your first steps toward a new future

To help college leaders embark on this intimidating journey, the report poses several questions to help point you in the right direction.

1. Be clear about your long-term purpose. The future is unclear, so it’s important to define internally what purpose or mission your institution serves. Is it to advance the lifelong well-being of education? To solve global challenges?
2. “Think “future-back” to set your reinvention agenda. Ask, “How will my institution be relevant in one or two decades?” Begin to visualize what the landscape of your institution would look like if the sector consolidates or primarily becomes a digital platform.
3. Build new value with new capabilities. Innovate your learning model based on customer demand.

The post Why higher education must be reinvented to suit the new generation of students appeared first on University Business.

It’s good to know that most online students are predominantly working women who rely on schools’ web pages to make their enrollment decisions, according to the Online College Students Report 2023.

Education Dynamics’ report aims to assist colleges and universities in adapting to the changing student landscape by recognizing who online students are to “best attract, serve, and retain online college students today.”

More from UB: ‘Difficult to justify under any circumstances’: Are legacy admissions coming to an end?

Fully digital schooling attracts female full-time students

Not only did 80% of online students report being employed, but more than half reported being employed full-time (59%), while 21% reported working part-time. Nearly three-quarters said they have three or more years of work experience.

Given those figures, the workload online students face may explain the high stop-out rates of undergrads. For example, almost 40% of these students did not complete their last program of study. The best time frame to reenroll stopped-out students is within one year.

Additionally, female students make up a majority of online students—61%, to be precise—at the undergraduate and graduate levels, with only 4% describing themselves as non-conforming and 1% preferring not to answer. Secondly, white and Black students comprise 93% of both the undergraduate and graduate student-level courses.

Your website is your best weapon to win their favor

Students want your school to pop up as soon as they search it online. About 70% of online college students indicated they began their school selection process by visiting the school’s website, and 70% looked it up using a search engine. Throughout the process, almost 90% of undergrad and graduate students visited a school website when considering enrolling at an institution.

However, colleges and institutions can still improve students’ access to school information: Although students were primarily interested in finding out the cost of tuition, only 29% found it very easy to access that information on the website. Less than a quarter of students reported accessing student career outcomes easily.

Competitive SEO practices and a robust website interface may be the modern way to nudge a potential student toward your school’s favor. Still, some classic marketing strategies are proving timeless. For example, the most-influential marketing activity for students in school selection was in-person events, such as campus tours or class audits. However, email strategy is hard to judge. Nearly half of all students reported email as their preferred contact point, yet 11% of respondents found it influential in their enrollment decisions.

The post Online students: Who are they and how can you win more of them? appeared first on University Business.

Yet, many students feel they aren’t given the resources far enough in advance of enrolling in a digital course to be successful, according to a survey by WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) in partnership with the Ohio State University’s Office of Technology and Digital Innovation, the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association, and Bay View Area Analytics.

After interviewing an online focus group of six students at six different community colleges and universities across six states, the researchers found six major concerns associated with what students are asking of their institutions regarding digital courses:

1. Students need to know more about the technology requirements of the course before enrolling.

“Students are especially interested in better understanding the devices and software they will need for the course in addition to the estimated cost of technology,” according to WCET. One student said, “It would really help not set us up for failure… thinking that we’re getting to get this done, and then we don’t realize that we don’t have the means or the capability.”

2. Students want more information about digital courses specified in their institutions’ published course descriptions.

Course descriptions often fail to include what technology is required for the course, professors’ expectations of students surrounding engagement, and additional costs related to devices and software, according to the survey. It’s important that students understand the technologies required for the course and whether their devices are compatible.

“I was able to log into the virtual labs with a Chromebook,” one student said. “However, it was a lot harder than if I were to actually log into my desktop that has more graphics power…”

3. Students want access to course syllabi before enrolling.

Similar to the previous finding, students simply want access to detailed course information and requirements prior to enrolling. This may include information related to whether the course is synchronous or asynchronous, the number of face-to-face sessions for hybrid courses, technology requirements, and whether the course materials are open sources, according to the survey.

4. Students want to know what student services will be available to them.

“These services must include financial aid assistance, tutoring services, technical assistance, and any other orientations related to the digital course,” according to WCET. Providing such information to students on both the institution’s website and the course syllabi can help to ensure students have access to services that are crucial to their success in digital courses.

5. Students want to know the expectations for student engagement in the online environment.

“This might include policies on remote proctoring, expectations around appearing on-screen during synchronous digital sessions, virtual attendance policies, and policies associated with online forums,” according to WCET.

6. Students believe there should be shared expectations for students who take digital courses that are consistent across instructors.

Students who take multiple digital courses say that instructors’ expectations vary “significantly”—for example, some may require synchronous engagement while others expect asynchronous engagement. Students would appreciate uniform expectations across all of their professors.

Takeaways

• Understand that there is a “strong desire” among students to know as much information as possible before they enroll in online courses.
• Provide students with clear expectations regarding technology use and professors’ demands.
• Simply giving students access to syllabi prior to enrolling can make a substantial difference in their academic success.

More from UB: Here are 8 ways to improve experiences for college students and employees

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“It looks and feels like Casper College,” says David Siemens, the school’s director of digital learning. “It brings our campus and our LMS and the way we do things to students’ homes.”

The college worked with Open LMS to create a mobile app that gives students and instructors direct access to the campus’ Moodle learning management system. Because internet connectivity can be a barrier for some students in the vast rural areas of Wyoming, designers added a key feature, says Phil Miller, managing director of Open LMS.

“It allows offline access,” Miller says. “Students can download coursework into the mobile app and do the work when they don’t have connectivity, and sync back up when they’re reconnected.”

A mobile app also appeals to the rapidly growing number of students who prefer doing their work on a mobile device. One reason for this movement is convenience—students want to consume content on their phones.

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Mobile LMS apps also provide flexibility for students who have jobs, families and other responsibilities beyond higher ed. The typical student at Casper College is not the typical 18- or 19-year-old right out of high school. The institution’s adult learners want options to complete their coursework at night and on weekends.

“The ability to complete your education while still living your whole life is something that really matters to the average student at Casper College now,” Miller adds.

Providing convenience and meeting needs are both ways to increase student engagement and create the conditions for self-directed learning. Since the app launched earlier this year, about 50% of Casper’s students have downloaded it and each user is accessing it about 11 times a week.

The high adoption rate can be attributed to its extensive Casper College branding, which allows students to easily locate it in app stores, Miller explains. And for those who want to get technical, Open LMS’ source code is—just like it sounds—open, which lets institutions modify and tailor an app for their own purposes.

The post How a college’s mobile app connects students when they can’t connect appeared first on University Business.

1. Students in 2022 are reporting “substantial improvements” in the overall online learning experience and feel confident they can learn to use new ed-tech tools.
2. Younger students believe they learn less effectively online, which means campus leaders must contend with perceptions of lower quality. Students over 25 years of age say they learn just as effectively online as they do in person.
3. Students feel positive about how colleges and universities will launch online and hybrid programs in the future but are less enthusiastic about taking online courses themselves.

These are the major findings from the 2022 CIN EdTech Student Survey by the College Innovation Network at Western Governors University. Digging deeper into these three big takeaways, the survey found that fewer students reported having problems accessing edtech tools in their courses.

Students are also increasingly expecting their schools to offer academic support, career counseling and even some social activities online. “Institutions have made many improvements in students’ tech-enabled learning experiences since the 2020-21 academic year, but there remain areas for innovation,” the report says.

Online learning evolution

One of the big lessons of the MOOC craze of the early 2010s is that simply pairing digital content with assessments is not a recipe for success for many students, says David Andrews, the chancellor of University of Massachusetts Global (formerly known as Brandman University).

Strong digital content and professors who are adept at delivering it are essential, but institutions also must ensure online and hybrid students have access to academic coaching and other outside-of-class supports as demand for remote instruction grows, Andrews adds.

“Even in face-to-face universities, students are continuing to gravitate toward some combination of online and in-person,” he points out. “If you’re a working adult and have to choose between traveling to a fixed location on a fixed schedule vs. being able to learn on demand, there’s no choice.”

This is placing more pressure on administrators to accommodate remote students’ individual needs. UMass Global, for example, has an advising corps that helps students with time management skills and balancing school assignments with work and family. Because of these interventions, the institution has among the highest retention rates in the online sector even though the average age of its undergraduates is 35 and nearly all of its students are working, Andrews says.

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“Instead of waiting for someone to ask for help, we have proactive indicators that they’ve disengaged and we reach out to get them back on track,” he says. “Our population needs to be encouraged and supported in a much more holistic way.”

Most of UMass Global’s students enroll to learn new job skills, switch careers, or for other workforce-related reasons. That has led the institution to prioritize employee-supported tuition programs, one of the fastest-growing components of adult and online learning. UMass Global works with one of the state’s largest hospital networks to provide master’s and bachelor’s degrees as well as smaller micro-credentials.

“Scheduling is as much in the control of students as it is the faculty members,” Andrews concludes. “Online also allows you to have a talent pool around the country that can match student needs.”

Advancing online learning

The early identification of students who struggle with edtech is one key to improving the online experience, the College Innovation Network survey recommends. About a quarter of the students polled said they struggled to learn to use edtech while more than a third reported having used new technology in the past year.

Colleges and universities can provide training on campus-wide technology such as the learning management system, email and other communications channels. During the first week of a class, faculty should survey students about their skill levels and confidence in using edtech.

Also, college leaders must assure students that virtual courses are designed around learning science standards to build confidence in the value of credentials earned online.

The post 3 ways college students are feeling about online learning in 2022 appeared first on University Business.

During the 2019-2020 school year, 162,633 students studied abroad. That number took a substantial hit the following school year: According to data from a 2022 report from Open Doors, an annual census-taking organization that focuses on international students, a mere 14,549 students had the opportunity to study abroad during the 2020-2021 academic year—a 96% decline in participation since before the pandemic.

In the coming years, experts predict enrollment in study abroad programs will bounce back significantly. According to The Power of International Education’s Spring 2022 Snapshot, 83% of higher education institutions reported an uptick in study abroad numbers for the 2022-2023 school year compared to last year.

“In summer 2021, 43% of institutions noted study abroad cancellations, whereas less than one percent of institutions anticipated that study abroad would be canceled in spring 2023,” the report reads.

During the pandemic, students were forced to take an alternative approach to abroad learning, according to the Open Doors report. In addition to those who were able to study abroad during the 2020-2021 school year, 32,000 participated in online global learning experiences.

“U.S. colleges and universities provided a wide array of online opportunities for students to gain global educational experiences,” the data highlights on their website. “The most popular online experiences included internships and consulting with global companies, courses paired across institutions that work together, collaborative project-based learning, and videoconferencing dialogues.”

Additionally, more than 50% of all higher education institutions reported offering multiple opportunities for online global learning.

“This is an area where we have seen tremendous growth in institutional reporting over the past year,” the data highlights read. “In 2019-20, approximately 250 institutions reported students taking part in online global learning opportunities. In 2020-2021, 427 institutions provided data about students participating in these programs, nearly double the number of institutions that reported data in the prior year.”

More from UB: More colleges are doing away with test requirements for good

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Abrupt shutdowns are far more likely to affect students at for-profit institutions. But wherever they occur, students are far less likely to reenroll or complete a credential when campus leadership has not made plans for them to continue their education at another institution, according to “Investigating the Impacts of College Closures on Student Outcomes,” an analysis released today by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

Less than half (47.1%) of students whose colleges closed reenrolled at a postsecondary institution. “Their school closing effectively closed the doors on those students’ educational journeys,” Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said, adding that more campus closures are likely in the coming years.

Half of 467 institutions were two-year for-profit, private schools in the report’s sample of closures between 2004 and 2000. The next largest batch, 28%, were four-year for-profits. And while the majority closed with teach-out agreements and record retention policies in place, those schools tended to be small—enrolling only an average of 130 students.

The result is that closures were abrupt for more than 100,000 out of 143,000 students impacted in the analysis. This left these students with no chance to transfer or make alternative plans.

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Also, the schools that closed—whether sudden or with advance warning—enrolled larger proportions of students of color, female students and students receiving Pell Grants (compared to institutions that remained open). “This study shows that any college closure is damaging to student success, leaving too many learners—more than half—without a viable path to fulfilling their educational dreams,“ Shapiro said in a statement. “But the extremely poor outcomes for students who experienced abrupt closures are particularly worrisome.”

The impacts of closures on students include:

• Of those who reenrolled, a little more than one-third earned a postsecondary credential. Just more than half left without earning a credential after reenrolling.
• Students who reenrolled within one to four months were the most likely to earn a credential.
• Hispanic and Black students who experienced abrupt closure were far less likely to earn a credential.
• Reenrollment rates were highest among women, white students, and traditional college-age students.
• Students who experienced an abrupt closure had lower reenrollment and completion rates. When the closure was orderly, reenrollment rates were nearly identical across the private four-year sector.

“The particularly poor outcomes are especially harmful for minoritized students of color enrolled in the for-profit sector,” Rob Anderson, president of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, said in a statement. “These results reinforce calls for improving state authorization processes and strengthening the financial monitoring of institutions to prevent, prepare for, and respond to college closures.”

Almost 12,000 campuses closed between 2004 and 2016, according to the Postsecondary Education Participants System.

The post Can students recover when campus closures dim their college prospects? appeared first on University Business.

The theme adopted by the fully online Western Governors University in reaching its silver anniversary this year is “25 Years of Breaking Tradition.” Indeed, WGU has kicked the four-year model to the curb, especially over the past decade.

Students who attend and graduate not only get their bachelor’s degrees in half the time, but they also tend to see greater earnings after six years, incur less debt and are happier, according to several measures done by longtime partner Gallup. Those data combined with its strong academic reputation have led to WGU attracting more students than ever. Currently, 200,000 are enrolled in its career-driven programs, while its alumni have surpassed 300,000. Five years ago, its graduates across two decades totaled less than 100,000.

Embedded in its core philosophy is reaching every one of those students, and notably, not turning any of them away. It is a wholly different approach–adopted too by Purdue Global, ASU Online and Southern New Hampshire–than traditional institutions have been willing to take, especially the elites.

“The ability to think differently really means that you’re putting the individual student at the center of everything that you do in higher education,” WGU President Scott Pulsipher said during the recent announcement of Gallup’s WGU 25^th Anniversary Impact Report. “One of the simple notions is to dispel this idea that somehow selectivity, exclusivity or who you admit is more important than how you expand access to every single human, that you can recognize that even when you have 300,000, and keep adding 50,000 more to that, that all of their lives change. Opportunity expands when you have more people participating in it. No way should we limit those who can actually access these pathways to help them change their lives for the better.”

That message was echoed by Brandon Busteed, the President of Kaplan University Partners, during a panel session recently at WGU with Gallup. He said fully online institutions like WGU are changing perceptions among students and families who are doing searches. Even traditionally younger students are being swayed because of their quick time to degrees and their flexibility. But it’s also because their model is truly inclusive, a one-for-all approach that runs counter to prestige and selectivity.

“These are incredibly student-centric institutions that are employer and market responsive,” Busteed said. “And that’s the opposite of where most R1 and elite universities are, which are primarily faculty centric, and trying to drive with government research. There are other components that are really important. Growth is part of the mission of those institutions. They desire to grow. And they view growth as improving quality, not lowering it. That is the opposite of most elite-minded institutions and residential institutions. They might want to grow on the margin, an extra 50 students here, but it’s not inherently part of their mission. They think about growth as cheapening or lessening quality. And the irony is, you’re seeing the opposite with these other models.”

More from UB: Opinion: The college campus of the future will be hybrid

Transforming higher ed

It isn’t just the onlines that are transforming higher ed. Many institutions, recognizing potential contraction or enrollment declines on the horizon, are shifting how they operate. Some are reorganizing academic structures and departments, such as Kean University in New Jersey and the University of Hawaii. Many are developing shorter pathways to degrees and increasing certificate offerings. Most are continuing to embrace flexible learning modalities. And a few are taking the bold step of lowering tuition.

“I am encouraged by the fact that some of the public institutions are actually finding the innovation that existed within a for-profit sector that was persona non grata in higher ed,” Pulsipher said. “We get all the reasons why. But there’s something about just saying we’ve got to disrupt this centuries-old convention that exists. If we can shift our mindset away from rankings and selectivity and research-only to how are we expanding dramatically our ability to enable individuals, the better off all of us will be.”

The bigger barrier remains cost. Busteed says consumers are being more discerning about putting their money in the right institution.

“The big challenge we have is that the cost of higher education has just continued to spiral out of control,” he said. “It’s a big reason why we have so many sessions about, ‘is it worth it?’ Tuition has gone up 400-plus percent since the early 1980s. That’s double what healthcare has gone up. We need to get to the place where we are working to lower the cost of higher education, not keep it flat, or the 3.5% annual increase. People are incredibly ROI sensitive now. I think we’re looking at an ROI generation, even among traditional-age students and parents of traditional-age students.”

To say WGU and its online colleagues have made an impact on higher education would be an understatement. WGU will admit that it can improve its first-year, full-time student graduation rates (though its huge transfer numbers push completion higher) but it has been a disruptor, especially now in an unsettled economic environment and where many students already have experienced a dose of online learning during the pandemic.

WGU’s impact, by the numbers

$15,000: The difference in value of salaries after six years for students who attend WGU compared with all other bachelor’s degree conferring colleges and universities, thanks to its lean toward fields that are in demand. Master’s degree holders also outpace their rivals by $8,000.

81%: The percentage of students earning bachelor’s degrees from WGU who do so in less than four years. More than one-third of those do it in less than two. It takes the average graduate at WGU 2.4 years to finish. It takes others at traditional institutions 5.4 years.

$11,222: The net cost of attendance at WGU. The average cost at a four-year is $23,000, though many public institutions can be equally as competitive. The average debt of a WGU student is $8,700, compared with $12,000 at others.

42,698: Degrees conferred in 2020 alone at WGU (with more than 24,000 earning bachelor’s degrees).

35: Average age of a student starting at WGU, about 12 years older than the average at a traditional four-year institution

7%: The paltry percentage of students at WGU in the under-25 category from 2003-2019, more than 50% lower than their traditional rivals.

57%: The percentage of WGU’s students who are married. That also surpasses its online rivals by nearly 20%.

47%: The percentage of students at WGU who are first-generation, far surpassing the 35% of first-gen students at other institutions

22%: Where WGU is behind the curve is in the number of students of color. Nationally, the number at other four years is 29%, while at other fully onlines, it is 36%.

The post By the numbers: How different is this fully online university from a traditional one? appeared first on University Business.

Those realities are squarely on the minds of progressive higher ed leaders who see the merits of the new vision in real dollars, especially as the market is set to grow tenfold in the next two years. They have begun forays into the metaverse, even though that’s all they are right now. Achieving the goal is still two giant steps away, according to Sam Gobrail, principal solution architect and customer experience strategist at technology solutions company Pariveda.

Gobrail says colleges and universities are largely in the Virtual Lecture phase, which is exactly as it sounds and became so popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, namely the widespread use of video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and furthering the development of remote and online courses. Getting past the Interactive phase and into Phase 4—the Metaverse phase—will require time and a whole lot of investment from institutions.

“We are primarily in Phase 2, as we took a lot of material and put it online,” he says. “Some places have created better content for online, but it’s still pretty much, ‘Did you see my PowerPoint online? Did you download anything online? Did you fill out the form online?’ The metaverse is aspirational at the moment, especially for higher education. It’s going to take a lot to build it out. And there will be a ridiculous amount of detail and complexity being built out for unclear profitability.”

However, colleges and universities must make the effort, or they risk getting passed by competitors and passed over by students who are looking for more value.

“It’s sink or swim, even if they don’t realize the riptide is here,” he says. “For much of their history, universities have competed locally. They’re not really competing internationally. They’re not really even competing nationally. They’re the No. 2 place in Maryland, or the No. 1 school in Florida. Let’s say virtual becomes really effective. Let’s say Georgia Tech creates the best aerospace engineering degree. It’s fully online. It’s an amazing student experience. And they can scale it, so they cut the cost in half. And now they’re the No. 1 national program in that degree. How will a Florida school compete? What happens when that’s not one degree, but their entire engineering school that is now outcompeted? And now it’s two or three of their schools?”

More from UB: Better than a Zoom class: 10 metaversities to launch this fall

Think it can’t happen? Looks at the inroads that have been made at mostly or fully online institutions such as Southern New Hampshire University or Western Governors University, which have grown exponentially in the past decade. If other state publics or big privates can get to the metaverse more quickly, what will the future be for those stuck in tradition?

“The physical building, the nice lawn, the dorms will be less relevant than, ‘Is it a really great experience? Will this actually help me get a job?’ ” Gobrail says. “[Some institutions] that use AR or VR, they can say they’ve already done that. They’ve gone from 10,000 students to 200,000 students to 300,000 students. I can see this happening in five to 10 years. If you don’t start doing bits and pieces now, it’ll be very hard. Schools are bureaucratic. Some have money, but not all of them have deep pockets. This has to be incremental for many reasons. But the good thing is you can start now. The double-edged sword is, if you don’t make incremental progress—those compounding returns in five years—catching up would be really hard, maybe impossible.”

Inside Pariveda’s four phases

The pandemic accelerated institutions past Digitization, or Phase 1 (the shift away from textbooks and other resources to digital), and into the Virtual Lecture phase, although it was not without its pains or even its stubborn detractors, who continue to push in-person learning even when hybrid might be an option. Students, however, want flexibility. They also want to be far more collaborative.

Meet the Interactive phase, which brings far more personal engagement experiences for students. Driven by artificial intelligence and improved systems, it allows for far more frequent, far more agile and adaptable virtual interactions. Think of it as not just a one-off session or course, but many across many departments that eventually coming seamless and routine. That will take some time, but Gobrail offers a benchmark for moving forward.

“I think it’s treating the online and making it as good, or at minimum, at par with the in-person and then making those things swappable,” he says. “So Step 1 is, how can I make the virtual as good? Forget the super fancy technology. From a student experience, how can I make that swappable, so that you can one day be in school, the next day, you want to drive your car across the country and still attend a class and then come back in class without missing a beat? You can do that instead of waiting three days for a recording to upload, for example.”

In its white paper on the metaverse, Pariveda lists seven areas that colleges need to shore up to get through the Interactive phrase:

• Meshing the virtual with in-person seamlessly
• Getting faculty and other stakeholders on board with the changes
• Ensuring that virtual offerings meet accreditation standards
• Becoming truly personal and customizable for students
• Embracing the idea of gamification and rewards within virtual spaces
• Making it all visually appealing and aligning it with branding and mission
• And perhaps most importantly, seeing that IT, systems and networks can handle all of it

Once all of those items are neatly buttoned, the metaverse will be within reach. And what a world it could be, supreme 3D immersion in almost field one can imagine—both on campus and off. Getting there will require deep commitments to new technology that might even go beyond what current national infrastructures can handle. But it’ll get there, and it is important to dive in now.

“I think even the scrappiest of universities can make progress,” he says. “That’s why I focus so much on the interactive and less on technology. You can get scrappy on Zoom and make it work. Or if you have a billion-dollar endowment, you can build a custom metaverse. I think it’s finding what you want to be good at and investing incrementally there. So, using out-of-the-box tools. If you really want to experiment with technology, proofs of concept can be affordable. A lot of the tech firms will pay for some portion of it. There are grants, there are other ways available to those that have few dollars. But it’s got to be the right step in the right direction that matters to your university.”

The post The metaverse: Are colleges really light years away from reaching it? appeared first on University Business.

Howard is one of the first institutions of higher education in the nation to take the extraordinary step, which hasn’t been installed since students returned from their winter breaks in early January. The university said it will continue in the modality through next Friday and then reevaluate cases counts and transmissibility then.

One of the major reasons for the shift – Howard’s overall positivity rate isn’t off the charts at 5%, though it is rising – is because of safety and because traditional upcoming spring ceremonies are coming soon. Many of those events were canceled or shifted to online formats in 2020 because of the initial surge of coronavirus. Howard doesn’t want a repeat and would like to be able to host its May 5-8 graduation events in person, if possible.

“As we prepare for the end of the semester, we want to make sure that we are all working collaboratively to take effective steps to assure that we can provide a Commencement celebration with friends and families that our graduates would fondly remember,” Anthony Wutoh, Howard’s Provost and Chief Academic Officer, said in a statement. “We will continue to do all we can to provide a safe environment for everyone.”

During its last reporting period, April 2-8, nearly 200 students tested positive for COVID-19 (a 6.5% positivity rate), while 13 faculty and staff members also had positive results (1.87%). One month ago, Howard had just one case overall, showing the potent transmissibility of the new stealth variant. Howard had two other spikes earlier this year, including a surge in early January of 200 students and 300 faculty because of the omicron variant.

While almost all undergraduate courses and final exams will be held virtually, labs, graduate courses, fine arts studies and some professional courses will still be in person, though the university says strong masking and mitigation practices will be in place. Residence halls, meanwhile, will remain open but students are being told they must move out by May 8 when the semester ends.

Howard is maintaining an indoor masking policy through the end of the semester, and that includes any campus gatherings, according to Wutoh. Howard is encouraging student leaders and organizations to hold activities outdoors, if possible.

Cases on the rise

Washington, D.C., has experienced the highest rise in COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks, spiking more than 140%, and many other areas and states are seeing huge increases. Rhode Island’s case counts are up 110%, while New Jersey, Oregon, New York, Maryland and New Hampshire are all above 70%. In all, 29 states are on the wrong side of positive case counts, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Dakota and Ohio, which have less than 60% of their populations receiving primary vaccine doses. The good news for many colleges is that their populations are vaccinated, including Howard which has a 99% rate of compliance (which also includes religious and medical exemptions), though Wutoh is still encouraging the first booster dose. Howard students were required to get those by Jan. 31.

While other colleges and universities are trying to make it through the semester without having to go virtual – Harvard again is seeing huge spikes among graduate students (216 in the past week) – many are having to bring back mask mandates they abandoned just weeks ago, including several other DC-area schools, including American and Georgetown universities. Over the past month, many colleges have opted to remove contact-tracing protocols and reduced testing and stopped reporting data, like the University of North Carolina system. It is unclear whether any would consider reversing course, although several university leaders have expressed a desire to embrace the endemic phase of the disease.

Still, those that are contemplating a return can follow this guidance from the American College Health Association’s COVID-19 Task Force.

“Campus leaders laid the groundwork for a pivot by informing their constituents that, if conditions changed, mitigation strategies including masking would be reinstated,” Anita Barkin, the Task Force’s Co-Chair, said. “The messaging on reinstatement should clearly state the rationale for the pivot back to masking that includes prevalence of illness on campus and in the surrounding community, the importance of keeping the number of cases low in order to continue to provide a robust campus experience, positive statements about the community members’ contribution to the success of strategies in the past and the plan for providing regular updates on the situation to the campus community. ”

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