Posts Tagged ‘Education’

Noah Education Announces Unaudited Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2010 Financial Results

Noah Education Announces Unaudited Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2010 Financial Results
SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 30 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ — Noah Education Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NED) (“Noah” or “the Company”), a leading provider of supplemental education products and services in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year ended June 30, 2010. Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2010 Financial Highlights — Net revenue for the quarter …

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EDUCATION UPDATE

EDUCATION UPDATE
July 27: PTO meeting in the cafeteria. Aug. 4: Parent/student orientation for kindergarten and first-grade 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in the cafeteria. Aug. 5: Aug. 4: Parent/student orientation for second- and third-grade 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in the cafeteria.

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Six steps to help students jump start their education at CAC

Six steps to help students jump start their education at CAC
PINAL COUNTY – Registration for the 2010 fall semester is now underway at all 10 of Central Arizona College’s campuses and centers located throughout Pinal County.

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THE ROLE OF STUDY CENTERS IN THE DISTANCE EDUCATION SYSTEM

THE ROLE OF STUDY CENTERS IN THE DISTANCE EDUCATION SYSTEM.

(1)   INTRUDUCTION -:

It is a waste of time to compare Distance Education System (DES) with the Convention Education System (CES). It is proved fact that DES is cost effective than that of CES. It can cater to millions of learners irrespective of places of residence. It allows them to learn at their own place and pace. The lessons are written in the self-instructional mode. Audio-Video medias are used to establish the rapport between the learner and the teacher. Yet the feeling of isolation remains intense. Therefore human support is given establishing Study Centers at the root level of the distance education system. Every Open University in India has established its three-tire infrastructure as (1) Headquarter (2) Regional Centers, and (3) Study Centers. Study Center Management is one of the sections at the Headquarter to control, guide and monitor the Study Centers of the University.

(2)    FUNCTIONAL FLOW CHART -:

Functional flow chart attached herewith as appendix -1 will throw the light on this point.

(3)   ROLE OF THE STUDY CENTERS -:

These Study centers play following vital roles in meeting the academic needs of the learner and administration needs of the University.

(1)      It is an agent between University and Learners.

(2)      It manages local resources for some Lectures.

(3)      It communicates University plans and procedures to society.

(4)      It motivates the learners for better and effective learning especially in contact  cum counselling sessions.

(5)      It also provides Reference Library to the learners.

(6)      It provides, if needed, Laboratory practices to the learner.

(7)      Audio – Visual facilities are specially provided as an aid to the counselling as well as for self-learning.

(8)      It arranges seminars and workshops.

(9)      It registers the students and delivers the study materials.

(10)  It arranges the assessment of Home Test, Class Test and conducts the end examination.

(4)   STAFFING RELATED FUNCTION -:

Staffing related functions at the Study Centers is attached herewith as appendix -2.

The functions given here are the expected functions to be carried out by the Study Centers and the Staff working there. No Open Universities, in India, provided permanent staff at the root level i.e. at Study Centres. This system is based on dependent model. The staff working there is only nominally trained. There is no control over the staff working at study centers. Therefore, the purpose of establishing Study Centers in distance education set up doesn’t fulfil completely.

(5)   RESEARCHES -:

Many researches in this field also brought our notice towards these types of problems.

(1)   G. Laxma Reddy and Banothlal (1996) ‘Assessment of delivery system of an Open University profession courses’, in ‘Dynamics of Distance Education’, brought forth the findings pertaining to the contact cum Counselling sessions are given below.

i)                   60% of the students were not satisfied with the quality of the classes.

ii)                75% of the students complained about frequent disturbances in the schedule of the classes and the rest gave the personal problems as reasons for not attending the classes.

iii)              80% of the students indicated that the number of classes are not sufficient to complete the course and suggested that they may be increased.

(2)   Reddy V.R. (1994) ‘Learner attitudes and suggestions in distance education’, in Distance Education : An interface, Hydrabad : BRAOU brought forth the findings as below.

82 out of 92 stated that contact classes were very much useful to them. Majority of learners felt that all was not well with the contact classes. They suggested that the number of contact classes should be increased. The duration of the contact classes should be reduced from 2 hours to 1 hour.

(3)   Rather H.C.S. (1991) A Critical Evaluation of the System Adopted for Management of Teaching and Learning in the Existing Correspondence Institutes on India. Project Report Submitted to National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi brought forth the findings as below.

Not more than 50 percent students were not satisfied with the functioning and facilities extended at the study centers.

The distance learners with permission of College Principals can use the existing Library Services in the University/College. But most of the time the contact programs are held on Sundays when it is holiday to the College library.

These researches draw our attention towards the functioning of the study centers especially towards the contact classes that is considered the main function of the study center. It is true that many students complain against the functioning of the study centers, the behaviour of the staff working there, their availability and sincerity, and so on.

Therefore, it is necessary to conduct the research on this issue.

(6)   CAUSES THAT AFFECT THE STUDY CENTERS.

Let us think at the root of these complaints where we find the probable causes that effect the functioning of Study Centers.

i)      The Head of the Institution/ College feel that they will be given regular grant like the conventional Colleges for carrying out this activity. And when they come to know that there is no grant for this purpose they don’t provide their attention towards running these Study Centers as per the norms laid down for the purpose.

ii)    Not enough training is given to the teachers to be a counsellor. They use lecture methods in the classes instead of counselling.

iii) Teachers do this activity as an addition to their daily work and demand an attractive remuneration as they work on holidays.

iv)   The Heads of the Institution/College feel that Study Centers at colleges will lower the strength of their regular students.

v)     The Head of the Institutions/Colleges need one innovative activity carried out through their colleges. Therefore they open the Study Centers at their Colleges, and compel the staff to work there. The staff, perhaps, be working unwillingly.

vi)   There would be a clash between the regular work of the staff and the work of the Study Centers. In that case Management offers no co-operation to the staff working at the Study Centers.

vii)The queries of non-academic nature are more than that of academic nature. The Study Centers have not received proper information to fulfil them.

There may be a lot of other causes where the research is required to find out them accurately. Up till now distance educationalists have given much stress on developing the system of distance education. It requires today raise the quality in every part of the system.

(7)   REMEDIES -:

Once the causes are identified properly, one should try to find out the remedies. Following are some of the remedies suggested to solve these types of problems.

(i)              Clear-cut understanding should be given to the Heads of the Institution that the University should not give them any grant.

(ii)            Various types of training are necessary to be given to the different level of staff working at the study center. It should be provided to them regularly after one-year interval.

(iii)         Program wise costing should be made and without raising the fees of the students remuneration to the counsellors should be fixed. It is better to convey the Counselors that it is an extra activity, which will enrich the bio-data and fulfil the social obligations. Everything is not counted in money. One gets the mental satisfaction working in distance education set up. It may not be acquired with the attractive salary in the convention system of education.

(iv)           The learners at the study centers are differ from that of Convention education. It will not affect the strength of the regular students. Therefore, this misunderstanding should be cleared.

(v)             While allotting a study center, meeting should be held with the staff at the colleges and their opinion should be sought. When the staff is taken into confidence, they will work willingly.

(vi)           It is but natural that the Regular/college work of the staff should not suffer. Activity chart should take care of this.

(vii)        The University must provide necessary information to the study centers in time pertaining to the registration, delivery of books, examinations and so on.

(viii)      If possible, one part time assistant, skilled in operating the computer, may be appointed on every Study Center He will work there for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening; and for whole day on Sundays and on holidays.

(ix)          Every study center should be so equipped that it needs to work as a ‘Resources Center’. Now a days every center needs a computer with necessary software and the internet. It will work as information receiver, information storage and information display/ distribution. Even if the learner may not have time to visualize the telecast of his interest or attend a counselling session of some course due to engagements elsewhere, the center has to manage the recording of that telecast and to make available it to the learner at his study center, at a time of his own choice and convenience.

(x)             Various cultural programs should be organized at the Study Cetners like gathering, sports, welcoming ceremonies to the newer and farewell ceremony to the out goers etc.

(8)   CONCLUSION -

Study Centers are the backbone of the distance education set-up. Unless and until they are functioning independently, it remains challenge to the staff to make the centers work properly.

REFERENCE -

(1) Pawar K. B., Panda Santosh, and Bhalla Veena (2000) Performance Indicators in Distance Higher Education Aravali Books International (P) Ltd, New Delhi 110020.

(2) Panda S. K., Satyanarayan P, and Sharma R.C. (1996) Open and Distance Education Research, Analysis and Annotation Indian Distance Education Association, ISBN 81 – 900611-0-0.

(3) Shanmugum M and Murli Manohar K (Nov.1996) Dynamics of Distance Education, Idea, ISBN 81-900611-5-1.

(4) Gandhe S.K., Datt Ruddar and Mitra Sushmita (1996) Open Learning Systems in India, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi.

(5) Koul B.N., Singh Bakhshish and Ansari N.M. (1988) -: Studies in Distance Education, Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi.

APPENDIX – 1.

STAFFING RELATED FUNCTIONS OF A STUDY CENTRE.

(Selection and duties of Study Centre Personnel)

Study centres of the Open University will be established in colleges or institutions with the approval of the respective managements. The authority and responsibility for managing and running the study center shall vest with the Principal of the college or the head of the institution. The functionaries of the study center are as given under -:

1. Head of the study center.

2. Coordinator of the study center.

3. Teacher -counselors, and

4. Administrative staff.

1} Head of the Study Center -:

Principal of the College or the Head of the Institution where study center has been established shall be the Head of study center. The main functions of the Head of the study center are as given under.

i)     To establish the Advisory Committee of the study center and to convene the meeting of the Advisory Committee, at least once in every six months.

ii)   To advise and direct the study center Co-ordinator for the smooth functioning of the study center.

iii) To see whether the functioning of the study center is as per directions and regulations of the University.

iv) To keep a liaison with local educational institutions and to consult local educationists for smooth functioning of the academic programmes of the study center.

v)   To appoint the academic and non-academic staff and to make the necessary changes, as and when required, and to get appointments or changes there in approved by the University authorities.

vi) To supervise the administrative functioning of the study center.

vii)              To supervise the finances and to maintain the financial discipline of the study center.

viii)            To under take any work relating to the study center and assigned by the University.

2) Co-ordinator of the Study Center.

The head of the study center shall appoint coordinator of the study center. He is the key person of the study center looking after the day-to-day activities of the study center. He has to consult the Head of the study center for major decisions.

In fact, he has to play five different roles at the study center. They are of a Manager, Supervisor, Organizer, Coordinator and if possible, of a teacher counselor. The main functions of the coordinator are given as under.

i)       To conduct the administration of the study center in consultation with the Head of the study center.

ii)     To appoint the teacher-counselors for engaging contact sessions in consultation with the Head of the study center.

iii)   To plan the timetable of the contact-sessions and to see whether the contact-sessions are being engaged by the teacher-counselors as per timetable.

iv)  To maintain and get repaired the equipments of the study center from time to time so that they are in order.

v)    To protect the property of the study center, if any.

vi)  To supervise the disbursement of the study -tests to the students and to maintain their record.

vii)To make the audio-video tapers available to teacher-counselors and students.

viii)           To maintain the attendance record of the students.

ix)  To assist the University for planning the conduct of class-tests and end examinations.

x)    To maintain the records of class-tests, home-tests and the end examinations.

xi)  To keep a constant contact with the University and to obtain information about plans of the University.

xii)To attend the workshops, seminars or meetings organized by the University.

xiii)           To inform the teacher-counselors and the students about the plans and developments of the University.

3) Teacher-counselors at the Study Center -:

Coordinator of the study center shall appoint the teacher-counselors for different courses in consultation with the Head of the study center.

University shall obtain the bio-data of the prospective teacher-counselors from the study center. For each course the study center will suggest two-three names of teachers who would work as teacher counselors. Head of the study center and the co-ordinator shall submit these forms to the members of the selection committee to be appointed by the Vic-Chancellor. This committee will scrutinize the bio-data of prospective counselors for each course and shall accord approval to a counselor or counselors for a given course. University will issue an appointment order to such approved counselors in due course of time.

The University will decide qualifications of the teacher-counselors after considering the norms lay down by U.G.C. and such other apex bodies.

Functions of the teacher-counselors.

Main functions of the teacher-counselors are given as under:

i)                  To organize contact-sessions by adopting methods like discussion, question-answers, use of audio or videotapes, etc.

ii)                To assist the coordinator for the conduct of class-tests.

iii)             To correct the answer-books of class-tests and home-tests.

iv)               To fill in the evaluation sheets for the performance of class tests and home tests and to handover them to the coordinator of the study center in a given time.

v)                 To inform the students about open education, distance education and latest developments in it.

vi)               To solve the academic problems of the students and to advise them to refer useful books and references.

vii)            To help the students for developing study skills.

viii)          To submit the plan of contact sessions to the coordinator and to execute it.

ix)              To study the study-texts and the audio-video tapes concerning them and plan for a given contact session.

x)                 To maintain the record of attendance of students in contact sessions and Handover it to the coordinator.

xi)              To record the reactions of students about the learning material and the academic programmes of the University.

xii)            To assist the study center coordinator as and when required.

5) Administrative Staff -:

Administrative staff in a given study center consists of part time clerks, part time peons and a sweeper. The functions of the clerks working in the study center are given as under -:

i)                  To maintain the office and the filing system of the study center.

ii)                To bring the contents of the mail to the notice of the co-ordinator.

iii)             To maintain the records of demand drafts, postal orders and cheques and deposit them in the bank.

iv)               To notify the circulars received from the University.

v)                 To assist the Coordinator in maintaining different, records of the study center.

To assist the Coordinator for the smooth conduct of the class tests and end examinations.

Functions of the peon -:

Functions of the peon are given as under -:

i)                  To collect the mail from the postman.

ii)                To assist the clerk in storing and disbursing the study-texts.

iii)             To make the audio-video tapes available to the students.

iv)               To assist the clerk in maintaining the office.

v)                 To work on errand as directed by the Coordinator or the Clerk.

vi)               To assist the Coordinator for the smooth conduct of class tests and end examinations.

vii)            To perform any official work assigned by the Coordinator or the clerk.

Education Snapshots

Education Snapshots
Katie Hursh completed her master’s degree in counseling at Idaho State University, graduating May 8 with honors. Hursh passed the National Counselors’ Exam. She has received the title of National Cer

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Education briefs

Education briefs
CHESTERTON !Summer program: Duneland Montessori Academy, 109 W. Porter Ave., offers weekly activity classes for ages 4 to 8 during summer. Classes meet from 10 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday. The cost is $60 per week. “Tour de France,” combining learning about cycling with the exploration of France, runs July 19-23; “Art Alive,” which encourages creative painting like the masters in history …

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CRM in Education

CRM in Education

K.Krishnakumar*                                                                            Dr.A.Jayakumar**

 * Lecturer in Commerce, Periyar University, Salem – 11

** Reader in Commerce, Periyar University, Salem – 11

CRM should be considered as an enterprise strategy aimed at maximizing the degree of satisfaction customers have with the provided service. This strategy can take shape in an internal and external process and in the selection and deployment of a set of support tools. In recent years, CRM has been successfully adopted in the business environment, mainly in the bank and telecommunication sectors. Moreover, nowadays it is present in practically all business sectors. Recently, it has found a place in education too, becoming an essential tool for those education centers/providers that are working on the Web as virtual or distance universities. Many eLearning tools providers offer, in their systems, specific CRM functionality such as in WebCT or IBM Learning Space, as well as more general solution providers like Oracle, Peoplesoft or Siebel. In most cases, CRM concepts and techniques have been directly translated to education considering it as a business but without taking care of the specific pedagogical requirements. In this scenario, it is common to find universities where ensuring individual responsiveness to the students becomes a priority, where universities have their own Call Centers or even where all their communication channels are integrated in a Data Centre or where advanced data-processing techniques are applied for identifying and classifying groups within the student population.

CRM in an Education Centre/Institution

The application of CRM methods and techniques in an education centre requires wide changes in both the organization’s internal and external processes and even in its strategy. To ensure the success of the change management from the traditional model to a new one directed by CRM, the following conditions have to be fulfilled:

1. The education centre, within its short and mid-term strategy, has to be able to define concrete and measurable objectives that should be expressed by indicators. Improving or maximizing students’ satisfaction with the education they receive has to always be the final aim. However, it is required to extrapolate this general objective from a set of more concrete indicators that commonly will be controlled through a Balanced Scorecard (BSC).

2. The organization has to be able to clearly define all its internal and external processes, creating adequate mechanisms for ensuring their correct operation. Process integration is here a key issue, as well as the integration of the information systems that support them. In large education centers it is common that administration and management processes are completely isolated from the learning processes that are controlled by the teaching staff. In this way, the marketing department is in charge of enrolment, the management department deals with registration while several departments and teaching staff define the learning methodology and manage the courses, rarely with strong relationships between these various groups. This situation can cause the loss of important information, limiting management’s awareness of the real state of the organization.

3. The education centre should be able to offer a unique access point to its students in which all communication channels will be centralized. This Student Services Centre has to completely be integrated with the management and learning processes and has to be able to attend to the different communication channels that new technologies provide. These include those related with the management of the centre and the course (Corporate Portals, secretary, Virtual Campus, eLearning systems, FAQs, etc.), email, telephone and fax, SMS, MMS, mobile devices (especially 3G mobiles -UMTS- and Personal Data Assistants -PDA-) without discarding new media such as the Digital Terrestrial Television (TDT), videoconference or, going further, virtual immersion. Fortunately, the integration of all networks under the IP protocol will facilitate the creation of these centralized communication channels management systems. Currently, it is just possible to use IP telephony (VoIP) and connect it with the telephone network, SIP protocol, or even to use videoconference systems over IP under the H.323 protocol.

4. The education centre has to be able to gain a deep knowledge about its students using available information, even if it is incomplete or partial. This information will be included in a global Knowledge Management System (KMS), essential when we are talking about education. The final aim is to use it for offering students the best individual treatment possible. This is especially important when we consider distance education where direct contact with students is not always possible or, at least, not frequent. To get this knowledge about alumna, it is necessary to capture all information generated in the internal and external processes (administrative data, learning process activity, performance, use of communication channels, etc.) and process it to construct student profiles including behaviour, in the organization. Again, new technologies from the Artificial Intelligence and data-mining fields, potentially provides such tools.

5. Finally, the education centre, within a general process of change management, has to offer to the teaching and support staff continuing professional development in such tools and their application. In summary, the ability of educational institutions to fix mid and long term strategy; establish specific objectives whose progress should be monitored using identified and agreed indicators; the definition of internal processes and their integration in a common model; the integration of information systems; the exploitation of all available information; integrated management of communication channels; the ability for creating student profiles, are just some of the key competencies that must be acquired to successfully exploit a CRM model in its organization.

Why Implement a Higher Education CRM Business Strategy?

Higher education is in much the same position with CRM as it was in with ERP—just far enough behind the commercial sector to gain from the lessons learned and the maturation of the technology. Departments and offices work as separate entities in many colleges and universities today. Faced with divisional boundaries, it is often very difficult for these different institutional functions to focus on their customers in a coordinated fashion. By providing a common platform for customer communication and interaction, CRM solutions aim to eliminate the organizational stovepipes that hamper proactive customer interaction. CRM applications are also designed to increase the effectiveness of staff members who interact with customers or prospects. The use of CRM applications can lead to improved customer responsiveness and a more comprehensive view of the entire “cradle-to-grave” customer life cycle. CRM solutions that tie directly into ERP systems are particularly powerful because institutions can take customers through a closed-looped set of well defined steps and processes to satisfy their needs. Whereas CRM applications provide the framework for embodying, promoting, and executing best practices in customer-facing activities, ERP provides the backbone, resources, and operational applications to make organizations more efficient in achieving these goals. Most exciting of all is CRM’s ability to promote and enable e-business, which is the seamless, Web-based collaboration between an institution and its customers, suppliers, and partners. CRM applications track and manage interactions and transactions with various customers across multiple channels, including the Web. For institutions with a high degree of personal interaction, such as admissions recruiters or development officers, CRM can extend these channels to the Web by providing a framework for managing the interactions and transactions. CRM can also enable purchase of products or services on-line, and provide Web-based services and support, all personalized for the individual customer.

  Business Issues Affecting Higher Education Institutions

By understanding the critical business needs of higher education institutions, Saber Consulting has created solutions to streamline operations and reduce costs by leveraging existing applications and technology to achieve rapid, quality results in the following areas:

à        Growing competition for student enrollment

à        Knowing your customers and their needs

à        Reducing manual tasks and redundancy by improving workflow

à        Integrating legacy and disparate technology systems

Solutions

CRM
Higher education’s customers consist of students, staff, faculty, alumni and the surrounding community. Dramatically improving data collection and data mining to not only see what customers are doing and buying currently, but to be able to understand their needs prior to and after enrollment, enable an institution to offer customized customer centered interactions and services at a lower cost. Through data integration and custom queries and reporting, Saber provides a ‘single view’ of customers across the organization, resulting in the ability to project future campus community needs.

Self-Service
Self-service reduces the demand on administrative staff performing redundant or manual tasks, and increases accuracy, efficiency and access to information. This is accomplished by providing customers 24/7 access to services. Going beyond a ‘static’ web site, with limited interactive functions, Saber providing customers with single sign-on, real time access to student information, faculty information, financial functions, human resource functions, online advising, e-procurement, residential and cafeteria systems, just to name a few. The possibilities are extensive.

Legacy System Integration
Integration is the primary challenge facing IT departments today. As institutions adopt new technologies, many new systems acquired at the department level do not ‘talk’ to other systems already in place. Coupled with the fact that Legacy systems are typically heavily customized (often without adequate documentation), the result is ‘silos’ of information that cannot be shared across the organization. This leads to work flow redundancy, inefficiency and unnecessary expense.

Business Intelligence

“Evaluate Today, Plan For The Future”. Reacting to the needs of the current term is not enough for the success of an institution. In addition, leveraging information to forecast trends, student demographics, measuring the performance of programs, effectiveness of programs in student placement, tracking grant applications, grant allocation and effectiveness of the grant programs, can determine future success and profit.

An Example of CRM in Higher Education

Emerging CRM processes and technologies will drive the growth of new types of resources and services. The following example highlights the opportunity to implement a CRM business strategy to support the student during the admissions and recruitment process. Marketing and campaign management processes and applications can support both targeted admission recruitment and fundraising. For example, the institution may have an enrollment goal to recruit out-of-state students and minorities and to increase the number of students pursuing health careers. An institution would target specific groups, using data analysis to determine which prospects are most likely to apply and why. A personalized mailing campaign would then be launched using both e-mail and traditional mail. Within each mailing, prospects would be given a personal identification code for access to the university. All prospects not responding by any channel (Web, e-mail, phone, fax, or other) would be sent follow-up e-mails. A prospect receives the e-mail three days before the receipt of the paper letter. The prospect then activates the hyperlink and is linked to the university’s recruitment Web page. The prospect is requested

to enter his or her personal identification code and then is linked to a personalized home page and portal. The Web page is customized, based on interests known from the search data. For example, if the prospect is interested in sports or band, links to the university’s athletic department or music club Web pages are provided. Or if the prospect listed health as an occupational choice, there are links to health departments’ Web pages. Finally, there are standard links provided to all prospective students, such as admissions application procedures and forms, financial aid information, and scholarship search programs. The prospect navigates through the site, completes an electronic inquiry card, and requests information on physical therapy programs and financial aid. The university then monitors the prospect’s responses and initiates follow-up communications, as appropriate.

The Impact of CRM on the Higher Education Enterprise

Emerging CRM processes and technologies will drive the growth of new types of resources and services. Within the higher education enterprise, much of this new functionality will be focused in the student area. This exciting new level of student-related functionality and performance will have an impact on students as well as on the administrative staff and management, the faculty, and the institution as a whole. A look at each of the areas affected follows.

Students

Today’s systems have little to offer students, particularly the new breed of technology-savvy students who want to be more in control of their learning environment. Today’s students demand a higher level of access to information about their options, their performance, and their future. They also demand that technology resources be an integral part of their learning experience. The standard for access to faculty and student services will change as students come to expect virtual access to faculty and student services resources. The old ways of interacting with students will become untenable—like expecting them to line up for hours when instead they can choose an institution that can meet their needs on their own terms, on their schedule, with virtual support systems.

Administrators

A CRM business strategy for a college’s or university’s administrative system would also introduce a true self-service system that empowers the administrative team to rethink the investment of administrative resources in institutional services. By shifting responsibility for information maintenance to students and faculty members, and empowering them to complete relevant processes and securely access vital information, the administrative staff can focus on more productive, rewarding, and satisfying activities—such as making personal connections with students and helping them plan for the future.

Faculty Members

Today’s systems provide little value for faculty members. In many institutions, there is a complete disconnect between student services and instructional programs. This disconnect is often mirrored in the rift between administrative and academic computing. In the new learning environment, faculty and student services are closely linked, dynamically sharing resources and strategies to enable student learning. Envision a time when faculty members can securely access student learning profiles assembled in the admissions process to prepare custom learning options for students who are having difficulty. Imagine a process whereby a faculty member can make immediate student referrals to key support programs on campus—even when working at home. Finally, with a system that is dynamically linked with students, faculty curriculum planners can develop an accurate picture of which technology resources truly make a difference in student learning.

Advancement

Fundraising is increasingly important in higher education. The objective is to “sell” the organization’s mission to donors. Success is measured by how often gift-giving solicitation results in “taking an order.” Solicitation is often done by volunteers who view fundraising as sales. In the CRM approach, individualized techniques are applied to prospective donors whose connections to the institution have been established through some other relationship, such as that of an athletic supporter or music lover. The CRM approach identifies, selects, and generates lists of targeted customers with current information to build constituencies that continue gift giving long after they or their sons or daughters have graduated. These donors consider their gifts to be investments in values that are important to them. Furthermore, other people value these donors’ views, making them articulate advocates of the institution. Using CRM, the entire institution, not just a small group of volunteer telephone solicitors, is involved and organized around fundraising. Using technology to know that a donor’s last contribution was used to purchase football helmets is of great value when soliciting donations the next time. The ultimate goal is to entice donors to contribute in the future without direct solicitation.

The Institution

CRM delivers a new conceptual and structural framework for directing institutional activities to attract and retain its various customers. Following are ways in which all customers of the institution can benefit from increased access to information and services.

à        Students, alumni, faculty members, and staff member scan access and update information from any Web enabled device, anywhere in the world.

à        The evolution from point-to-point integration between applications to a single institution-wide database with integrated business rules and a workflow process library will blur the distinction between student, finance, alumni, and human resource systems.

à        The needs of the customer base become the focus rather than the rigid process structure that is the focus of today’s systems.

à        Administrative systems are seamlessly integrated with instructional computing and communications systems. Most important is the ability of a truly robust set of institutional processes and tools to bring the entire institution together around its people. The work of higher education should be focused on the people it serves, not on its administrative systems.

What Is the Return on Investment (ROI) of a CRM Business Strategy?

The benefits of implementing a CRM business strategy are far reaching. Because CRM activities and technologies are fairly new to higher education, the best benchmarks come from the commercial sector. They include

à        Up to 42 percent increase in revenue

à        Up to 35 percent decrease in cost of sales

à        Up to 80 percent decrease in order errors

à        Up to 25 percent reduction in the length of sales cycle

à        Up to 2 percent increase in margins

à        Up to 20 percent increase in customer satisfaction ratings

          For colleges and universities, these could translate into

à        Increased revenue through improved recruitment and retention

à        Reduced recruitment costs

à        Improved customer service

à        Quicker yield conversions

à        Improved customer satisfaction

Many colleges and universities entered into ERP implementations with the goal of improving customer service. To some degree, service improvements were realized, but not because of improved support of customer interaction. These gains were realized through improved processing speed and better data. The investment in CRM enables an institution to better capitalize on its ERP investment. The CRM business strategy and associated technologies target facilitating the direct customer interaction. These processes and technologies can aid the institution in gaining a total view of its customers and can help implement activities to capitalize on this knowledge. For a college or university to actualize the potential for these processes and technologies, it should first determine its vision for customer service and the relationships it wants to foster, and then it should break the implementation of the vision into small manageable projects. For example, an institution should implement marketing and campaign management first in the admissions office and then expand its use into advancement, human resources, and payroll. Contact center applications may first be implemented in IT and then rolled out to student services, admissions, and other areas.

Conclusion

Faced with widespread economic, technological, and cultural change, academic institutions are looking to enhance the value and effectiveness of their existing customer relationships, while attracting new and loyal customers. As institutions begin embracing ebusiness and e-learning, the driving forces behind CRM will become even stronger. The notion of effective customer information management as a productivity issue is being replaced by the need for effective customer management as a competitive advantage. Tomorrow’s systems will go far beyond productivity-related features (such as Web-based student registration) to the development of customer information as a strategic advantage. The concept of students, alumni, faculty members, and staff members as “customers” will become a competitive imperative with profound impact on how colleges and universities attract, retain, and serve customers of all types.

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