Conference Day One : Wednesday, 31 May 2017

The higher education sector is having to adapt and transform with keep up with student demands, not just in curriculum, but the way it is delivered with digital and technology taking strong hold. With more competition within the sector, tertiary institutions are having to become a lot more ‘customer-centric’ and design their service around the student experience. That stretches from teaching and learning, to student support services. But how do you go about such a mammoth task and transformation?

• What difference is learning analytics making in being able to design a better student experience?
• Taking an holistic approach to the student lifecycle
• What needs to be done on a governance level to enable student-centric services
• What needs to happen from a student support services perspective to support the transformation in teaching and learning
• Where is the future of education headed and what can we expect from future student demands?

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The increasing level of student diversity, the increasing costs of delivering HE, the reduction in government/ state funding and resource constraints means delivering an excellent quality student experience has never been more challenging. The HE market has become increasingly competitive and students have become more demanding and better informed about what support services they expect to receive whilst studying at university. As a result, institutions need to provide an excellent quality student experience to increase attraction and retention. This panel discussion will bring together support service experts as well as

• Understanding student expectations, needs and requirements in order to establish effective support services
• Personalizing learning and teaching experience as well as student services
• How can you create a true end-to-end solution, that has the ability to be scaled across the institute, and has the required balance for increased engagement, satisfaction and student centric service delivery

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Emerging trends require universities to adapt quickly in an environment that demands a steady flow of unique educational offerings. With continued downward pressure from government funding and increased international competition most institutes are moving towards a customer centric model of support services. This session will look at international trends in comparison to Australia and provide a holistic overview of the direction of student services.

• Transition of student services models within Australian institutes
• Streamlining experiences through dismantling silos and providing consistent support
• Flexible customer service model with separation between information and advise

Michelle Gillespie has been re-imagining the best way to serve students, which involved redesigning the student administration function at Swinburne keeping the student at the center. The transformation brought all student enquiries through a single channel, rather than via faculties, giving students consistent and accurate advice at one convenient place. In this session Michelle will look in to her journey during the past twelve months.

• Differentiate the responsibilities and activities between what is to be managed at the centre and at the faculties
• Increased efficiency and effectiveness in its delivery of administrative support to students
• Improving overall student experience

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Digital natives are demanding more timely access anywhere and at anytime. University student services models at times are not equipped to handle these requirements. Institutes are facing similar challenges of budget limitation, increased demand and process constraints and from an operational standpoint its not always clear which direction to take. This session looks at how La Trobe has been transition their student management function to the cloud in order to move beyond a traditional services model to one that is equipped to handle the customers of the 21st century.

• Improving customer service through multi – faceted solutions delivered through various channels
• Providing a consistent experience for students while responding to unique and personalised needs
• Enable access to information at a faster pace, during more hours of the day

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Student experience is defined as the totality of a student’s interaction with the interaction. With various student touch points, universities are looking at transforming the service delivery of these services in order to enhance the total student experience. Career development is fast becoming a crucial service being demanded by students. In this session Glen will look at how predictive data and effective allocation of resource is being used to transform career development support at Swinburne.

• Importance of becoming student centric in the delivery of support services
• Benefits of becoming aware of captured data, and using that data as a guideline for connecting support
• Optimizing resource allocation for improved return on investment and for providing students with the services they need

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Significant forces of change are reshaping the higher education sector in New Zealand, and The Ara Institute of Canterbury is no exception. With the recent merger of the regional and metropolitan campuses, there has been need to broaden the model of student services as initially identified. In this session John will discuss how they have taken a step back and assessed and evaluated the current model and made improvements so it can be used across a wider system.

• Use of technology to support students – connecting students with specialists at the required time
• Application of the Cornerstone model with varying levels of support, optimal utilization of resources
• Physical and technical infrastructure needed for deploying this model across the organization
• Continuous enhancements to the model including a strong focus on the end of the learner journey support

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This panel discussion will bring together students services experts and technology experts to discuss what a optimal technology platform will look like in order to provide high quality student services. Most universities adhere to a legacy system where even incremental changes are difficult. This session will allow participants to discuss how change can be brought and what needs to change.

• Integrating customer relationship management and student enquiry management system
• The use of learning analytics and robotic process automation
• Additional student self service functionality such as the provision of integrated online applications

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Prior to the convergence and streamlining of an organisation’s functions, most universities will need to distinguish between its core, management and support services. This session will explore the opportunity of sharing knowledge between functions and departments in order to create improvements in the processes and customer solutions.

• Leveraging existing resources and techniques to reduce cost
• Creating centres of excellence for various services
• Improving scalability to improve operating costs