Modern Communications
Communications Routing
Do your students prefer a different method of communication than your faculty? Many students use texting and Facebook; faculty often choose e-mail. This can create problems for student engagement. Communications Routing bypasses these barriers by acting as a technology translator. Now, conversations can occur between an advisor using e-mail and a student texting from their phone! Or, an advisor can send out a group text, and if students are in the mood to talk, they can simply press call. GradesFirst automatically receives the phone call, routes it to your desk, and the conversation continues.
Conversation Capture
Keeping track of all your student interactions can be overwhelming. That’s why we built Conversation Capture. It creates automatic documentation of student support interactions. Once documented, you can share access to these interactions across your advising unit, or interdepartmentally. Advisors, professors, and coaches can see each other’s notes and communications with students. This decreases support time per student, and it provides protection in the area of athletics compliance. Message visibility also enables continuity of services between faculty members, and it reduces communication redundancy to students.
Targeted Communications
Students already receive plenty of communications about things that don’t relate to them. Rather than bombard students with mass messaging, GradesFirst enables precisely targeted communications to specific groups of students. Need to contact all your Football Linebackers? Freshmen in English 101, Section 3? Juniors with a GPA less than 2.5? You can do it in a matter of seconds with GradesFirst.
Text Messaging
The average young adult exchanges 1,630 texts each month.[1] In addition, monthly telephone minutes have fallen 25% since 2008.[1] Since texts are often received and responded to quicker than e-mail, texting is a powerful tool for student engagement. GradesFirst allows advisors, coaches, and professors to reach out to students with easy-to-use features, like group texting and e-mail to text translation.
Every day, the average college student spends 1 hour and 41 minutes on Facebook, checking it 5 distinct times.[2] And it’s not just some students. 90% of all college students are now part of this social media community.[3] Imagine if you could utilize Facebook as a positive platform for student engagement? With GradesFirst, this is finally possible. Our Facebook app lets students schedule advising appointments, request tutors, and check how many required study hall hours they have left each week. It even allows students to interact with faculty who don’t have a Facebook account of their own! All this while providing air-tight security, FERPA compliance, and keeping private data encrypted on our servers.
Although it is the official means of communication for most universities, e-mail is often underutilized and underpowered. GradesFirst is a intuitive e-mail platform with useful features for university faculty. Advanced recipient search, automated student status notifications, and precise group mailings empower users to utilize e-mail like never before.
Protect Your Personal Information
Sometimes faculty want the flexibility of receiving communications on their cell phone, but are concerned about the privacy of giving out their personal contact info. GradesFirst protects faculty’s contact info while allowing them to be reached when and where they so desire. School faculty can obtain their own GradesFirst telephone numbers, and route calls to their cell or office phone. This allows users to give out their GradesFirst number and rest knowing their personal information is secure.
- [1]Nielsen. (2010). U.S. Teen Mobile Report: Calling Yesterday, Texting Today, Using Apps Tomorrow. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-teen-mobile-report-calling-yesterday-texting-today-using-apps-tomorrow/
- [2]Junco, R. (2011). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.004
- [3]Smith, S. D., & Caruso, J. B. (2010). EDUCAUSE study of undergraduate students and information technology. (Research Study, Vol. 6). Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research.
