LONDON, Sept. 17, 2014
/PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that
Brockenhurst College in the New
Forest, is investing in Exceptional Student Experience
("ESE") technology from IBM. The technology which uses a mixture of
the latest cloud, analytics, mobile and social solutions will help
personalize the experience a student gets from the moment they
enroll on a course, all the way through to entering the workforce
and beyond that into lifelong learning. The college is hoping to
achieve a 15% increase in growth and a 15% reduction in students
who are at risk of dropping out over the next five years.
The pressure has never been more intense with schools, colleges
and universities facing tightening budgets and increasing
competition from each other and online schools. Every institution
must work smarter to remain competitive and provide students with
the best learning experience possible.
The key principle behind the new technology is that
everyone learns in different ways. The ESE technology enables
students to learn anytime, anywhere and on any device. This
provides them with a rich set of data and online resources at their
fingertips. The technology can also be used by students to learn,
connect and share views with other students from across the world
to create a truly international learning experience.
The analytics and big data technologies can give teachers and
lecturers invaluable information highlighting students who might be
at risk of not completing their course or working to their full
potential. This could be information on what books students are
checking out of the library or which extracurricular activities
they are involved in. It can also provide information on varying
learning styles to discover if a student favors online learning,
face to face learning or a combination of both to determine a
personalized engagement with the college. This will allow teaching
staff to step in and provide extra support when and where it is
needed to avoid students lagging behind and even dropping out of
their studies.
All of this is made possible by adopting a cloud-first strategy
which will greatly increase the college's agility, enabling
educators and administrators to offer new services to students at
key times, such as revision study, examinations, results day,
clearing or open days at a much faster rate. The college will have
the ability to manage the ever-changing performance demands of
modern digitally connected students throughout the academic year,
versus a delayed strategy based on hindsight.
IBM will deliver the ESE solution via the Softlayer cloud
platform which will align with predictive analytics for student
retention and social collaboration for richer curriculum delivery,
all accessed through a personalized portal. The IBM solution will
allow Brockenhurst College to be interconnected and intelligent
when monitoring its students' academic progress, creating a
holistic overview for every single student's personalized learning
experience.
By moving to the Cloud, Brockenhurst College is avoiding the
£500,000 cost of purchasing physical infrastructure and gaining a
better performing service that keeps the focus on core
business.
On top of all the great learning benefits the technology will go
further and help students when they finish their studies. When
trying to secure a job the technology can inform students about
openings in a certain area matching their skill-set, as well as
connecting them with past alumni they might benefit from knowing in
their medium and longer term careers.
Commenting on the new technology, Di
Roberts CBE, Principal and CEO from Brockenhurst College
said: "The quality of the student experience is critical to the
success of an institution, so colleges and universities need to
focus on student engagement to meet the changing need of incoming
and existing students. The latest technology we are
introducing will not only attract new students and give them the
very best learning experience at Brockenhurst, but also make our
students more technology literate for when they enter the job
market and secure careers after studying with us."
"The shifting landscape of education and demands of students
today have been the driving force behind the roll out of the
Exceptional Student Experience said Cailean Hargrave, Further and Higher Education
Lead, IBM UK and Ireland. "Our
goal is to help make educational institutions around the world more
student centric and encourage innovation to deliver better outcomes
for the students, institutes and ultimately economy as a
whole."
IBM improves student and institutional outcomes through the
dynamic use of enterprise data and self-learning systems. This
enables personalized learning and an exceptional student
experience, aligning students to career pathways and fostering
economic vitality.
Exceptional Student Experience is IBM's revolutionary strategy
co-created with its client pioneers, including Brockenhurst
College. By using Exceptional Student Experience technology
institutions can drive success by:
- Increasing admissions by up to 20%: through recruitment with
digital marketing - integrating digital, social and manual channels
through analytics to provide fresh insights on how prospective
students engage with an institution.
- Reducing annual administration costs by up to £300,000: by
bringing people, processes and systems together allowing them to
work smarter through cloud technology.
- Driving student success and retention by up to 25%: using
algorithms to spot warning signs of students in risk of failing
study modules or dropping out of their studies so teachers and
lecturers can step in before it is too late.
To find out more about IBM's use of technology in the education
space visit: http://www2.ibminsights.co.uk/ese as well as
http://ibm.com/education and follow @IBMEducation on Twitter.
For more information please contact:
IBM media contact
Emma
Bennett
UK External Relations
Tel: +44 (0)7976 839109
Twitter: IBM_UK_news: http://twitter.com/IBM_UK_news
Brockenhurst College contact
Frances Robinson
Director of Marketing
Tel - 01590 625555
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SOURCE IBM