This put up was authored by Damian Doyle, Deputy CIO and Senior Affiliate VP for the College of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
The College of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is an R1 college situated simply outdoors of Baltimore, MD that serves a various scholar physique of 14,000 undergraduate and graduate and PhD college students. We’re a STEM-focused establishment with our largest packages in Biology, Psychology, Laptop Science and Data Programs. U.S. Information and World Report ranks UMBC #6 for each innovation and undergraduate educating, and we graduate extra college students of colour that go onto earn MDs or PhD’s than every other establishment in the US.
Digital Transformation: Pupil orientation and advising program
A specific level of delight at UMBC is the scholar orientation and advising program, which loved a pre-pandemic scholar satisfaction price of 85%-90%. It’s the primary interplay a brand new scholar has with the school expertise, so its success is vital to getting college students off to a robust begin. Orientation is a full day occasion that takes place all through the campus, with the advising course of occurring in our library to assist college students register for courses and entry quite a lot of companies.
The pandemic compelled us to remodel this in-person expertise in two brief months. The excellent news was that the IT division was already seen as a strategic associate throughout campus, so we had been engaged with different stakeholders early to assist construct the answer. We additionally had the great fortune of getting made a pre-pandemic funding in Cisco Webex. This enabled us to speed up our rollout plan as we shifted to distant. Lastly, we collaboratively engaged a broad number of campus stakeholders that helped construct a brand new mannequin enabling 2700 college students to efficiently full the all-virtual orientation in September 2020 and three,500 college students in 2021. Better of all, our new mannequin yielded a record-breaking scholar satisfaction price of 94% whereas being 100% COVID protected. Transferring ahead we are going to implement a hybrid mannequin that blends each the digital and in-person codecs for various items of the orientation and advising expertise.
Classes realized
Digitizing scholar orientation and advising did greater than permit us to ship companies remotely. It additionally drove effectivity, improved service supply and yielded superior scholar, college and workers satisfaction. For instance, use of Cisco Webex enabled sooner decision of scholar queries and allowed college to work from their workplace or properties whereas concurrently being on name to help college students. We plan to leverage these and different advantages to reimagine and redesign different scholar companies throughout campus.
Keys to success
For IT leaders exploring related initiatives, I want to share just a few key success elements for consideration:
- Construct relationships with enterprise leaders throughout your establishment earlier than you look to start out a challenge. Should you perceive their wants, and there may be mutual belief, it permits for more practical collaborations, and ensures hurdles don’t derail the challenge.
- Begin with the tip purpose in thoughts – what you need to obtain, what outcomes, what success seems like – don’t begin with the know-how!
- Interact all stakeholders early! This can each give them a way of possession and enhance adoption.
- Perceive that digital transformation is not only a stopgap and that you are able to do BETTER with hybrid fashions!
- Anticipate to make errors, embrace them and study from them!
Lastly, ensure you work with sturdy companions like Cisco which might be dedicated to your success and have the portfolio and expertise to drive digital transformation.
To study extra about UMBC’s digital transformation and partnership with Cisco, hearken to the webinar:
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