Meeting with Faculty, School and Student Recruitment reps who work with students
22/07
Terminology and requirements
Melissa – calendar is the official version of the truth for ‘major’ requirements etc. Need for total accuracy (vs plain language). Last time marketing attempted to put a 'friendly' spin on major requirements content, it was a nightmare for the faculty. Students found 'holes' and misalignments between the sets of information. They ended up having to relax some rules for a whole cohort of students.
Terminology – suggested glossary as a solution “Get people used to the terminology that we use” – said this is ‘absolutely vital’. (Anne unsure about glossary as a solution)
Richard – terminology: they talk about ‘degrees’ when in schools.
Johan – the word ‘subject’ is used with students. But in their world, this is part of PG.
Richard – Careers advisors use the terminology they know from when they were at uni.
Melissa – 'departments' are referred to as 'programmes within F/Ss.
Current site
Richard – Gets lots of enquiries after student can’t find something or get lost on the website. “Website is massive.”
Would be ideal to capture students when they are there – eg, register with the CRM. “Sign up and stay in touch” – for students who really are interested/ actually are prospective students.
Students going across F&S sites and mainsite – confused. Duplicated content.
Nicole – Sees the students who know how to get help. Website: students go down ‘rabbit holes’ to pages, often on F&S sites. Can’t find where they were when they want to find it again.
Craig – Looks after first years – runs outreach for school. Also does pastoral care. “Want to increase our personal contact with school students.” 1st years have said website isn’t useful.
Content
Craig – “Biggest problem is explaining what engineering is.” [subject/topic content]
Their school has rapid change – eg, for specialisations – so need face-to-face with prospective students for degree planning. And they can bend the rules: “there is always an exception”. GUS and the calendar can't keep up with their changes. Lots of choice but students choose too many hard courses and fail.
Key messages he’d like to get across: “Victoria is a personal place” / “We support you”. Thinks we aren’t communicating this right now.
Craig – profiles (features) really valuable.
Craig – nothing on our website for Careers advisors or Teachers
Melissa – currently v labour intensive to change the site when course names change.
Degree planning
Melissa – BA course options – too diverse to show.
Nicole – with a BA, you don’t need to be locked down to a major straight away. First year can be about doing six different papers you like, then choosing what you want to follow.
Science and the FHSS do manual degree auditing with students
They only see the students who know how to get help. How many people are there going round and round on the site?
Course chooser tool
Nicole – be careful that it doesn’t become advice. Esp if the options can’t be followed.
General – degree examples: students are likely to just choose from the provided examples.
Craig – need to tell school leavers that they need NCEA M or E for certain courses – A isn’t enough. Exit options from degree – alternative pathways.
Limit to first year.