On February 18th, Instructure hosted a dedicated Customer Discovery Session (CDS) in Salt Lake City, bringing together a diverse group of large U.S. Community College system leaders and administrators. The collaboration between these leaders and the Instructure team set out with the intention to solve some of the most pressing challenges in higher education today: learner mobility and institutional collaboration through course sharing systems.
The Challenge:
Nearly two-thirds of learners seeking two-year degrees do not finish within three years. One of the primary obstacles driving this trend is course availability. According to an upcoming research report by Instructure on course sharing across higher education, 85% of college students report they had trouble registering for a course they needed because it was full or not offered at a convenient time. Additionally, 75% of surveyed students reported that delays in course access increased the total cost of their college education. For many institutions, balancing limited budgets while ensuring every student has access to the exact classes they need, exactly when they need them, is an increasingly complex capacity planning challenge.
The solution:
Course Sharing is an innovative strategy where two or more institutions (such as a consortium of community colleges or a state system) collaborate to make their course catalogs available to each other's students. Through this model, a student remains enrolled at their "home institution" to earn their degree, but can seamlessly take a class from a partner "teaching institution" for automatic, guaranteed credit.
By leveraging course sharing, community colleges can expand their academic footprint, maximize their existing resources, and eliminate the barriers that keep students on track for their academic and career goals, helping them to move toward those next stages of their journey more seamlessly.
The collaboration:
Together, the attending leaders and Instructure team set out with the primary goals of identifying the course-sharing journeys of learners and administrators, understanding their pain points across those experiences, and validating relevant prototypes. Through 1:1 interviews, we were able to collaboratively conceptualize solutions that can scale to various learner mobility needs and use cases that our customers need to save critical time and support student success. Additionally, attendees were able to establish peer-to-peer connections and exchange insights on their respective workflows, situations, and current solutions.
Deep Dive: Key Takeaways & Our Investment
The insights gathered during this session are directly influencing our product strategy. Here is a closer look at the three pillars we are prioritizing based on participant feedback:
Connecting Insights to Actionable Workflows
Administrators emphasized that data is the lifeblood of program sustainability for course sharing. It’s not just about the insights that are surfaced, but making reporting actionable and within accustomed workflows. We are evaluating the robust reporting tools that help institutions justify program costs and perform "demand analysis", and facilitate easier action for tasks such as enrollment or transcript processing. By understanding which courses are most sought after across a consortium, enrollment and documentation needs, and other administrative supports, institutions can make data-driven decisions and take quicker action for resource allocation, curriculum development, and keeping learners on track.
Enhancing Visibility into the Learner Experience
One of the most sought-after investments into the Course Sharing experience was improved visibility for students once they begin a cross-institutional enrollment. We are committed to providing greater transparency into learner needs and building features that provide real-time status updates for enrollment, transcript, and financial aid processing. Our goal is to ensure students feel as supported and informed when taking a shared course as they do on their home campus. The value of course sharing is that students do not have any degradation of experience when seeking courses beyond their home institution, and we are committed to making those improvements.
Balancing Student Self-Service with Advisor Guidance
While students crave the autonomy of a modern digital shopping experience, academic integrity requires expert oversight. We are refining our workflows to find the "sweet spot" where students can easily discover opportunities (self-service), while advisors retain the necessary controls to ensure course equivalencies and degree requirements are met.
Looking Ahead
The input from our collaborative exercises and prototype evaluations will help shape our upcoming roadmap priorities. We are currently evaluating and prioritizing this feedback to ensure we build solutions that scale to the diverse needs of our global community. If you are interested in investing in the future of course sharing or anything across Instructure offerings, you will be able to provide your input on the roadmap when available in March! We will update this post with a link to directly contribute when issued.
We want to thank those leaders who joined us in Salt Lake City for your invaluable partnership. Their insight and collaboration helps shape the future of Instructure solutions. We would also like to extend that opportunity to our great community, with an application to join our product council, found here:
https://forms.gle/kEXzqgQHMoLXpm6s7
We look forward to continuing this journey together!
