From bowl games to Bingo night, bookstore hours, or transit schedules — campuses are busy places, and campus announcements play an important role in keeping everyone connected.
Customizing announcements through the OneCampus portal gives campuses flexibility with their messaging so instructors and campus admins can broadcast tailored information related to events, student learning, and more.
In this two-minute video, "Customizing Announcements in OneCampus," Tony Potts, Senior Software Development Advisor at TransACT and co-founder of OneCampus, provides insights into how the OneCampus portal gives information professionals easy control over their announcement content so it can be more effective.
Why Customize Announcements for Student Engagement?
We love to ensure our customers can customize their users' experience and content. In the video, Tony Potts from TransACT highlights how OneCampus stakeholders control content development, including when and to which audience campus content is delivered.
For example, if grades are about to be published, OneCampus administrators can adjust roles so that announcements regarding grades are only shown to students but not to other segments of the campus. Likewise, admins can set up mass notification announcements for all campuses in a university system or have them be shown only to users from specific campuses.
Most search engines and traditional portal options don't link directly to the content; instead, they send the user into a maze of links, making searches less than intuitive. By personalizing content to the student lifecycle, OneCampus provides search results tailored to the individual and barrier-free access to resources. Students find what they're looking for faster and avoid sifting through multiple links, avoiding a frustrating and confusing experience.
Research consistently finds a link between higher student engagement and better academic outcomes, including higher grades and graduation rates. A campus portal with customized announcements can:
- Efficiently convey time-sensitive and urgent campus information, such as school closure updates or adjustments to enrollment criteria
- More effective communication, since targeted messages can be sent to specific groups, such as on-campus students. Better communication with students keeps them engaged even from a distance.
- Use fewer technological resources since, with a single portal, IT staff don't have to set up and maintain multiple websites and access points. Instructors can even incorporate classroom materials directly into the portal.
- OneCampus uses a Google-like search: Students search with keywords, and the results are intuitive enough to connect the student to their desired content or resource
Leveraging your student portal to assist with content discovery is an efficient and practical way to eliminate frustration and increase satisfaction for new students and those on their way to completing their education.
Managing Tasks for a Successful Search
When onboarding OneCampus, one of the most common questions schools ask is what types of content to make available and what other schools are doing. To assist in answering this question, OneCampus uses tags (keywords) to organize and classify specific information groups.
In the video "Managing Tasks for a Successful Search," Tony shows how campus stakeholders can use tags when setting up tasks in their OneCampus instance.
Improve search functionality with tags to help users get to the right place faster
If you are unfamiliar with tags, consider them the key to unlocking relevant search results. Websites use tags to enhance users' search experience, ensuring that the sites returned match the keywords they entered and have been tagged by the site owner. OneCampus operates on a similar principle, making finding what students seek easier.
Consider tags the key to unlocking relevant search results. Websites use tags to enhance users' search experience, ensuring that the sites returned match the keywords they entered. OneCampus operates on a similar principle, using tags to make the search bring back more relevant results.
OneCampus offers a user-friendly solution that enables swift data search and access by incorporating popular tasks based on valuable user feedback. The speed factor ensures your students instantly connect to the most in-demand resources, including:
- Online course material, if IT integrates it into OneCampus
- Links to grades so that students can track their progress
- Transportation services
- Financial aid details, including application status and key contacts
- Campus updates, including campus-wide blasts and targeted informational updates
- Athletic events and enrollment information
- Club information and events
- Campus maps and guides
Review the OneCampus Implementation Checklist to know what to look for when considering upgrading a campus portal. For additional information, visit our blog or contact our team for a demonstration.