Bachelor of Commerce (Digital Marketing) - Postsecondary ...

C. Progress Towards Achieving Board Ends and College Strategic Directions
C.1 Vision and Mission (Policy A-05) (cont’d)
The College, through its Marketing and Corporate Communications Department, is
developing a social media strategy to enhance service levels. Two pilot projects this year
have resulted in a dramatic increase in new student or applicant response to messages sent
to them using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. In these two pilot projects, the
rate of response from students increased significantly compared to previous methods of
communications, including e-mail. The College will focus on social media policy
development for service areas in the first phase of a new social media strategy and will
provide the results of its research to academic leaders, for future applications in the learning
and teaching environment. Some professors currently use social media in their curriculum
with very positive outcomes and results. Social media has now become an acceptable-use
method in educational institutions world-wide, with the fastest growing user group in the 39 +
age category. This will benefit the College in both post-secondary and continuing education
student communications and future learning.
As online learners are becoming a larger segment of the Fanshawe community, Student
Academic Success Services (SASS) will enhance current protocols to identify and intervene
with at-risk online learners. SASS will also make recommendations on mechanisms to
incorporate resource efficient interventions in current student success strategies offered to
the general population. It is anticipated that this effort to identify effective ways to
academically support online learners will positively impact persistence and retention.
Student Services will work collaboratively with academic schools, Information Technology
Services and Facilities Management to develop service delivery models and plans to serve
the students who will be learning at the School of Applied and Performance Arts.
Counselling and Accessibility Services will develop and implement personal, academic, and
career counselling services at all regional campuses providing consistent services for all
Fanshawe College students, regardless of study location.
Counselling and Accessibility Services (C&AS) will plan for the integration of the Testing
Centre and Accessibility Testing Centre operations and staffing. These plans will be
implemented when the new testing facility is built in 2012 or 2013. C&AS will also develop
communication strategies for faculty and students to ensure a smooth rollout of the new
service model.
Library and Media Services (LMS) research staff will create additional on-demand learning
opportunities so that students can access them at a time and place of their convenience.
Programs will range from simple introductory software guides to more sophisticated guides
related to aspects of scholarly literature searching. LMS systems staff will also improve
services by automating additional features to provide more patron controlled and initiated
access to services. This will allow students to be more aware of their borrowing activities
and faculty to more easily reserve equipment and media resources.
International Centre staff will refine and enhance activities to welcome and support
international students including providing country-specific orientations for incoming students
to better address unique cultural issues, working with academic schools to offer welcome
receptions for international students and collaborating with Library and Media Services staff
to introduce a book club for international students.
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