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Administrators devise 6 ways to boost online course enrollment

Extended campus sees initial course enrollment spike thanks to a six-part, administrator-led strategy.

enrollment [1]Boosting course enrollment for online learning may seem easy, but for an extended campus that relies not only on adjunct faculty, but funding from tuition, boosting course enrollment is not always the no-brainer it’s made out to be.

According to a new report [2], that’s what Brigham Young University’s (BYU) Salt Lake Center administration came to find as it tried to keep itself financially afloat by offering the same portfolio of courses they offered from the year before, as well as offering courses that were filled to capacity at the main campus—some 46 miles away in Provo, Utah.

Long story short, the Center, which opened in 1959 and currently serves about 2,000 total enrollments each semester, experienced a gradual decline in course enrollments in the years following its relocation in 2007 to its current site. The decline in enrollments proved extremely detrimental to the Center, since it’s financially self-sustaining, receiving no financial appropriation from the main campus and relying solely on tuition paid by students.

Another challenge is that each course must have at least five students enrolled or it will be cancelled, since the course must warrant financial investment and lend itself to peer and group work for pedagogical reasons. In the past, the Center sought to offer the same portfolio of courses they offered from the year before, with the hope that each course would reach the minimum number of enrollments by the first day of the semester. If, after the first day of class, the minimum number of enrollments was not met, the course was cancelled.

Yet, this course enrollment framework caused problems, considering that since the cancellations occurred after the first day of class, students were left little time to find another section of the same course. Also, the instructor—always an adjunct and, therefore, with limited teaching availability (most work full time at another job or teach elsewhere)—who had arranged their schedule to teach the course was, rather suddenly, left with no course and fewer options on short notice.

Looking to research, as well as library subject experts, administrators at the Center found little to help in their process of boosting course enrollment. Taking initiative, these administrators brainstormed six questions, or strategies, to help optimize their academic schedule, increase enrollments, and better serve their nontraditional students.

These strategies, largely tech-based and implemented within the last year, have led to a 27 percent increase in annual enrollment numbers—the first time the Center has experienced an increase since 2010.

(Next page: The 6 enrollment strategies)

“These strategies are generalizable to other academic programs,” stress the report’s authors (Steven Christensen, the Center’s accountant; Scott Howell, the Center’s director; and Jordan Christensen, research assistant and student at the Center), “and can help extend academic programs at a distance, including online courses.”

1.How can we best use main campus enrollments to predict which courses to offer at the extended campus?

Administrators sought to determine the number of course enrollments the Salt Lake Center might anticipate for a given course based on the number of enrollments in the same course on the main campus. The question assumes the classes offered at the Center are a sample of the true population of all classes offered on the main campus. According to the report, the sample mean percentage was derived by taking a weighted average of the percentage of enrollments in all classes offered at the Salt Lake Center over the past five years and then compared to the corresponding classes offered on the main campus (more on this methodology can be found in the report). “It was of interest…to observe the wide variances in these percentages across semesters/terms,” note the authors. “If a course (and all of its sections) on the main campus enrolled 1,000 students, then this variable would predict the BYU Salt Lake Center would enroll 33 students during fall semester; 29 enrollments during winter semester; 100 enrollments during spring term; and 75 enrollments during summer term.”

The researchers then validated the approach, and, with the exception of only one course, the current enrollments fit within the range.

The report explains that this variable is also being used to identify those courses on the main campus not currently offered at the BYU Salt Lake Center which most likely would enroll the most students if added to the course portfolio.

2.How can we best use the waitlist for courses offered on the main campus to inform course offerings at the extended campus?

The authors write that the initial idea was to use the waitlist as a way to measure demand for courses on the main campus and then predict which courses would meet the minimum enrollment requirement at the Center. The assumption was that a course with a large number of students on the waitlist would predict increased enrollments for the corresponding course if offered at the Center. However, the administrators found that there is no indication of a strong link between waitlist students and enrollments at the Center: the assumption that a large waitlist predicted a successful offering at the Salt Lake Center was not always correct.

The report speculates that it is likely other factors and variables influence this correlation; for example, “the majority of classes offered at the BYU Salt Lake Center are general education classes which target freshman and sophomore students and it is possible this student demographic is less likely to travel from the main campus to the Center.”

Although the predictive abilities of the waitlist are still uncertain, say the report’s authors, “it still serves well to illustrate enrollment trends across campus…[and] on an aggregated level it may expose trends that merit further consideration not only for the current semester but for the semester a year out.”

3.How can we apply the Amazon principle of “customers who bought this item also bought…” to predict which courses to offer in tandem?

The variable, says the report, is derived by analyzing which classes students usually take in tandem to other courses, and as part of a grouping of courses. This more sophisticated scheduling was just made possible as the Center began offering day courses, too. For example, using the Center’s recently licensed “big data” software reporting tool, it was revealed that if a student at BYU enrolls in MATH 110 they are most likely to also enroll in Rel A 121 or WRTG 150 as companion courses, and even more so in the fall semester than in the winter semester; suggesting that MATH 110, and either REL A 121 or WRTG 150, be offered in tandem to MATH 110.

(Next page: Strategies 4-6)

4.When is the best time to cancel a low-enrolling course?

Historically, all course offerings were carried to the first day of the semester and all decisions about either carrying or canceling the course were made on the first days of class, states the report. However, after analyzing the historical course enrollment trends for each semester, administrators discovered that these decisions may be made much earlier, since enrollment levels stabilized weeks before the first day of classes. The authors include a sample of a report generated by the Center’s big data software that tracks enrollments in relation to the start of the semester.  The report, which includes three years of enrollment data, “demonstrates a consistent and predictable build-up of enrollments over the weeks leading up to the first day of the semester and informs the Center on when ‘enrollments’ sufficiently leveled off and when it is best to make final cancel/carry decisions,” write the authors.

5.What is the best day, and time of day, to offer courses?

Administrators found that there is a “multiplicity effect in assigning courses to time periods.” For instance, a popular course offered during a popular time will result in more enrollments than a popular course offered during an unpopular time.

6.Which courses do the students really want to take, and when?

Although the report’s authors note that the Center is unable to observe distinct preferences for all potential enrollments, “it is important to incorporate student preferences whenever possible. The most practical way to do this is by surveying students currently enrolled and optimizing the future academic schedule to their preferences.” A survey instrument will be designed and administered in the near future, say the authors.

Though the Center has seen an enrollment spike this year, the report’s authors caution that the results are premature, and more time and fine-tuning on research is needed.

However, “using new tools to analyze big data sets in an educational setting of distance and continuing educators is proving most helpful,” conclude the authors. “Instead of following a best-guess approach for scheduling and staffing decisions, new best practices are being introduced and integrated into the work process to more fully realize the Center’s mission and satisfy senior administrators’ vision for the BYU Salt Lake Center.”

For much more in-depth information on research methodology, strategy description, and the Center’s demographics and mission, read the full report, “Six Ways to Increase Enrollments at an Extended Campus. [2]