Five Vendors to Watch that Support the Student Journey
Nearly every institution spends significant time and resources making a good first impression on prospective students. As students progress through the enrollment cycle, savvy institutions take great care to make sure each interaction is positive. But once those prospective students enroll, far fewer schools spend the same amount of time or energy studying and improving their ongoing student interactions.
These interactions, called “touchpoints,” often involve the use of specific technologies or encounters with higher education leaders, such as advisors. These touchpoints vary depending on the type of student and have a significant impact on how students perceive the institution.
Supporting the Student Journey
In a previous Wake-Up Call, we detailed how some institutions seeking to map and reshape their student experiences are leveraging a concept called student journey mapping. This involves identifying the different types of students that might need help to be successful at various stages.
For example, students with family financial support may not interact with an institution’s financial aid processing solution during admission, but may do so after enrollment if their circumstances change. Likewise, first-generation students may rely on their institutions’ advising solutions to help them choose a major. In contrast, other students may have their own support networks to help them decide their courses of study.
Unsurprisingly, the relationship between student types and touchpoints can become quite complicated. It involves an interplay between student types and technologies across different journey stages from admission to graduation.
While many solutions serve as touchpoints, the five we highlight here help institutions support the journeys of their students either through building communities of support (InScribe and PeopleGrove) or leveraging data to provide students with insight into how to manage their journeys (Discourse Analytics, Pragya Systems, and Salesforce).
Vendors to Watch
PeopleGrove
Founded in 2014, PeopleGrove developed its original product to help connect alumni and mentors with students. Since then, it has extended the concept of community building among students, mentors, and alumni to build communities across other areas of the student journey, such as enrollment, academic support, and career readiness. Specifically, its work to support admissions efforts at Santa Clara University and create a community between alumni and students at Barnard College indicates that PeopleGrove can support the entire student journey.
InScribe
Founded in 2017, InScribe seeks to enable institutions to develop a community-based pool of resources and answers to common questions for students to access. Relying on artificial intelligence to collect, analyze, and prioritize these resources and responses, InScribe helps students find what they need to address any concerns they may have, such as questions around financial aid or academic support. Used by Indiana University as part of its teaching and learning ecosystem and the University of Missouri System to increase student engagement, InScribe plays a significant role in helping institutions support either one part or all of the student journey.