Personal Blogs

Rebecca Galley, Director, Learning Experience and Technology, Open University.

linkedin.com/in/rebecca-galley-16021b149 

• It is hard for an organisation to deliver online until it changes how it does things offline. 

• Two years ago a failed attempt at digital transformation began again looking at everything from first enquiries through to alumni. It wasn’t possible to implement the change required where there were so many silos in the organisation. It required a very different approach, an holistic one, that integrates marketing, business, IT, Data Security … 

• Co-design with students to improve the experience, not with the different business units. To adapt to suit their expectations. Students want simple, elegant and intuitive

• Activities on site must be complemented by experiences online and work together.

• All units must be working towards the same aims otherwise you end up with a very fragmented and unsatisfactory student experience.

• An enterprise approach to digital, data and data governance to enable seamless integration in order for students to be successful and happy online. 

• Work to horizontal value chains, not KPIs to particular units which result in a fragmented experience. 

• Take a UX, or service approach, so that you have a very clear understanding of the what the personalised student experience will look like rather than buying off the shelf and plugging everything into it. Rather understand what you want your UX to look like and build it. An enterprise approach is to make it as simple as possible: a single data hub for all university dataL various content stores managed in a consistent way, and then you can be flexible in the way it is offered to students. 

• Chatbot being used across universities for all courses and throughout the course, not just part of it, because that’s what students expect.

Look at how the Open University do it. Simple! Students have what they need to study on one page without the need to click through multiple times or having to use a search function for anything. 

You do not start at the Open University Home Page, or a Student Hub. What you see relates to what you have studied and are studying and the links to support you need for this.

• A simple student experience is very complex ‘under the bonnet’, with clear calls to action, clear accessibility … 
• Have a firm idea of what the student experience should be, then build to achieve that.
• Listen to the students and act on that.
• Work with agencies who bring the capabilities and objectivity that we don’t have ourselves. 
• Support a mix of student types and know who these are and build for them. 
• Studying online has been found to be BETTER than face to face for demographic and student types