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  • IHEC Blog a project by David Comp: The Florida Senate

    IHEC Blog a project by David Comp: The Florida Senate

    Since February 2007, International Higher Education Consulting Blog has provided timely news and informational pieces, predominately from a U.S. perspective, that are of interest to both the international education and public diplomacy communities. From time to time, International Higher Education Consulting Blog will post thought provoking pieces to challenge readers and to encourage comment and professional dialogue.

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  • IHEC Blog a project by David Comp: Gateway Leadership Institute

    IHEC Blog a project by David Comp: Gateway Leadership Institute

    The Spring 2021 Gateway Leadership Institute will appeal to those international education professionals and related higher education experts who are interested in developing new knowledge and skills needed to shape the next generation of international higher education. Through a combination of webinars, workshops, and coaching, the Institute engages participants in an exploration of new directions in educational technology. Working in small teams, participants will be assigned to a specific EdTech company and will work on a realistic challenge over the course of the Institute. The Institute facilitators are Drs. Rosa Almoguera and George F. Kacenga. 

    Participation is now only US$125. Apply by Saturday, February 20th. Learn more and apply here.

    Note: I’m an affiliate of the Gateway International Group but receive no compensation for this post. For the first Gateway Leadership Institute I served as a volunteer mentor. I’m posting to support this Gateway International Group endeavor.

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  • The Best Outcome of my Study Abroad Experience!

    The Best Outcome of my Study Abroad Experience!

    30 years ago today my wife and I started our relationship with a late night/early morning kiss on a street corner in Valladolid, Spain after going out to the clubs! We were on the same study abroad program and our relationship is the best outcome of our study abroad experience! 

    Here we are on top of the Alcázar de Segovia

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  • Contacting Currently Enrolled Students Who Have Not Registered for the Upcoming Semester

    Contacting Currently Enrolled Students Who Have Not Registered for the Upcoming Semester

    At this time of the semester, many people are wondering if students who attended last semester will attend this semester. Yes, I have been there before! 

    So, I decided to create email and text campaigns to help remind/nudge students to register for the upcoming semester. This EVEN works during the first week of class as well. Think about the students who left the semester with an “A” or “B” grade point average and never enrolled in the subsequent semester – you need to reach them!

    Purpose of the Campaign: Contacting Currently Enrolled Students Who Have Not Registered for the Upcoming Semester

    Problem: Many college students need several reminders to register for the next semester.

    Time of Year: October/November & March/April

    Timeframe of the Campaign: Four Weeks

    Target Group: Students

    Step 1 – During the first week of the campaign, send a text message to the students who are enrolled this semester, but who are not enrolled for the subsequent semester. 

    Sample Text Message – Are you planning to come back for the spring? Reply Y (Yes), M (Maybe), H (Holds), or S (Need to Schedule. Appt).

    Step 2 – During the second week of the campaign, remove the students who have already registered. Then, send another text message to the students who are enrolled this semester, but who are not enrolled for the subsequent semester. 

    Sample Text Message – Classes are filling up fast! Are you returning to [Name of University] for the Fall? Text – Y (Yes), M (Maybe), N (No), ? (Questions), H (Holds). – [Name of Administrator that Many Students Know.

    Step 3 – During the third week of the campaign, have the faculty and academic advisors call the students in their department or college who have not registered.

    Step 4 – During the fourth week of the campaign, have the faculty contact the students who have not re-enrolled in the subsequent semester. 

    Step 5 – Assessment – Examine the number of students who were not registered before the campaign, then measure the students who registered each week until the end of the fourth week. pre-campaign 

    Additional Comments: When the students reply, you can begin tagging the students on Microsoft Excel or through the Student Success Technology with the following tags.

    Y – Tag – Will Register in [Next Semester – Semester and Year]

    M – Tag – May Enroll in  [Next Semester – Semester and Year]

    N – Tag – Not Returning in [Next Semester – Semester and Year]

    If you have any questions about this campaign, please contact me – [Your Name]or [email address].

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 


    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Higher Education Speaker and Researcher


    My Social Media Channels!
    Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
    I Always Post Higher Education Videos on YouTube
    Find Me on Instagram
    Engage with Me on Facebook!
    Watch My Videos on Twitter Live – http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
    Email Me! I am PR Friendly! – [email protected]
    My Research Interests: Customer Service and Social Media, Higher Education Retention, and Millennials at Work



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  • How to Use Canvas to NUDGE Students to Complete Assignments

    How to Use Canvas to NUDGE Students to Complete Assignments

    I am a TOTAL fan of the “message students who” feature on Canvas. Our university utilizes Canvas as our learning management platform. With this feature, I can message students who…

    have not completed assignments

    have not communicated with me

    have an average below a certain threshold

    have an average ABOVE a certain threshold

    have done a STELLAR job on assignments

    and MORE

    I use this feature for EVERYTHING! You should definitely try it out! It is free and I’ve convinced other faculty to use it as well!

    Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 


    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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  • DfE committed to £200m of contracts for loan sale that’s not proceeding

    DfE committed to £200m of contracts for loan sale that’s not proceeding

    Page 221 of the Department for Education’s 2019/20 financial statement contains the note reproduced above.

    The sale programme for “pre-2012” student loans was cancelled in March. But DfE looks like it will be paying out over £30million per year for the next few years to financiers anyway. Total liabilities are booked above at over £220million.


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  • £11 billion of “Supplements” used for loans

    £11 billion of “Supplements” used for loans

    Given the relative absence of higher education from yesterday’s Autumn Statement, I turned my attention to the Department for Education’s 2019/20 annual accounts, which were published earlier this month.

    Regarding student loans, we have been in something of a hiatus since 2018, when Theresa May announced an review of post-18 funding and commissioned the Augar panel, which reported last summer. Although there were suggestions that we might get a long overdue response to the latter yesterday, we will probably have to wait now until the Budget next March, when the government will hope to have a better sense of its spending commitments.

    That leaves student loan finance in limbo with the small, nominal budget allocation for loan write-offs shored up by large “Supplementary Estimates” provided by parliament each February.

    This is in spite of an apparent “target RAB” of 36% and a budgeting process hanging over from 2014, when the old department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) had responsibility for loans and was being “incentivised” to reduce the cost of the loan scheme. You can see both of these features still stipulated in the latest Consolidated Budgeting Guidance, but they represent zombie policy with little to no bearing on events.

    Why so? Well, DfE was given an extra £12billion plus back in February to supplement 2019/20’s budget for “non-cash RDEL” (mostly student loan “impairments”) of £4.7billion per year. (Student loans are “impaired” because the loans are worth less in estimated repayments than the cash advanced.) The supplement produces a total that is more than triple the original allocation.

    And… DfE managed to spend nearly £16billion of that last year. The accounts report an “underspend” of £1.1bn against that total.

    As can be seen from the table below, “Fair Value movement” for student loans amounted to a non-cash cost of over £14billion.

    £17.6billion of new loans were issued, a net increase of £15billion once repayments of over £2billion are considered, but the new impairments on post-2012 loans increased by £12.3billion; for “pre-2012” loans the stock remaining at year-end lost nearly £1.7bn when revalued.

    Although the nominal value (“face value”) of outstanding post-2012 loan balances is nearly £105billion, those loans are thought to be worth less than £50bn.

    The increases in impairments break down into a RAB charge and a stock charge.

    The RAB charge is the estimated impairment on new loans issued. That came to nearly £9billion, reflecting the latest understanding that only 47% of the £17billion+ of annual undergraduate loan outlay is now expected to be repaid in net present value terms. Ie, the RAB charge is 53%, well above the official target of 36%.

    The other £7billion was a write down on loans issued in previous years and is based on changes made to the model used to estimate loan repayments. Only £2.1billion of that downwards revaluation is attributable to Covid (the loans were revalued in July).

    The accounts make available a further breakdown of the modelling changes.

    The implications seem clear: HE is due a day of reckoning. From a financial perspective, the strongest measures would control outlay rather than boosting repayments. In cash terms, the former has immediate impact on finances, whereas the latter spreads the effect over decades and is politically difficult at this time.

    Tuition fees are to be frozen again in 2021/22 and we should expect this to continue. Announcements in FE suggest that the government would also like students to switch away from longer, more expensive HE courses. More radically, I would expect the government to be reviewing the Augar suggestions of tuition fee reductions and caps on places for certain courses (Recommendation 3.7).1  

    Back at the Conservative Party Conference, Rishi Sunak warned of “hard choices” to come and promised to “balance the books”:

    “Over the medium term getting our borrowing and debt back under control. We have a sacred responsibility to future generations to leave the public finances strong, and through careful management of our economy, this Conservative government will always balance the books. If instead we argue there is no limit on what we can spend, that we can simply borrow our way out of any hole, what is the point in us?”

    That final question invites some alternative answers, but the Spending Review’s focus on Further Education reinforces the idea that HE will be the required to balance the increased spending on the former.

    1 “We therefore invite the government to consider the case for encouraging the OfS to stipulate in exceptional circumstances a limit to the numbers an HEI could enrol on a specific course, or group of courses. It would be critical for the OfS to be transparent about the grounds and process for such an intervention and we can offer no more than a broad indication of what these circumstances might be. Where there is persistent evidence of poor value for students in terms of employment and earnings and for the public in terms of loan repayments, the OfS would have the regulatory  authority to place a limit, for a fixed period, on the numbers eligible for financial support who could be admitted to the course. The institution in question would remain free to recruit to all other courses without restriction. Such a cap system would clearly target the institutions that are offering poor value, rather than altering the entry criteria for individual students.”

    p. 102, Independent Panel Report to the Review of post-18 Education & Funding

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  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Reflecting on the 2020 Census

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Reflecting on the 2020 Census

    In Fall 2019, I was truly fortunate to receive a grant from the Hogg Foundation to promote the 2020 Census in East Texas. Yes, this area includes my hometown county – Panola County, then Rusk County and Shelby County. This was an AMAZING project! Thanks Hogg Foundation!

    The North East Texas Counts campaign had three goals for the project. Goal one was “to select and train 200 NETX Counts Ambassadors and Junior Ambassadors to tell the importance of the census to the community”. Goal two was “to engage and educate at least 3,000 residents in the tri-county community (especially hard-to-count populations) about the importance of the census”. The final goal, goal three” was “to saturate the tri-county community media outlets with Census information pertinent to their residents”. Through this campaign, we hosted 25 outdoor Census booths, eight interactive community information sessions, an engaging social media campaign, and received coverage in almost 10 newspapers and television outlets.

    The North East Texas Counts began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

    We offered numerous outdoor Census education table sessions. However, instead of offering these sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country, we offered these sessions in formats more focused on common pain points experienced by residents of the three counties and safety protocols of the counties. Instead of shopping at big-box retailers, the residents were more focused on shopping in smaller retailers, visiting gas stations, and visiting the post office. As a result, our strategy changed. During this process, we coined the phrase, “from gas stations to grocery stores”, because these were the essential places visited by residents during the pandemic. During this process, we offered information booths outside of gas stations, libraries in each county, Tractor Supply stores, city council areas, and on the side of the major highways. These strategies proved to be very effective because many residents indicated they have not taken the Census before and they did not know the importance of the Census. We were able to provide support for these residents through interactive in-person, on-one-one programming focused on the Census.

    Community Communication

    The North East Texas Counts team began the Census season by communicating with key contacts in the community and scheduling large-scale events to educate the community about the Census. We scheduled events at the local community college, library, etc. After the three counties restricted large scale and in-person events, we decided to develop a more robust online training and development process for our interns and volunteers.

    We offered three pop-up Census education table sessions outside large big-box retailers in the country. During these sessions, participants received USB chargers, Census t-shirts, and USB wall plugs. These technology and apparel items were essential items during the pandemic, because individuals in these areas usually have to travel to larger cities for technology items. People saw our items as they drove on the highways and many turned around to hear about the Census and to receive the items. Many residents commented that they have seen several Census shirts around their town and they wanted to learn more. We did not have any Census t-shirts left after September 30, 2020.

    North East Texas Counts Census – Coverage

    This project was one of the TOP projects of my faculty career. It truly changed my life and impacted the way that I see local, state, and federal government. This project ENERGIZED me!

    Stay tuned!



    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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  • Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Use Google Trends for FREE Search Engine Keywords

    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards: A Texas Professor Focused on Artificial Intelligence, Health, and Education: Use Google Trends for FREE Search Engine Keywords

    I really like using Google Trends for almost EVERYTHING! I use Google Trends for creating news articles, blog posts, course syllabi, and even when designing graphics!

    Here’s a video that I created about Google Trends – an amazing FREE technology!

    Exploring Google Trends is one of the best ways to discover social media topics and ideas for posts. Here’s a quick video focused on how to use Google Trends for Content Generation.

    Check it out! You can use Google Trends for everything from education to community engagement. Also, these are great for governmental outreach and engagement as well (depending on the search terms within your community).

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    Try this campaign! Also, there are more campaigns available in my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!

    Thanks for visiting! 


    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Higher Education Speaker and Researcher


    My Social Media Channels!
    Remember to Follow Me on Twitter! @drjtedwards
    I Always Post Higher Education Videos on YouTube
    Find Me on Instagram
    Engage with Me on Facebook!
    Watch My Videos on Twitter Live – http://www.periscope.com/drjtedwards/
    Email Me! I am PR Friendly! – [email protected]



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