Central vision loss–a condition that impairs the ability to see objects directly in front of the eyes–can have profound academic and social impacts on K-12 students. Because this type of vision loss affects tasks that require detailed focus, such as reading, writing, and recognizing faces, students with central vision impairment often face unique challenges that can affect their overall school experience.
In the classroom, students with central vision loss may struggle with reading printed text on paper or on the board, despite having otherwise healthy peripheral vision. Standard classroom materials are often inaccessible without accommodations such as large print, magnification devices, or digital tools with text-to-speech capabilities. These students might take longer to complete assignments or may miss visual cues from teachers, making it difficult to follow along with lessons. Without appropriate support, such as assistive technology, students may fall behind academically, which can affect their confidence and motivation to participate.
As a result, they may be perceived as aloof or unfriendly, leading to social isolation or misunderstanding. Group activities, games, and unstructured time like lunch or recess can become sources of anxiety if students feel excluded or unsafe. Moreover, children with vision loss may become overly dependent on peers or adults, which can further affect their social development and sense of independence.
While this may seem daunting, there are assistive technologies to help students navigate central vision loss and have fulfilling academic and social experiences.
One such technology, eSight Go from Gentex Corporation’s eSight, uses an advanced high-speed, high-definition camera to capture continuous video footage of what a user is looking at. Algorithms optimize and enhance the footage and share it on two HD OLED screens, providing sharp, crystal-clear viewing. The user’s brain then synthesizes the images to fill any gaps in their vision, helping them to see more clearly, in real time.
“The ability to have central perception brought back into your set of tools for education is critically important,” said Roland Mattern, eSight’s director of sales and marketing. “Ease of reading, ease of seeing the board, using tablets or computers–all of these things [lead to] the ability to complete an academic task with greater ease.”
One key feature, Freeze Frame, lets the user capture a temporary photograph with the device’s camera, such as an image on an interactive whiteboard, a textbook page, or a graphic. The student can magnify the image, scan and study it, and take what they need from it.
“This eases the ability to absorb information and move on, at a regular pace, with the rest of the class,” Mattern noted.
Socially, central vision loss can create additional barriers. A major part of social interaction at school involves recognizing faces, interpreting facial expressions, and making eye contact–all tasks that rely heavily on central vision. Students with this impairment might have difficulty identifying peers or teachers unless they are spoken to directly. The glasses can help with these social challenges.
“There’s a huge social aspect to education, as well–seeing expressions on teachers’ and fellow students’ faces is a major part of communication,” Mattern said.
What’s more, the glasses also help students maintain social connections inside and outside of the classroom.
“Think of how much peer-to-peer communication is digital now, and if you have central vision loss, you can’t see your phone or screen,” Mattern said. “The educational part is not just academic–it’s about the student experience that you want to enhance and optimize.”
Educators, parents, and school staff play a crucial role in fostering inclusive environments–by educating classmates about visual impairments, encouraging empathy, and ensuring that students with central vision loss are supported both academically and socially. With the right accommodations and social-emotional support, these students can thrive in school and build strong connections with their peers.
“If we can make daily living, hobbies, and education easier and facilitate participation, that’s a win for everybody,” Mattern said.
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism.
Through this work, and in collaboration with international partners, we have identified what genuinely supports inclusion and what simply pays lip service to it. While AI is often heralded as a tool for levelling the educational playing field, our research shows that without intentional support structures and inclusive design, it can reinforce and even widen existing disparities.
Supporting mature students’ AI literacy is, therefore, not just a pedagogical responsibility; it is an ethical imperative. It intersects with wider goals of equity, social justice, and sustainable digital inclusion. If higher education is to fulfil its mission in an age of intelligent technologies, it must ensure that no learner is left behind, especially those whose voices have long been marginalised.
Why Mature Students Matter in the AI Conversation
Mature students are one of the fastest-growing and most diverse populations in higher education. They bring a wealth of life and work experience, resilience, and motivation. Yet, they are often excluded from AI-related initiatives that presume a level of digital fluency not all possess. However, they are often left out of AI-related initiatives, which too frequently assume a baseline level of digital fluency that many do not possess. Media portrayals tend to depict older learners as technologically resistant or digitally inept, reinforcing deficit narratives that erode confidence, undermine self-efficacy, and reduce participation.
As a result, mature students face a dual barrier: the second-order digital divide—inequity in digital skills rather than access—and the social stigma of digital incompetence. Both obstruct their academic progress and diminish their employability in a rapidly evolving, AI-driven labour market.
Principles that Support Mature Learners
The QAA-funded project, developed in partnership with five universities across the UK and Europe, embedded AI literacy through three key principles—each critical for mature learners:
Accessibility
Learning activities were designed for varying levels of digital experience. Resources were provided in multiple formats (text, video, audio), and sessions used plain language and culturally inclusive examples. Mature students often benefited from slower-paced, repeatable guidance and multilingual scaffolding.
Collaboration
Peer mentoring was a powerful tool for mature students, who often expressed apprehension toward younger, digitally native peers. By fostering intergenerational support networks and collaborative projects, we helped reduce isolation and build mutual respect.
Personalised Learning
Mature students frequently cited the need for AI integration that respected their goals, schedules, and learning styles. Our approach allowed learners to set their own pace, choose relevant tools, and receive tailored feedback, building ownership and confidence in their digital journeys.
Inclusive AI Strategies That Work – Based on What Mature Learners Told Us
Here are four practical strategies that emerged from our multi-site studies and international collaborations:
1. Start with Purpose: Show AI’s Relevance to Career and Life
Mature learners engage best when AI tools solve problems that matter to them. In our QAA project, students used ChatGPT to refine job applications, generate reflective statements, and translate workplace policies into plain English. These tools became career companions—not just academic add-ons.
‘When I saw what it could do for my CV, I felt I could finally compete again,’ shared a 58-year-old participant.
2. Design Age-Safe Learning Spaces
Many mature students fear embarrassment in digital settings. We created small, trust-based peer groups, offered print-friendly guides, and used asynchronous recordings to accommodate different learning paces. These scaffolds helped dismantle the shame often attached to asking for help.
3. Make Reflection Central to AI Literacy
AI use can be empowering or alienating. We asked students to record short video reflections on how AI shaped their thinking. This helped them develop critical awareness of what the tool does, how it aligns with academic integrity, and what learning still needs to happen beyond automation.
4. Use Media Critique to Break Stereotypes
Drawing on my research into late-life workers and digital media, we used ageist headlines, adverts, and memes as classroom material. Mature learners engaged critically with how society depicts them, transforming deficit narratives into dialogue, and boosting confidence through awareness.
How We Measured Impact (and Why It Mattered)
We evaluated these strategies using mixed methods informed by both academic and lived-experience perspectives:
Self-reflective journals and confidence scales tracked growth in AI confidence and self-efficacy
Survey data from mature students (aged 55+) in the UK and Albania (from my older learners study) revealed the key role of peer support, professional experience, and family encouragement in shaping digital resilience
Narrative mapping, developed with COST DigiNet partners, was used to document shifts in learners’ digital identity—from anxious adopter to confident contributor
Follow-up interviews three months post-intervention showed sustained engagement with AI tools in personal and professional contexts (e.g., CPD portfolios, policy briefs)
Policy and Practice: Repositioning Mature Learners in AI Strategy
As highlighted in our Tirana Policy Workshop (2024), national and institutional policy often fails to differentiate between age-based needs when deploying AI in education. Mature students frequently face a “second-order digital divide,” not just in access, but in relevance, scaffolding, and self-belief.
If UK higher education is serious about digital equity, it must:
Recognise mature learners as a distinct group in AI strategy and training
Fund co-designed AI literacy programmes that reflect lived experience
Embed inclusive, intergenerational pedagogy in curriculum development
Disrupt media and policy narratives that equate older age with technological incompetence
Conclusion: Inclusion in AI Isn’t Optional – It’s Foundational
Mature learners are not a marginal group to be retrofitted into digital learning. They are core to what a sustainable, equitable, and ethical higher education system should look like in an AI-driven future. Designing for them is not just good inclusion practice—it’s sound educational leadership. If we want AI to serve all learners, we must design with all learners in mind, from the very start.
For years now, the promise of AI in education has centered around efficiency–grading faster, recommending better content, or predicting where a student might struggle.
But at a moment when learners face disconnection, systems are strained, and expectations for personalization are growing, task automation feels…insufficient.
What if we started thinking less about what AI can do and more about how it can relate?
That’s where agentic AI comes in. These systems don’t just answer questions. They recognize emotion, learn from context, and respond in ways that feel more thoughtful than transactional. Less machine, more mentor.
So, what’s the problem with what we have now?
It’s not that existing AI tools are bad. They’re just incomplete.
Here’s where traditional AI systems tend to fall short:
NLP fine-tuning Improves the form of communication but doesn’t understand intent or depth.
Feedback loops Built to correct errors, not guide growth.
Static knowledge bases Easy to search but often outdated or contextually off.
Ethics and accessibility policies Written down but rarely embedded in daily workflows.
Multilingual expansion Translates words, not nuance or meaning across cultures.
These systems might help learners stay afloat. They don’t help them go deeper.
What would a more intelligent system look like?
It wouldn’t just deliver facts or correct mistakes. A truly intelligent learning system would:
Understand when a student is confused or disengaged
Ask guiding questions instead of giving quick answers
Retrieve current, relevant knowledge instead of relying on a static script
Honor a learner’s pace, background, and context
Operate with ethical boundaries and accessibility in mind–not as an add-on, but as a foundation
In short, it would feel less like a tool and more like a companion. That may sound idealistic, but maybe idealism is what we need.
The tools that might get us there
There’s no shortage of frameworks being built right now–some for developers, others for educators and designers. They’re not perfect. But they’re good places to start.
Framework
Type
Use
LangChain
Code
Modular agent workflows, RAG pipelines
Auto-GPT
Code
Task execution with memory and recursion
CrewAI
Code
Multi-agent orchestration
Spade
Code
Agent messaging and task scheduling
Zapier + OpenAI
No-code
Automated workflows with language models
Flowise AI
No-code
Visual builder for agent chains
Power Automate AI
Low-code
AI in business process automation
Bubble + OpenAI
No-code
Build custom web apps with LLMs
These tools are modular, experimental, and still evolving. But they open a door to building systems that learn and adjust–without needing a PhD in AI to use them.
A better system starts with a better architecture
Here’s one way to think about an intelligent system’s structure:
Learning experience layer
Where students interact, ask questions, get feedback
Ideally supports multilingual input, emotional cues, and accessible design
Agentic AI core
The “thinking” layer that plans, remembers, retrieves, and reasons
Connects with existing infrastructure: SIS, LMS, content repositories, analytics systems
This isn’t futuristic. It’s already possible to prototype parts of this model with today’s tools, especially in contained or pilot environments.
So, what would it actually do for people?
For students:
Offer guidance in moments of uncertainty
Help pace learning, not just accelerate it
Present relevant content, not just more content
For teachers:
Offer insight into where learners are emotionally and cognitively
Surface patterns or blind spots without extra grading load
For administrators:
Enable guardrails around AI behavior
Support personalization at scale without losing oversight
None of this replaces people. It just gives them better support systems.
Final thoughts: Less control panel, more compass
There’s something timely about rethinking what we mean by intelligence in our learning systems.
It’s not just about logic or retrieval speed. It’s about how systems make learners feel–and whether those systems help learners grow, question, and persist.
Agentic AI is one way to design with those goals in mind. It’s not the only way. But it’s a start.
And right now, a thoughtful start might be exactly what we need.
Rishi Raj Gera, Magic EdTech
Rishi Raj Gera is Chief Solutions Officer at Magic EdTech. Rishi brings over two decades of experience in designing digital learning systems that sit at the intersection of accessibility, personalization, and emerging technology. His work is driven by a consistent focus on building educational systems that adapt to individual learner needs while maintaining ethical boundaries and equity in design. Rishi continues to advocate for learning environments that are as human-aware as they are data-smart, especially in a time when technology is shaping how students engage with knowledge and one another.
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The Alliant Credit Union Foundation has awarded a $108,000 grant to Digital Leaders Now, the nonprofit that powers the Digital Leaders Academy at Ridgewood Community High School District 234, to support the implementation of innovative digital opportunity programs.
The initiative will begin rolling out in Spring 2025, with full program implementation for the 2025-2026 school year. The grant will help students gain critical digital skills, enhance career preparation opportunities at Ridgewood and beyond, and ensure teachers have the necessary resources to integrate technology into the classroom effectively.
“The Alliant Credit Union Foundation is committed to fostering educational opportunities that prepare students for the future,” said Meredith Ritchie, President of The Alliant Credit Union Foundation. “By partnering with the Digital Leaders Academy, we are helping to bridge the digital divide and ensure that students in Ridgewood Community High School District 234 are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the evolving workforce.”
The grant will support key initiatives, including:
Integration of AI Tools: Students will gain hands-on experience using AI and emerging technologies to enhance their learning and problem-solving skills.
Teacher Training & Development: Supporting professional development programs that empower educators with the tools and knowledge to incorporate digital learning strategies into their curriculum.
Digital Fluency Expansion: Enhancing student digital literacy and technology-based learning experiences to build a foundation for future careers.
Career Readiness Programs: Preparing students for high-demand technology roles by connecting them with industry experts, mentorship opportunities, and real-world applications of digital skills.
Through this initiative, the Alliant Credit Union Foundation continues its mission of driving positive change in education by expanding access to technology and professional development resources.
“The Digital Leaders Academy is a testament to the power of partnership and community. With the support of Alliant, we’re equipping students, teachers, and parents with the tools to thrive in the digital age, because when we invest in digital fluency, we unlock limitless potential,” said Caroline Sanchez Crozier, Founder of Digital Leaders Now, an Illinois-based nonprofit, and creator of Digital Leaders Academy.
Ridgewood Community High School District 234 students will benefit from enhanced learning experiences, giving them a competitive edge in today’s digital economy.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at [email protected]
The U.S. Department of Justice introduced the Americans With Disabilities Act final rule for digital accessibility in 2024, requiring public colleges and universities to follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for ensuring that online programs, services and activities are accessible. These laws require institutions to update inaccessible documents and ensure new content follows accessibility requirements.
A recent survey by Anthology found that faculty members feel they lack sufficient support and access to resources to create an accessible online classroom environment, and they have a general lack of awareness of new ADA requirements.
Anthology’s survey—which included responses from 2,058 instructors at two- and four-year colleges and universities across the U.S.—highlights a need for professional development and institutional resources to help faculty meet students’ needs.
Supporting student success: Expanding accessibility isn’t just mandated by law; it has powerful implications for student retention and graduation outcomes.
Approximately one in five college students has a disability, up 10 percentage points from the previous decade, according to 2024 data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. A majority of those students have a behavioral or emotional disability, such as attention deficit disorder, or a mental, emotional or psychiatric condition.
While a growing number of students with disabilities are enrolling in higher education, they are less likely than their peers without a disability to earn a degree or credential, due in part to the lack of accessibility or accommodations on campus.
Survey says: Only 10 percent of faculty believe their institution provides “absolutely adequate” tools to support students with disabilities, and 22 percent say they consider accessibility when designing course materials.
Instructors are largely unaware of the ADA’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; one-third of survey respondents said they are “not at all” aware of the requirements, and 45 percent said they were aware but “unclear on the details.”
When asked about the barriers to making course content accessible, faculty members pointed to a lack of training (29 percent), lack of time (28 percent) and limited knowledge of available tools (27 percent) as the primary obstacles.
A lack of awareness among faculty members can hinder student use of supports as well. A 2023 survey found that only about half of college students are aware of accessibility and disability services, though 96 percent of college staff members said the resources are available.
In Anthology’s survey, 17 percent of instructors said they were unaware of what tools their institution provides to help students access coursework in different formats, and 30 percent said they were aware but didn’t share information with students.
Less experienced faculty members were more likely to say they haven’t considered accessibility or were unaware of ADA requirements; one-third of respondents with fewer than two years of teaching experience indicated they rarely or never consider accessibility when creating materials.
One in four faculty members indicated more training on best practices would help them make their digital content more accessible, as would having the time to update and review course materials.
Improving accessibility: Some colleges and universities are taking action to empower faculty members to increase accessibility in the classroom and beyond.
The University of North Dakota in spring 2023 created an assistive technology lab, which trains faculty and staff members to make course resources accessible. The lab, led by the university’s Teaching Transformation and Development Academy, offers access to tech tools such as Adobe Acrobat Pro and the screen-reader software Job Access with Speech, for course content development. Lab staff also teach universal design principles and conduct course reviews, as needed.
The State University of New York system created the SUNY Accessibility Advocates and Allies Faculty Fellowship program in January, designating 11 fellows from across the system to expand digital accessibility and universal design for learning practices at system colleges. Fellows will explore strategies to build a culture of access, share expertise and experience, connect with communities of practice, and design a plan to engage their campus community, among other responsibilities.
The University of Iowa built a new digital hub for accessibility-related resources and information, providing a one-stop shop for campus members looking for support. The university is also soliciting questions from users to build out a regularly updated FAQ section of the website. Iowa has a designated Accessibility Task Force with 10 subcommittees that address various applications of accessibility needs, including within athletics, communication, health care, student life and teaching.
Colorado State University has taken several steps to improve community compliance for accessibility, including offering free access to Siteimprove, a web-accessibility assessment tool that helps website developers and content managers meet accessibility standards and improve digital user experience. Siteimprove offers training resources to keep users engaged in best practices, as well as templates for creating content, according to CSU’s website. The university also has an accessibility framework to help faculty members bring electronic materials into compliance.
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Your students are already running to AI for answers. The only question is — what’s it saying about your institution? More importantly, are you in the conversation or being left out? If you’re not actively shaping how your school shows up in AI-driven search and decision-making platforms, you’re not just invisible — you’re irrelevant.
Digital Darwinism in Higher Ed: Adapt Your Marketing for AI — or Get Left Behind Date: May 29, 2025 Time: 2:00 p.m. ET / 1:00 p.m. CT
In this webinar, Collegis Education’s Ashley Nicklay, Sr. Director of Marketing, and Jessica Summers, Director of Web Strategy, will unpack what “AI-ready” really means for higher ed marketing and enrollment leaders.We’ll explore how generative AI influences the student journey from search to selection, why most websites and content strategies are falling short, and what forward-thinking institutions are doing to lead the algorithm, rather than get buried by it.
This isn’t just about better SEO or smarter ads. It’s about understanding how AI evaluates your institution — and making sure you’re feeding it the right data, signals, and story to stay in the game.
What You’ll Learn
How AI impacts the early stages of the enrollment journey: Understand how tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews influence what students see when exploring colleges.
Why AI prompt bias is real — and how to beat it: Learn how content, structured data and reputation shape AI responses.
What AI actually sees when it looks at your website (and what it may miss): Explore how site structure, clarity and technical markup shape what AI-based tools can find and summarize – and what they may overlook.
What it really means to have an AI-optimized website: We’ll show you our checklist of what your .edu needs to show up in AI-generated answers.
How to future-proof your marketing model in an AI-driven search landscape: Assess your current channels and content strategy for resilience as search becomes more conversational and less click-based.
Future-Ready Starts Here: Secure Your Spot
The institutions that will thrive tomorrow are learning how to market to machines today.Reserve your seat and find out what it takes to survive the AI era of higher ed marketing.
Complete the form on the right to reserve your spot.
Finding accurate information has long been a cornerstone skill of librarianship and classroom research instruction. When cleaning up some materials on a backup drive, I came across an article I wrote for the September/October 1997 issue of Book Report, a journal directed to secondary school librarians. A generation ago, “asking the librarian” was a typical and often necessary part of a student’s research process. The digital tide has swept in new tools, habits, and expectations. Today’s students rarely line up at the reference desk. Instead, they consult their phones, generative AI bots, and smart search engines that promise answers in seconds. However, educators still need to teach students the ability to be critical consumers of information, whether produced by humans or generated by AI tools.
Teachers haven’t stopped assigning projects on wolves, genetic engineering, drug abuse, or the Harlem Renaissance, but the way students approach those assignments has changed dramatically. They no longer just “surf the web.” Now, they engage with systems that summarize, synthesize, and even generate research responses in real time.
In 1997, a keyword search might yield a quirky mix of werewolves, punk bands, and obscure town names alongside academic content. Today, a student may receive a paragraph-long summary, complete with citations, created by a generative AI tool trained on billions of documents. To an eighth grader, if the answer looks polished and is labeled “AI-generated,” it must be true. Students must be taught how AI can hallucinate or simply be wrong at times.
This presents new challenges, and opportunities, for K-12 educators and librarians in helping students evaluate the validity, purpose, and ethics of the information they encounter. The stakes are higher. The tools are smarter. The educator’s role is more important than ever.
Teaching the new core four
To help students become critical consumers of information, educators must still emphasize four essential evaluative criteria, but these must now be framed in the context of AI-generated content and advanced search systems.
1. The purpose of the information (and the algorithm behind it)
Students must learn to question not just why a source was created, but why it was shown to them. Is the site, snippet, or AI summary trying to inform, sell, persuade, or entertain? Was it prioritized by an algorithm tuned for clicks or accuracy?
A modern extension of this conversation includes:
Was the response written or summarized by a generative AI tool?
Was the site boosted due to paid promotion or engagement metrics?
Does the tool used (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google’s Gemini) cite sources, and can those be verified?
Understanding both the purpose of the content and the function of the tool retrieving it is now a dual responsibility.
2. The credibility of the author (and the credibility of the model)
Students still need to ask: Who created this content? Are they an expert? Do they cite reliable sources? They must also ask:
Is this original content or AI-generated text?
If it’s from an AI, what sources was it trained on?
What biases may be embedded in the model itself?
Today’s research often begins with a chatbot that cannot cite its sources or verify the truth of its outputs. That makes teaching students to trace information to original sources even more essential.
3. The currency of the information (and its training data)
Students still need to check when something was written or last updated. However, in the AI era, students must understand the cutoff dates of training datasets and whether search tools are connected to real-time information. For example:
ChatGPT’s free version (as of early 2025) may only contain information up to mid-2023.
A deep search tool might include academic preprints from 2024, but not peer-reviewed journal articles published yesterday.
Most tools do not include digitized historical data that is still in manuscript form. It is available in a digital format, but potentially not yet fully useful data.
This time gap matters, especially for fast-changing topics like public health, technology, or current events.
4. The wording and framing of results
The title of a website or academic article still matters, but now we must attend to the framing of AI summaries and search result snippets. Are search terms being refined, biased, or manipulated by algorithms to match popular phrasing? Is an AI paraphrasing a source in a way that distorts its meaning? Students must be taught to:
Compare summaries to full texts
Use advanced search features to control for relevance
Recognize tone, bias, and framing in both AI-generated and human-authored materials
Beyond the internet: Print, databases, and librarians still matter
It is more tempting than ever to rely solely on the internet, or now, on an AI chatbot, for answers. Just as in 1997, the best sources are not always the fastest or easiest to use.
Finding the capital of India on ChatGPT may feel efficient, but cross-checking it in an almanac or reliable encyclopedia reinforces source triangulation. Similarly, viewing a photo of the first atomic bomb on a curated database like the National Archives provides more reliable context than pulling it from a random search result. With deepfake photographs proliferating the internet, using a reputable image data base is essential, and students must be taught how and where to find such resources.
Additionally, teachers can encourage students to seek balance by using:
Print sources
Subscription-based academic databases
Digital repositories curated by librarians
Expert-verified AI research assistants like Elicit or Consensus
One effective strategy is the continued use of research pathfinders that list sources across multiple formats: books, journals, curated websites, and trusted AI tools. Encouraging assignments that require diverse sources and source types helps to build research resilience.
Internet-only assignments: Still a trap
Then as now, it’s unwise to require students to use only specific sources, or only generative AI, for research. A well-rounded approach promotes information gathering from all potentially useful and reliable sources, as well as information fluency.
Students must be taught to move beyond the first AI response or web result, so they build the essential skills in:
Deep reading
Source evaluation
Contextual comparison
Critical synthesis
Teachers should avoid giving assignments that limit students to a single source type, especially AI. Instead, they should prompt students to explain why they selected a particular source, how they verified its claims, and what alternative viewpoints they encountered.
Ethical AI use and academic integrity
Generative AI tools introduce powerful possibilities including significant reductions, as well as a new frontier of plagiarism and uncritical thinking. If a student submits a summary produced by ChatGPT without review or citation, have they truly learned anything? Do they even understand the content?
To combat this, schools must:
Update academic integrity policies to address the use of generative AI including clear direction to students as to when and when not to use such tools.
Teach citation standards for AI-generated content
Encourage original analysis and synthesis, not just copying and pasting answers
A responsible prompt might be: “Use a generative AI tool to locate sources, but summarize their arguments in your own words, and cite them directly.”
In closing: The librarian’s role is more critical than ever
Today’s information landscape is more complex and powerful than ever, but more prone to automation errors, biases, and superficiality. Students need more than access; they need guidance. That is where the school librarian, media specialist, and digitally literate teacher must collaborate to ensure students are fully prepared for our data-rich world.
While the tools have evolved, from card catalogs to Google searches to AI copilots, the fundamental need remains to teach students to ask good questions, evaluate what they find, and think deeply about what they believe. Some things haven’t changed–just like in 1997, the best advice to conclude a lesson on research remains, “And if you need help, ask a librarian.”
Dr. Steve Baule is a faculty member at Winona State University (WSU), where he teaches in the Leadership Education Department. Prior to joining WSU, Baule spent 28 years in K-12 school systems in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, and two years teaching in the University of Wisconsin System. For the 13 years prior to moving to the university level, Baule served as a public -school superintendent. He has written 10 books on a variety of educational and historical topics and has served on the editorial boards for two journals. Baule earned an advanced diversity and equity certificate while in the UW system. He holds a doctorate in instructional technology from Northern Illinois University and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy studies from Loyola University Chicago.
Baule’s scholarly interests focus on online student engagement, educational technology– particularly the impact of 1:1 implementations, social-emotional learning, and the history of education. Baule led several efforts to improve student emotional health and reduce discipline issues prior to moving into higher education. He also writes on aspects of early American history.
Baule has held memberships in the American Association of School Administrators, the American Library Association, the American Association of School Librarians, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the Consortium for School Networking, the International Association of School Librarians, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Staff Development Council, and many of their state affiliates. He has served as a consultant in the areas of educational technology, facilities design, library program development, team building, and communications.
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The way higher institutions define and acknowledge student success in higher education today is changing rapidly. Today, diplomas and transcripts are no longer the benchmarks for measuring the success rate of students in their academics. To define success, you have to consider a complete and holistic journey and vision. Factors like the student’s academic excellence, mental and physical growth, and preparation for what comes next are increasingly becoming key to defining academic success. This is why universities are looking beyond enrolment figures, they are now more focused on helping their students thrive academically, socially, and professionally.
This brings us to the role of modern digital marketing tactics and advanced CRM tools. Colleges can create an environment that supports every student with the right resources they need to succeed, using the data-driven outreach and personalized support that these tools offer. In this blog post, we’ll explore the true meaning of student success and what key metrics are best placed to measure student success in higher education. We’ll also show you how marketing automation and CRM platforms (including HEM’s own Mautic for Education and Student Portal) can help drive real student achievement. Read on to find out what strategies and tools are best suited to define modern student success.
Looking for an all-in-one student information and CRM solution tailored to the education sector?
Try the HEM Student Portal!
Redefining Student Success Metrics in Higher Education: Beyond GPAs and Graduation Rates
Who you ask about the definition of academic success will also determine the type of answer you get. Administrators might lean towards metrics and retention rates. Students tend to have a more personal definition of success, like having supportive mentors, developing confidence, and building lasting connections.
This brings us to the question: What is the definition of student success? The definition of student success encompasses building communication skills and critical thinking activities, career or grad school readiness. In essence, a successful student grows through campus life, engages with the community, and adequately prepares themself for future opportunities.
Below are components of a comprehensive student success definition:
Academic Achievement: Mastering course material and maintaining strong GPAs
Persistence and Retention: Continuing enrolment term after term until graduation
Personal Development: Cultivating critical thinking, communication skills, and emotional intelligence
Engagement and Belonging: Finding community through meaningful campus involvement
Career Readiness: Building the confidence and skills needed for post-graduation success
As EDUCAUSE, a prominent education technology organization, points out, student success programs “promote student engagement, learning, and progress toward the student’s own goals through cross-functional leadership and the strategic application of technology.” This reaffirms the fact that true success calls for a harmonious relationship between human connection and technology.
Measuring What Matters: The Metrics of Achievement
How do we truly and correctly measure student success if we say that there are many sides to it? What is the definition of a successful student, and how to measure student success in higher education? While this question has intrigued higher educational professionals for decades, today’s schools are finding the right answers by combining traditional metrics and emerging indicators.
Traditional measurements include retention rates (are students returning each semester?), graduation rates (are they completing their degrees?), and academic performance (are they mastering the material?).
Now, these numbers matter. They help us tell to a reasonable degree if students are progressing toward their educational goals, or not. However, there’s a richer story to be told beyond these statistics, and you’ll learn about it shortly.
Student success metrics commonly include:
Retention Rates: The percentage of students who return for subsequent terms
Graduation Rates: How many students complete their degrees within expected timeframes
Academic Performance: Beyond grades—how students grow intellectually over time
Student Engagement: Participation in everything from research opportunities to campus events
Student Satisfaction: Feedback that reveals how students experience their education
Post-Graduation Outcomes: Career placement, graduate school acceptance, and alumni achievements
Away from these quantifiable measures, today’s schools value the essence of student-defined success. For them, it could be a first-generation student finding their voice, an international student building cross-cultural friendships, or a working parent balancing studies with family life. The schools that manage to combine statistical trends with individual stories will ultimately get the most complete picture of things.
Examples: ULM developed FlightPath, an open-source advising system for degree audits, early alerts, and “What If?” planning. It is designed to help you determine your progress toward a degree.
What do marketing strategies have to do with student success? What does digital marketing contribute to student success? Higher education marketing and student success are interconnected through a series of key touchpoints.
The path to college student success often begins with that first Instagram post that catches a high school junior’s eye or that personalized email that addresses their specific interests. It is all part of the coordinated digital marketing campaigns that today’s schools employ, to great success.
Attracting the right-fit students: When marketing materials paint an authentic picture of campus culture, incoming students arrive with realistic expectations and are more ready to engage.
Personalized communication: Tailored messages that speak to individual aspirations create early connections. When a prospective engineering student receives content about robotics competitions or research labs, they begin envisioning their place in your community.
Seamless onboarding: The summer before freshman year can be overwhelming. Automated campaigns that introduce new students to campus resources, share advice from current students, and foster peer connections help transform nervousness into excitement.
Feedback loops: Savvy marketing teams don’t just broadcast – they listen. Social media monitoring and regular surveys help identify pain points before they become barriers to success.
Examples: Gonzaga’s English Language Center moved from siloed data to a Student Success CRM on Salesforce, improving collaboration and early-alert capabilities for ESL learners.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are now important tools for tracking and supporting the student journey, especially in today’s data-driven world. These platforms present themselves as centralized hubs that help schools track student progress, identify potential challenges, and carry out timely interventions.
Colleges can transform how they engage with students at every stage using the right CRM. Take this scenario for example: A first-year student misses out on many classes and fails to log into the learning management system for two weeks. While this might have gone on without being detected in the past, probably until midterm grades showed a significant gap, not anymore. With a CRM, a trigger will set off based on this pattern and send automatic alerts to the students’ advisor, who can now contact support resources to arrest the decline before it further spirals.
Example: King’s College uses CRM Advise to flag risk factors, like missed classes, and automatically route alerts to advisors and support centers.
Here are six ways CRM tools elevate student success in higher education:
Centralizing the 360° Student View: Modern CRMs integrate data from admissions, advising, financial aid, and student life to create comprehensive student profiles. When an advisor can see that a struggling student is also working 30 hours weekly, they can provide more targeted support.
Enabling Early Alerts: By analyzing patterns like missed assignments or decreased LMS activity, CRMs can identify at-risk students before a crisis develops.
Automating Support Workflows: Smart CRMs ensure consistent communication throughout the student journey. From congratulatory messages when students ace exams to gentle nudges when they miss classes, automated workflows maintain continuous engagement without overwhelming staff.
Providing Data-driven Insights: Institutions can analyze which interventions are best-suited to promote student success, using comprehensive data collection.
Streamlining Administrative Processes: By simplifying registration, financial aid processes, and advising appointments, CRMs eliminate frustrating barriers that might otherwise derail student progress.
Promoting Community: Many platforms include features that connect students with mentors, study groups, and support communities. These all help to nurture the sense of belonging that anchors students during challenging times.
With solutions like Mautic by HEM, schools can enjoy robust CRM and marketing automation tailored specifically for them. The platform provides a central hub where you can manage all of your leads, applicants, agents, and parent contacts, enabling personalized support throughout the student lifecycle.
Example: Michael Vincent Academy, a Los Angeles-based beauty school, sought to enhance its student recruitment efficiency by streamlining lead management and follow-up processes. With HEM’s Mautic CRM, the academy automated key marketing tasks and introduced lead scoring, enabling staff to focus on high-value prospects. This allowed the team to dedicate more time to building meaningful connections with prospective students, ultimately improving recruitment outcomes.
Source: HEM
HEM’s Student Portal combines online application creation and management, SIS functionality, and lead-nurturing tools in one centralized system. As a student, this is designed to help you manage your journey – from initial application to enrolment to graduation and beyond.
As a school, using these specialized tools can help you address your institution’s unique needs and leverage the capacity of generic CRMs.
Source: HEM
Example: Students at Western Michigan University (WMU) use the Student Success Hub’s CRM to schedule and manage appointments, review advising notes, work on success plans, and tasks.
One of the key ingredients of college student success is the use of structured programming that helps students navigate important stages of their academic journey. Many schools have found value in offering a student success class or course, such as a freshman seminar or “College 101” course that equips students with essential skills and connections.
What is a student success class in college? It’s a course designed to help students be successful in college. It aims to help students properly navigate both academic requirements and college culture. Here is a list of subjects that these classes typically cover:
Effective study strategies tailored to college-level expectations
Time management techniques for balancing academic and personal demands
Campus resource navigation, introducing students to everything from tutoring to counselling
Financial literacy skills to manage college costs
Stress management and wellness practices
Career exploration and professional development
Research continues to show that the students who complete these courses earn more credits and have a higher graduation rate than those who don’t participate.
The Power of Storytelling in Student Success Marketing
By channelling authentic storytelling into their marketing narratives, schools can connect with prospective and current students. Stories have a way of transforming abstract content as “retention initiatives” into relatable human experiences that inspire action.
What if you created a series featuring diverse student voices? Think of the impact it can have. Think of first-generation students who initially had doubts about themselves but connected with mentors who had faith in them, the transfer student who found unexpected opportunities, or the international student who calls the school home.
Not only do these narratives attract prospective students, but they remind the current ones that challenges are not special and that success is very much achievable.
Tips to Boost Student Success with Marketing and CRM
Institutions looking to take advantage of digital marketing and CRM tools more effectively should consider these practical strategies.
Use Data to Personalize Outreach: Segment your communications based on student interests, challenges, and milestones to provide relevant support throughout their journey.
Implement Early Alert Systems: Configure your CRM to identify warning signs like decreased engagement or academic struggles, enabling timely, personalized interventions.
Integrate Your Systems: Ensure your marketing automation, CRM, and student information systems communicate seamlessly for a complete view of each student’s experience.
Maintain Consistent Communication: Develop messaging flows that accompany students from prospective inquiry through graduation while remaining authentic and supportive.
Leverage Student Feedback for Content: Gather testimonials and success stories that inspire current students and set realistic expectations for prospects.
Train Your Team on Tools: Invest in comprehensive training so everyone, from admissions counselors to faculty advisors, can effectively use your CRM to support student success.
Example:GSU’s Student Success 2.0 initiative includes implementing an enterprise CRM for a unified student record and early-alert triggers to boost retention by up to 1.2 % annually, with the National Institute for Student Success (NISS) also set up to that effect.
Creating a Culture of Success: A Holistic Approach
The most effective approach to student success blends marketing insights, CRM capabilities, and human connections in one big package. With these elements working in harmony, institutions can create environments where students from all backgrounds can thrive.
Remember that behind every data point is a student with dreams, challenges, and unlimited potential. When you align marketing, technology, and support programs around a student-centred vision of success, you can get positive outcomes in return. We don’t just improve statistics, we transform lives and fulfill higher education’s fundamental promise.
Looking for an all-in-one student information and CRM solution tailored to the education sector?
Try the HEM Student Portal!
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is the definition of student success?
Answer: The definition of student success encompasses building communication skills and critical thinking activities, career or grad school readiness.
Question: How to measure student success in higher education?
Answer: While this question has intrigued higher educational professionals for decades, today’s schools are finding the right answers by combining traditional metrics and emerging indicators.
Question: What is a student success class in college?
Answer: It’s a course designed to help students be successful in college. It aims to help students properly navigate both academic requirements and college culture.
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