Surveys can be a powerful tool for improving workplace culture and employee satisfaction, but they can have unintended consequences if no action planning follows. In fact, the lack of tangible — and rapid — action planning often lead to a cycle of employee disengagement and eroded trust, which results in fewer employees taking future surveys, and ultimately weakens their effectiveness overall.
But getting surveys right is possible. By implementing targeted surveys and following up with action planning, higher ed workplaces can earn a reputation for valuing employee insights. CUPA-HR’s recent webinar Turning Insights Into Action: Designing and Implementing Impactful Employee Climate/Engagement Surveys explains how to build, or regain, employee trust and confidence in surveys, increase response rates, and create a campus culture in which employees’ perspectives are prized.
Ask These Two Questions First
Before launching a survey, ask these critical questions: Does our institution need a survey? And, if the answer is yes, does our institution have the resources to act on the survey results?
Without a solid “yes” to both questions, consider pausing survey efforts. It’s better not to conduct a survey at all than to conduct one and not follow it with action planning.
Surveys should also focus on clear objectives, addressing one to three specific topics in depth. They should be topics the institution is ready to act promptly on once the survey is concluded. It’s also best to avoid questions with predictable answers. For example, you may already know that employees want parking that’s both closer and less expensive. Asking more refined or open-ended questions might lead to actionable results. In the case of employee satisfaction around parking, the right question might reveal that safety is a primary concern, something that can be addressed by installing more lighting in lots or strengthening security for employees using parking garages after dark.
Increase Response Rates by Building Trust
Effectively communicating the survey rollout and offering incentives can boost completion rates, but responses are ultimately determined by the trust employees have in your institution and the survey process itself.
Make it anonymous. Clearly communicate how the survey will be kept anonymous and confidential. This is especially important for open-ended or text-based responses. If you’re not using an outside vendor, consider adding a survey analyst to your committee — you probably already have employees with these skills.
Know that timing is everything. The survey should be sent out at the right time to avoid clashing with other surveys and to steer clear of any big campus plans or events that might skew results (for example, a recently announced capital project like a new stadium). A timely response from leadership is key, as are timelines in action planning. Any follow-up items should have target completion dates.
Be clear on when and how employees will see the results. Don’t wait for a grand reveal when action items have been completed. This might take months, long after employees remember how they’ve answered survey questions. Instead, publicize the survey results as soon as possible and begin listening sessions to both refine results and include departments and divisions in planning.
Build in accessibility and offer time to complete it. Consider if you need to translate the survey into multiple languages or if employees working outside of an office might benefit from a hard copy. Encourage supervisors to offer incentives like an early departure after completing the survey and ask them to send calendar invites to block off time for completion.
Take Action. This is by far the most important way to build trust. The webinar offers concrete processes for building and planning a survey, impact planning (including templates to send to campus leadership for quarterly tracking), ideas for holding listening sessions, and proven employee engagement strategies.
Discover More Resources for Data-Informed Decisions
Course withdrawals carry significant academic and financial consequences for students and universities. Studies consistently demonstrate that withdrawing from first-year courses can greatly increase a student’s risk of discontinuing their studies, reducing their likelihood of completing a degree (Akos & James, 2020).
TORONTO – October 22, 2024 – Top Hat, a leading provider of student engagement solutions for higher education, has released the first significant finding in an ongoing research initiative with Indiana University exploring the impact of student engagement leveraging Top Hat on retention and academic outcomes. The study, involving an analysis of hundreds of courses from the Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters of 2023, observed that the use of Top Hat by instructors resulted in an 11.5 percent decrease in the mean student withdrawal rate compared to similar course types without using the platform. In absolute numbers, this would equate to approximately 289 of the sampled Indiana University students continuing their course work during the 2023 academic year. The findings highlight the positive impact of integrating Top Hat into course delivery on student retention, particularly in introductory courses that often have higher drop-out rates.
The Top Hat platform empowers educators to use frequent low stakes assessments to increase student engagement during lectures through interactive polls, quizzes, and discussions. The use of frequent low stakes assessments have been shown to improve student confidence, academic outcomes and retention (Meer & Chapman, 2014). The principles of active learning can also be extended outside of class through Top Hat Pages, a content editing and personalization tool that enables instructors to create or customize their own interactive learning materials. Every interaction is captured by the platform, providing students with real-time feedback, while empowering faculty with data-driven insights they can use to identify struggling students and improve the impact of their instruction.
“Indiana University is deeply committed to the success of our students, and the findings from this research demonstrate how the thoughtful integration of instructional technologies has contributed to strengthening our undergraduate retention,” said Gina Londino-Smolar, Ed.D., Teaching Professor at IU Indianapolis. “Implementing active learning and frequent assessment, which have been shown to improve student outcomes, has been an important focus for us and our partnership with Top Hat has been instrumental in enabling us to scale these practices across our institution, ensuring a consistent, high quality learning experience for our students.”
The study’s primary objective is to evaluate the influence of Top Hat on various student outcomes, with an initial focus on withdrawal rates—a key indicator of student success. The collaborative research project, approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), involved analyzing data from thousands of individual courses. From the original large dataset, similar courses based on discipline and level were identified in order to equalize the sample size and undertake a more accurate analysis. After filtering the dataset, 235 unique Top Hat courses were compared against a similar set of 235 unique courses that did not use Top Hat.
Indiana University began working with Top Hat in 2017 and, based on high rates of faculty adoption, made the decision to offer the platform free of charge to all students by entering into an enterprise license agreement the following year. By addressing concerns around equity, student affordability and ensuring compliance with respect to data privacy and standards for web accessibility, adoption has increased substantially. For the 2023/2024 academic year 1,022 faculty and 51,679 students across more than 1,900 individual courses from all nine IU campuses used Top Hat to enhance learning.
“This study reinforces the importance of providing faculty with tools that make evidence-based practices, like active learning, easier to adopt,” said Maggie Leen, CEO of Top Hat. “The data speaks for itself—when instructors have access to the tools to support effective teaching methods, it can lead to stronger student engagement and higher persistence. We’re proud to be part of Indiana University’s efforts to increase on-time graduation rates for their students.”
The 2030 IU Strategic Plan has one pillar dedicated to Student Success and Opportunity with a commitment to student affordability and experience throughout their educational journey to have success in the workplace and beyond. The incorporation of Top Hat to engage students with the course content, reducing withdrawal rates, can be seen as a direct contribution to the pillar for student success.
Since its founding in 2009, Top Hat has continued to introduce new features to make proven teaching methods more accessible to instructors. Most recently, Top Hat announced the release of Ace, an AI-powered teaching and learning assistant that enables instructors to generate assessment questions and discussion prompts based on their lecture slides and course materials. As a personalized study assistant, Ace allows students to break down challenging concepts, find guidance tackling difficult homework assignments, and create on-demand practice questions they can use to prepare for high stakes assessments.
The initial findings will inform both Indiana University and Top Hat’s future strategies for enhancing student outcomes. The research initiative is currently focused on identifying patterns of usage by instructors across disciplines and their impact on student engagement and academic performance. Ongoing analysis is exploring the impact of Top Hat on the academic experience of various student populations, including historically underrepresented groups with a focus on how the platform supports equitable access to learning, improves engagement, and contributes to closing achievement gaps.
About Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is one of the nation’s leading public research universities, with 90,000 students across 930+ academic programs, seven campuses, two regional academic centers and nine School of Medicine campuses. Since 1820, Indiana University has helped students create brighter futures while also driving innovation, from breakthroughs in DNA technology to cancer research to trailblazing cultural programs and resources. IU is home to world-class academics with the country’s largest medical school, the world’s first school of philanthropy, the top-ranked Kelley School of Business and O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, the nation’s first school of informatics. The university’s campuses are united by IU 2030, an aspirational vision for a bold and ambitious future focused on student success and opportunity, transformative research and creativity, and service to the state of Indiana and beyond. Learn more at iu.edu.
About Top Hat
As the leader in student engagement solutions for higher education, Top Hat enables educators to employ proven student-centered teaching practices through interactive content and tools enhanced by AI, and activities in in-person, online and hybrid classroom environments. To accelerate student impact and return on investment, the company provides a range of change management services, including faculty training and instructional design support, integration and data management services, and digital content customization. Thousands of faculty at 750 leading North American colleges and universities use Top Hat to create meaningful, engaging and accessible learning experiences for students before, during, and after class.
Principals are facing challenges each day toward improving student achievement on campus. Every principal face some of the biggest frustrations to control student behavior, recruiting teachers and staff, promoting personalized learning, improving teaching effectiveness, student retention, parent support, and more.
Technology integration translates into enhanced student achievement
21st-century classrooms strengthen tech-savvy teachers with the most advanced cloud, mobile, and digital technologies to teach and interact with students using videos, chat, notifications, social media, and email messaging. Creating future-ready classrooms and higher education institutions with the use of cutting-edge augmented reality systems in the classroom can enrich the learning process and improve student achievement.
Principals are faced with complex and difficult challenges to turn around the campus with academic underperformance. Here is a list of the top 10 challenges and successful strategies to promote student growth and success.
1. Paperwork
Paperwork and forms are one of the biggest frustrations of principals. Eliminate paperwork and automate data collection processes through online forms and applications for admission, course evaluations, and more to reach out to more students in a positive manner.
2. Decision-making
Principals’ decisions and strategies are critically important to institutional performance. They are accountable for high levels of student achievement. In order to accomplish the high expectations, administrators have to analyze data through dashboards and reports to identify factors related to student enrollment, retention, and success. There is clear evidence through insightful reports that the attributes of the institution such as admission, enrollment, attendance, discipline, grades, fee collections, etc. determined those outcomes.
3. Scheduling
Classroom teachers, staff, and students report scheduling problems with principals. Cognitive reframing of scheduling with an automated timetable system enables instructors to manage class schedules across multiple courses, faculty and rooms for different time periods. Innovative scheduling can help alleviate conflicts in manual scheduling and place substitutes for teachers in order to maintain continuity of instruction.
4. Recruitment
Recruiting competent teachers who are capable of teaching all student populations is at the core of the problem. In successful institutions creating an advanced student admission system with real-time application tracking, online assessments, and an automated ranking system always identified the talented and sensitive teachers who demonstrated competency, will, and commitment to implement innovative and high-quality education programs and deliver excellence for all learners.
5. Faculty Evaluation
Teachers are vulnerable individuals who are struggling to align instruction and assessments to the learning context of a diverse student population. Creating instructions in innovative ways and building flexibility in the curriculum will be easier for students to rest with the teacher. Using a faculty evaluation system, creating faculty peer evaluation reviews through online surveys will benchmark teaching effectiveness. Based on the evaluation feedback score, training and improvement action plan for the benefit of faculty can be chalked out to improve teaching performance and cohesiveness.
6. Attendance & Discipline
Principals perceive student absenteeism and misconduct are a major concern. Educational institutions can improve class attendance and improve students’ poor academic records using RFID and Biometric based attendance tracking systems to monitor student movements in real-time. Maintaining order and discipline and controlling violence, vandalism, bullying, racism, etc. in the campus using sophisticated discipline trackers that will capture incidents from mobile devices and notify authorities in real-time and ensure student safety.
7. Curriculum Design
Principals are faced with the critical task of teaching a curriculum that is comprehensive and more encompassing. Curriculum mapping software provides the technology tools for executing changes in the curriculum design and syllabus. Principals and teachers can create customized outcome-based education that will map competencies, graduate attributes, and standards to improve learning outcomes. Students can develop skills and competencies that is aligned with course outcomes.
8. Student outcomes
One of the biggest factors that stood out is related to student achievement. Principals want to promote learning and see better student outcomes. With cutting-edge academic planning tools, administrators can create a personalized learning plan with goals and tasks linked to lessons to meet the precise requirement of students, which can improve learning outcomes and ensure student success. Using online assessments including assignments, tests, quizzes, and surveys will be of great help to students and teachers alike. Using online and mobile devices, teachers can measure students’ progress in real-time and share the results with parents through instant notifications via email and SMS alerts.
9. Parental Involvement
One of the biggest frustration faced by principals is that parental involvement is lacking to support the institution’s effort toward improving student achievement. Parents also have to take joint responsibility for the poor grade of their children. Using real-time status notifications for events, meetings, grades, fee collection, attendance, and discipline via web and mobile devices can improve interactions between teachers and parents and close the achievement gap.
10. Communication & Collaboration
Principals and staff spend so much energy on building relationships with students, teachers, and staff. Powerful communication tools like discussion forums, chat, messaging and social media will have a positive impact on the institute community and promote collaborative learning.
Hello Deans, you are crucial in determining how education will develop in the future because you are the designers of your higher ed’s academic vision. Building successful learning environments where faculty and students flourish depends on your leadership. We’ll look at the role of dean in higher education and how deans can foster innovation in higher education institutions, and their creative approaches in this blog that can improve instruction and student participation, turning your classrooms into places where learning happens and ideas are generated.
We’ll also demonstrate how the Creatrix suite can help you at every stage and provide you with the resources you need to have a significant, long-lasting influence. Let’s get started and support your academic community in realizing its greatest potential!
The Role of Dean in Higher Education – Understanding the Dean’s Influence on a Campus
With your influence over all facets of your institution’s learning environment, deans are the beating heart of academic leadership. Your influence greatly influences student outcomes, research, and teaching in addition to administrative tasks. Here is the common role of dean in higher education that demonstrates your impact:
Decide on the priorities and institutional culture.
Take the lead in implementing cutting-edge instructional strategies and technological advancements.
Make certain that the courses adhere to the most recent developments in education.
Motivate and assist educators in investigating novel teaching strategies.
Promote initiatives that increase student involvement and academic performance to increase student engagement.
Faculty and students can flourish in a dynamic learning environment when your vision serves as the cornerstone for educational excellence.
You take the initiative to implement tactics that raise student retention and success and involvement while fostering engaging learning environments.
What’s Working Globally: 8 Proven Strategies for Deans to Elevate Teaching & Engagement
While researching how deans can foster innovation in higher education institutions we arrived at a stunning analysis; we discovered how effectively leading deans from all around the world are changing education by pushing the envelope and implementing cutting-edge tactics. And we have documented on what’s working with them and the reasons these strategies are spreading throughout institutions worldwide for you to help you better!
1. Synergy across disciplines
The most progressive deans of today are bringing students from various disciplines together to work together on real-world issues. Students studying business and engineering at the University of Michigan collaborated to develop ground-breaking solutions that enhanced critical thinking and teamwork, an approach that is quickly becoming recognized as a hallmark of academic innovation.
2. Using Technology to Accelerate Learning
Deans from the best universities across the globe are utilizing technology to transform education, from virtual reality to AI-driven tools. We figured out that Virtual reality (VR) and Gamified Learning were implemented at Stanford University recently! The main intention behind these initiatives was to enhance student engagement and understanding in subjects like anatomy and architecture! These technologies indeed allow students to study complex subjects in immersive and interactive ways.
3. Investing in Faculty Development as a Strategic Move
Giving professors the freedom to take the lead in innovation is crucial in the rapidly evolving field of education. At UC Berkeley, deans arranged workshops on active learning strategies, equipping teachers with the means to design more engaging, student-focused classrooms and demonstrating how supportive faculty members contribute to student retention and success.
4. Innovation through research and experimentation
It is also surprising to witness institutions such as Arizona State University provide faculty with resources to experiment with cutting-edge curricula. This is so welcoming indeed. By funding experiential learning projects, deans and decision-makers enable educators to test new models of teaching, and curriculum mapping, resulting in programs that increase student engagement and academic achievement.
5. Change-Driven Loops of Student Feedback
The next best strategy we figured out was that the academic institutions globally are utilizing student feedback to enhance their pedagogical approaches. They throng on 360-degree courses and faculty evaluation tools to listen out students’ opinions for improvement. It has been demonstrated that listening to students can significantly improve the learning experience. Georgia State University’s “Student Engagement Surveys” revealed insightful feedback that resulted in significant improvements in course delivery.
6. Real-World Partnerships for Experiential Learning
Another surprising discovery was this – Through partnerships with industry, top universities are witnessing a thirty percent increase in student engagement. More than 85% of participants at the University of South Florida reported feeling more prepared for the workforce as a result of the tech companies’ collaborative efforts with the university.
7. Diversity and Inclusion as Innovation Drivers.
We do not want to overlook this particular strategy! Institutions that prioritize diversity benefit from both innovation and engagement. At the University of Toronto, deans launched initiatives to bring diverse perspectives into the classroom, resulting in richer discussions, explorations, and new ideas, demonstrating that inclusive environments lead to more creative outcomes and better attainments!
8. Risk-Taking & Experiencing Safe Environments
The last thing we observed was promoting an environment where faculty and students feel comfortable taking chances to learn, adapt, grow, and shine. This strategy will for sure enable the upcoming generation of innovators to push boundaries and fail fearlessly, MIT has established “Innovation Labs,” which provide a creative environment where experimental projects flourish.
The Role of Creatrix Campus Suite in Supporting Deans
To all deans and academic leaders, managing a faculty is no small task, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With Creatrix Campus, it’s easy to foster a culture of teamwork and innovation.
Encourage a Collaborative Culture: Picture professors working together on projects and easily exchanging ideas with one another. Creatrix makes that a reality.
Way to Miss the Admin Stress: Turn in the paperwork to Creatrix so you can focus on helping students succeed—that’s what really counts.
Easy Decisions: With Creatrix’s perceptive analytics, you can easily adjust your strategies to achieve better results by identifying exactly what’s working.
Create an Engaging Learning Experience: The tools aren’t just for management; they’re here to help improve student outcomes. By streamlining how faculty teach and interact, you’ll be building a more engaging and inspiring academic environment.
Creatrix isn’t just another platform—it’s your partner in transforming the way your institution runs, making your job smoother and your faculty more effective.
Case Study: University of Otago – Empowering Deans with Creatrix Campus
But don’t just take our word for it—let’s look at a peculiar student retention and success story from an institution that embraced the Creatrix Suite.
“Creatrix’s curriculum mind mapping based on learning outcomes, competency standards, and graduate attributes is excellent.” — Stephen Duffull, Dean School of Pharmacy, University of Otago
Client Overview
The University of Otago, one of New Zealand’s leading institutions and ranked in the top 1% globally, was looking to innovate its academic management systems to support its pharmacy school. Faced with the complexities of curriculum management, EPA tracking, and faculty workload, they needed a solution that could streamline their academic processes.
Key Challenges
Otago’s Pharmacy Department was juggling:
Complex curriculum mapping: Multiple layers such as LOs, SLOs, EPAs, competency frameworks, and professional standards were difficult to manage manually.
EPA tracking and rotational planning: Managing placements across five hubs required a detailed, integrated system.
Timetabling inefficiencies: Manual scheduling for courses, faculty, rooms, and teaching events slowed operations and led to conflicts.
Faculty workload management: Needed a more transparent and automated way to measure and balance faculty workload.
How Creatrix Empowered Deans
Creatrix helped Otago create a connected digital campus, where Deans like Stephen Duffull could:
Streamline curriculum mapping: A visual mind map that ties in learning outcomes, assessments, and professional competencies, making it easier for Deans to track academic progress.
Automate EPA planning: A dynamic rotational planner for EPA tracking, reducing manual work and ensuring smooth coordination across hubs.
Master Timetable Scheduler: Automated scheduling with alerts for conflicts, integrating seamlessly with Google Calendar.
Faculty Workload Management: Real-time tracking of faculty workloads, helping Deans better allocate teaching, research, and admin duties, with instant visual analysis.
Business Impact
With Creatrix, Otago saw immediate gains:
2X faster implementation times
Seamless onboarding and reduced admin overhead
Greater faculty productivity and balanced workloads
Efficient curriculum and EPA management—all under one system
Deans at Otago now had the tools to lead academic innovation, boost engagement, and drive institutional excellence.
Conclusion: Empowering Deans to Lead Innovation
We know that deans are crucial in shaping the future of higher education. Your leadership drives innovation and boosts student engagement. By exploring the Creatrix suite, you’ll discover tools that can simplify operations and enhance your institution’s academic culture. Take the next step—visit the Creatrix Campus suite of solutions and see how deans can foster innovation in higher education institutions. Let’s make a difference together!
Employers have enormous sway over employee health. That’s one of the major takeaways from the CUPA-HR webinar An Integrated Approach to Fostering Workplace Well-Being, led by Mikel LaPorte and Laura Gottlieb of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. They collected eye-opening data that helped them make the case to leadership for a mental health awareness campaign. In a Workforce Institute report they cited, employees say that managers have a greater impact on their mental health than their doctors or therapists — roughly the same impact as their spouse!
In the webinar, LaPorte and Gottlieb discussed how their robust, research-driven suite of content is helping to normalize discussions of mental health on campus. They’re even being asked to present their well-being trainings at meetings, a sign that their push for mental health awareness is resonating organically.
A One-Stop Shop for Mental Health
The awareness campaign centers on their wellness website, which acts as a one-stop shop for campus mental health. (Right now, the site is internal-facing only, but the recorded webinar has rich details and example slides.) There, they organize their podcast episodes, articles and curated content, as well as marshal all the mental health resources currently available to staff, students and faculty.
They’ve also found a way to make this initiative sustainable for HR in the long term by recruiting faculty subject matter experts to write on topics such as compassion fatigue. These experts are then interviewed on their quarterly podcast, Well-Being Wisdom. Tapping into faculty experts also ensures rigor in their sources, a significant step in getting buy-in from a population who requires well-vetted wellness practices.
Getting Organic Engagement Starts With Leaders
LaPorte and Gottlieb have faced the typical challenge when rolling out a new campaign: engagement. Email fatigue means that sending messages through this channel isn’t always effective. But they’ve started to look at ways of increasing engagement through different communication channels, often in person.
Direct outreach to team leaders is key. They regularly attend leadership meetings and ask different schools and departments to invite them in for facilitated mental health activities. (In the webinar, you can practice one of these, a brief guided meditation.) They’ve developed a leader guide and toolkit, including turnkey slides leaders can insert into decks to open or close discussions. Leaders are supplied with “can opener” discussion items, such as
“I made a difference yesterday when I…”
“Compassion is hardest when…”
“I show up every day because…”
Not only does this provide opportunities to normalize conversations around mental health, but it also strengthens relationship-building — a key metric in workplace well-being. As CUPA-HR has found, job satisfaction and well-being is the strongest predictor of retention by far for higher ed employees.
Campus leaders are now reaching out to the learning and leadership development team to request mental health activities at meetings. Some of the workshops offered include living in the age of distraction, mindful breathing techniques, and the science of happiness. For more details on UT Health San Antonio’s well-being offerings, including ways they’re revamping their program this fiscal year (think: less is more), view the recorded webinar here.
The following is an excerpt from Chris Douce’s review of my keynote “How digital engagement enhances the student experience†presented at the Higher Education Academy’s HEA 2017 Annual conference: Generation TEF.
I’ve noted that Eric said that there are social media skeptics and that social media is a subject that can be polarising. There was the suggestion that social media is all about learning, and the learning doesn’t stop when students leave the classroom. A point I noted was ‘life-long learning should be at the heart of the experience’; this is especially interesting since the life-long learning agenda within my own institution has been fundamentally impoverished due to government increases of tuition fees. It is now harder to study for an entirely different qualification, or to study a module or two with the intention of developing skills that are important in the workplace.
We were presented with a series of questions. One of them was: can social media be used for critical thinking? Perhaps it can. Information literacy is an important and necessary skill when we are faced with working out what news is fake, and what news isn’t. Other questions were: how do we use social media to build communities? Also, how do we connect to others when there’s one of ‘you’ and lots of ‘them’? In answer to ‘how’ you ‘do’ engagement through social media, I remembered that one of my colleagues, Andrew Smith gave a talk entitled ‘how our classroom has escaped’ at The Open University about how to use some social media tools (specifically Twitter) to reach out to computer networking students.
Another broad question was about digital literacy and capability. This immediately relates to another question: is there a benchmark for digital capabilities? A challenge about this perspective is one that Eric mentioned, which is: different people use social media in different ways. Another question was: how about addressing the subject of social media in staff appraisals?
A theme that appears regularly is that of employability. Perhaps lecturers should be ‘role modeling’ to students about how to use social media, since these can and do have implications for employability. Social media can be used to engage students as they become acclimatised to working within a particular institution, helping them through their first few weeks of study.
As Eric was speaking, I had my own thoughts: one way to see social media is a beginning point for further engagement with students; it can be used to expose issues and debates; it should, of course, be a beginning point and not be an end in itself. There are other issues: what are the motivations and incentives for the use of social media amongst different communities?
