Using Navigate to Support Student Success
In the summer UMaine launched Navigate, an advisor-facing platform and student-facing app geared toward student engagement and success. The implementation of Navigate is being coordinated by Kim Stewart (kimberly.stewart@maine.edu). Kim joined the OIRA team as the UMaine Navigate Coordinator in September.
The following provides some updates on our first-year implementation.
Navigate for Faculty and Staff
Workshops for faculty and staff advisors are well underway. Ten workshops have already been completed, introducing faculty and professional advisors to the basic functions of the Navigate staff platform. Many more workshops are scheduled throughout the remainder of the fall semester. Most workshops are being scheduled directly with the colleges, for specific audiences, but drop-in workshops will also be scheduled at the end of the semester and in January for faculty who are unable to attend their scheduled sessions.
In addition to an introduction to the basic functions of the platform, we have also been piloting the Progress Report and Early Alert functions of the platform with three courses. In the spring semester, we will expand this pilot to include additional courses. We will also develop policies surrounding alerts and follow up procedures.
Navigate for Students
This summer, we launched the Navigate student app at New Student Orientation. All undergraduate students have access to the app (which has both mobile and desktop versions), but the target audience for initial download was incoming first-year students. As of now, 84% of the first-year students are using the Navigate app. One of the most used features in the app is GPS coordinates tied to their class schedule so students could have walking directions to class while they were learning our campus. Other popular features include reminders of important deadlines, campus resources, and study buddies. For the full list of app features, visit the Navigate website.
Coming Spring 2020
While we started the rollout with first-year students, in the spring we will begin to market the app to all other undergraduate students when we turn on a new feature in the app: student-initiated appointment scheduling. The biggest push of the fall workshops with faculty is to have all faculty advisors set up their appointment availability in the staff platform. Once that step is complete, we will add a feature to the student app so that students can schedule advising appointments directly through the app. This will streamline the process of scheduling advising appointments for both the student and the advisor and break down barriers to advising.
Also in the spring semester, we will schedule drop-in workshops which offer a deeper dive into the functions of the staff platform. Workshop topics will include using appointment campaigns for targeted interventions, alerts and when to issue them, advisor notes: what information should and should not be included, and many more. The workshop schedule will be updated on the Navigate website.