-: Well, good morning, everyone.
Welcome to the NU Amplify 2021 event
hosted by the University of Nebraska Online
and the University of Nebraska ITS organization.
We ask attendees to mute your audio
for this portion of the presentation.
We do want this to be more of an interactive
type of workshop.
We've got a little bit of a traditional
type of presentation for you.
So if you have a question along the way,
you're welcome to use the chat feature.
And then we do plan to save some time at the end
to open it up for questions and more of a dialogue,
but if you would just remember to mute yourself for now.
We'd like to thank our event sponsors
for supporting the NU Amplify 2021 event.
And thank you for joining this year's conference.
We appreciate your feedback via the survey.
We'll have a link at the very end.
You can also go out to the NU Amplify website
and you can find this session
and there's a specific session evaluation link there.
So, thank you.
That's kinda my moderator portion.
I'm going to transition into our presentation.
So this is the Using Market Research
to Inform Program Development workshop,
and I'll have our presenters introduce themselves
in the order that we've got us on the screen there.
-: Hi everyone, my name's Jenni McKie.
I'm a Marketing Coordinator with NU Online
and part of my,
oh, sorry, go ahead Laura.
-: Go ahead and say your role.
-: Just part of my role is to do some market research stuff.
And so we'll kind of dive into what some of that looks like
during this presentation.
-: And I'm Laura Wiese,
I'm director of marketing and communication
here at NU Online.
And part of my role is to kind of be a main liaison
between our market research partners
and also work closely with campuses
on their market research needs among other things.
-: I'm Alyssa Wyant,
I am the Associate Director for E-Campus
such as our online unit at UNK.
My role is kind of what Laura mentioned,
is the campus liaison.
So looking at program demand
and kind of translating that data
and how it works within our university.
-: Hi everyone, I'm Alex Zatizabal Boryca,
I am at the Omaha campus, University of Nebraska, Omaha.
And I am the Assistant Director of Digital Learning,
which means I work with our online faculty,
our online students and we help create these new programs
that are coming online and work with NU Online
to see what the demand and market research
shows for where those areas are best suited.
-: Right, so I'm gonna start out
with kind of a broad overview of the market research
that we have available at the University of Nebraska.
Jenni's gonna dive a little bit more
into some specific tools that we have,
and then Alyssa and Alex are going to share a little bit
of their perspective from the campus
when it comes to market research.
So, you know, just in general, you know,
not knowing how much, you know,
the audience has or our attendees experience
have with market research.
So, you know, the role of market research
is to really help us to better understand
the broader environment that your program will exist within.
So that could be things like the competition,
how many other providers are already out in the space,
you know, that kind of speaks
to the supply piece of that equation.
We can also look at tuition pricing,
you know, how we compare or how your price point
in terms of tuition might compare to others
to make sure that you're in kind of that sweet spot
in terms of pricing your online program.
We also look a lot at employment,
labor statistic kind of information
to help us to kind of create some projections
when it comes to employment outlook.
And this is also part of that demand side of the equation.
We can use market research to better understand
our potential students.
So some of this may involve
understanding the size of the market.
We look at the number of degree conferrals
and what that trend line is looking like.
Is it generally going up,
is it generally going down.
This can also provide some insight
into that demand portion of the equation.
We can gain insights
into what those prospective student drivers might be,
what their preferences might be, those kinds of things.
And this all just really kind of comes down
to being as strategic and efficient as we can
with limited resources,
we all have finite amounts of both time and budget
to apply to new program development
or adding capacity, or just focusing on particular programs.
And so we want to be as smart as possible,
and market research can really help us with that.
And when to do market research.
So, you know, often we are doing this
when new programs are thinking,
kind of in the conceptual development stages.
And we like to say as early in the process as possible
can really be ideal because it can help to guide
your program development,
but really any way, any point along the way, is okay,
but earlier is awesome, really good.
When you're thinking about revising curriculum,
market research can provide kind of input into that process
in terms of alignment with maybe what employers
are looking for or looking at the broader environment,
what are other programs
that are in that competitive space doing
in terms of their curriculum
or in terms of program features and structure,
that type of thing.
If you're looking to grow your program,
maybe your enrollment has stagnated a little bit,
or you're just looking of a growth,
enrollment growth boost, that can really help.
And then if you're looking to reach new audiences,
that can be another way or time, point in time
when market research can be really be helpful.
So we a few specific resources available
through the University of Nebraska Online
with regard to market research.
So we maintain a couple of partnerships
with external market research firms.
One is called Hanover Research,
and you can see the kinds of studies
and work that we do with them.
So we've done a lot of custom research reports.
They also do their own secondary research and data analysis.
We've done some surveys with them.
Those are a little bit broader in nature.
We can do qualitative interviews and focus groups.
They also do quite a bit in benchmarking
and they have a vast library of existing resources,
research, studies and things that we can tap into.
We also have a partnership with Eduventures.
They also do custom research reports for us
and secondary research and data analysis.
They do a lot of surveying of students, adult learners
and kind of very specific to this, this audience group.
And they also have experts on staff
that we can do phone calls with
and sort of consultation sessions with.
We also have some licenses into a platform called Analyst
and this is by a data company called Emsi.
And this is what Jenni's gonna go a lot more into here
in just a bit.
But we have all kinds of access to degree conferral,
labor market information and that type of thing.
So some examples of market research that we've done to date,
we often are doing program opportunity analysis.
So this is where we're looking at either
the system-level view of our portfolio of online programs
and help gaining insight into which programs
may have the greatest opportunity within the market,
which programs to maybe place the most emphasis on,
or just to help us to kind of prioritize,
again, those finite resources and things.
We're also often are doing a gap analysis,
where we're looking for opportunities in program areas
that we may not already be offering online
and that can help, again, provide some valuable insight
into new program development.
We've done this program opportunity and gap analysis
at the campus level as well.
So it just kind of depends on what kind of lens
we're wanting to look at in terms of that analysis.
We've done some custom surveys.
One that we did recently was really understanding
what the perspective student experience was
for online students when they are applying and enrolling
into online programs to help us understand
where we're doing well
and where we may be have a little bit more work
that we could do.
And we do quite a bit of program-level market assessment.
And this is what Jenni is gonna dive more into.
-: Thanks, Laura.
So now we're gonna kind of walk through
what this tool, Emsi has to offer.
I kind of pull some reports for program development
to kind of see, give an example
of what the demand looks like out there.
So Emsi is a big data source.
It pulls in from like the government
with Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
It pulls in census data,
it pulls in job posting data.
So from LinkedIn, sites like that
so you kind of get an idea of what jobs are being posted,
where they're being posted, all that type of thing.
And then it really hones in on skills.
So again, for those job postings,
it'll pull in what skills are being posted.
It'll pull in what skills
people are listing on their resumes or profiles
to kind of match those skills.
So you kind of get an idea of what skills employers
are seeking and what skills are available from the talent.
And then IPEDS which if you're not familiar with IPEDS,
I'll kind of touch on that again in a second here.
But basically it pulls in institution information
with degree conferrals, tuition estimates, things like that.
So all of those pulls into this Emsi Analyst tool
which is where I kind of live and breathe during the day.
So it's all kind of in one place for you to look at
and if anyone ever wants to learn more about Emsi
or the more, their website is economicmodeling.com.
So that was good, next slide.
Okay.
So going back IPEDS are, IPED is, sorry.
So the National Center for Education Statistics
has the integrated post-secondary education data system
which has the classification of instructional programs.
So just all of the acronyms, I know that's confusing,
but basically focusing on the CIP codes,
they are how programs are categorized in this data source.
And this is what Emsi pulls in.
So that's kind of why we're focusing in on that.
You don't go into Emsi and search by institution,
you search by CIP code.
So kind of explaining what that means,
you can see the chart at the bottom
shows all three natural resources and conservation.
So that would be a two-digit CIP code.
So everything listed below that
is included and it kind of groups
this whole section together.
And then below that is a four-digit CIP code,
natural resources conservation at research.
So this is a step below kind of hones in a little bit more.
And then it includes all of those six-digit codes
listed under that.
So the six-digit codes are really the program
specific nitty gritty codes.
So this is kind of helpful when we're looking
at conferrals and things like that
to pull in those relevant CIP codes
to kind of see what competition looks like,
what completions are looking like.
So we get a good idea of what that is
and it's kind of similar to like the workforce data.
You have your industry, you have your occupations
within the industry and then you have the job titles
within those occupations.
So it's kind of a similar structure there
which also is pulled into Emsi.
But basically that's what the overall definition
of CIP codes are, it just kind of categorizes the program
with the number.
Let's go ahead, next slide.
Okay, so taking a look at some of the things
we can find in Emsi and how it can be used
for program development.
So this is a kind of a screenshot
from after I would have searched a CIP code
and this would be the results.
So right now it's showing all the data pulling in
for 2019 completions for this specific CIP code.
So you can see it has overall completions,
online completions and then those campus completions,
also with the number of institutions offering programs.
So with that, I have those red boxes
around the online program numbers
pulled down to the table below,
which is in the 2019 column.
So in 2019, there were 5,772 completions
and 94 providers reporting completions to this CIP code.
So after, we can filter through,
pull in the previous five years data,
we can come up with the compound annual growth rate
or CAGR for that.
And then as you can see, it says,
completions are growing plus 16%,
providers are growing plus 14%.
So what we can do with this is we can see,
okay, both are growing pretty well,
both are growing at pretty similar rates.
That shows just kind of ongoing demand,
continued interest in this program.
If it were that completions were growing at like plus 40%
and providers were growing at say 10%,
that would show that there needs to be more programs.
There's a lot of students, there's a lot of completions.
There could be opportunity there for us.
If it were the flip, and there were like,
plus 40% providers, plus 10% completions,
that could be an indicator
that there's some market saturation in that area
that may be, it's not the best sprout for us.
And usually in my reports,
I'll pull that both at like a national completion level
and a regional completion level
that kind of see what our region looks like.
So that's kind of how that could be used.
Next slide.
Okay, so just another thing we can look at in Emsi
is just seeing the trendline for completions for a program.
So is it looking positive or is it looking negative?
Again, it compares online programs to campus programs.
So you can see in the left table,
it's kind of showing that online programs
are trending positively,
campus programs are holding steady
or ever slightly going down,
but this is definitely an indicator
that it could be a good program for us to develop.
Whereas the graph on the right kind of shows
that negative trend line that completions
are going down in that field
so that may not be the best route.
So, again, just something else we can find in Emsi.
The next slide.
Another thing we can find is conferrals per institution.
So again, you can't just like search by institution in Emsi,
but if you search a CIP code and they're reporting to it,
then they'll show up in this list.
So you can see, you can pull in the trend line per campus,
you can see how many conferrals they reported.
And then, you know, this is pulling in 2019,
but you could pull in different years
as you set filters on it.
It shows the growth from the previous year for completions,
how much of an estimate of like market share they're taking
and then an estimate of tuition.
And the reports that we do
are usually go to schools websites
to kind of see what advertised tuition rate they have
to make sure it's accurate and up-to-date
versus this is kind of an estimate it's pulling in
but it can be helpful to see.
Oh, okay.
So moving on, that was some of the like program data
available in Emsi versus more of the workforce data.
So, again, it pulls in from LinkedIn,
all those job posting sites
to kind of get very real-time data, which is pretty cool.
Some of the like program data is more pulled in
in annual type basis, whereas this is pretty real time.
So the table on the left shows,
I searched an occupation in Emsi and looking at Nebraska
and it showing Nebraska jobs versus the national average.
So in this case, there's a great more deal jobs in Nebraska
than the national average.
So there's definitely opportunity for us there.
You know, we need to supply workers in that area.
How can we train them?
What programs can we provide to serve that?
And then the graph on the right
pulls in that job posting data.
And I use this one specifically,
this is the trendline for retail trade.
So you can really see after that September, 2019 date,
that downward slope
which would have been the pandemic timeframe.
So you definitely see that those job postings
took a huge dip and then we're slowly recovering from there,
but just kind of showing that it is very real-time
to see that data.
Okay, so this shows that you can get very nitty gritty
with the location search of that.
So on the left, we search for an occupation.
You can see that the heat map shows that California
and New York are the states
with the highest job postings, this is my area.
I mean, New York, you can probably kinda guess which city
is pulling that in, but with California,
you could really break it down to see what counties
or even what cities are having those job postings.
So, you know, being online programs,
it's great that we can target students
outside of just our area.
And that could be something that you take into consideration
developing a program.
How can I serve those students,
or as we just develop a marketing plan
to advertise that program these are places
we could look at that could have potential return for us.
So the graph on the left shows the United States,
the graph on the right shows Nebraska per county.
So that's kind of how we can hone in on these
and get data from those.
Okay, so more workforce data here.
We see Emsi also shows an example of the education level
being posted in job postings.
So this can kind of give us an idea
of what credential employers are looking for,
what could be needed to serve these students well.
So in this case, the bulk of employers
are looking for master's degrees for this area.
So that could be something we take into consideration
when developing a program.
It'll show the actual companies posting the jobs.
So this could be great for determining specifically
what skills they're looking for.
It could also be great to determine
potential partnerships in the future
to kind of get an idea of maybe what programs we offer,
meet their needs, how can we partner with them
to offer that program to their employees?
And then the bottom part hones in on skills.
So like I said, Emsi is very skills-based,
it really pulls in those skills.
So this one's showing some healthcare occupation,
what the skills listed in job postings are.
So this could be an indicator to us of our curriculum
needs to meet these needs.
These are what employers are looking for.
This is what we should prepare our students for.
So that's kind of how that could be used.
And as I pull reports,
I try to kind of keep in mind specific questions
you guys may have, what you're looking for.
So these are different things I could pull from Emsi
and then if it's something
I don't feel like we can find the answer to,
that's where maybe some of those other partners
that Laura talked about earlier,
we could reach out to them for some of that help.
So I think I'll have one more there.
Okay, so something we're kind of looking forward to
is doing more of proactive take with some of the data.
So how can we look ahead?
How can we be proactive, kind of projection-wise?
You can see Emsi will show us, you know,
this occupation there's a high retirement risks.
So that could be an indicator that more workers
are gonna be needed in a specific field coming up soon.
I can compare job postings, this table setup.
So that's comparing 2018 job postings
to 2021 job postings in January,
see the growing fields and what's needed now
and kind of get an idea of what's gonna be needed coming up.
And then the bottom table shows an occupation
that's just projected to grow substantially
over the next few years.
So again, that's something we can look at and determine,
okay, how do we meet those needs?
Do we have a program for that?
Or what's the program we should have?
So those are all some things that we can do
with the Emsi data.
So yeah, that's kind of an idea,
I mean, there's so much in the backend of it,
it's kind of overwhelming,
but that's kind of an idea
of some of the program development related data
that's in there.
So with that, I will toss it over to Alex at UNL.
And then Alyssa will talk a little bit from UNK,
but they'll kind of give us indicators
of how they've used this data to kind of make decisions.
So, Alex.
-: Awesome, thank you, Jenni and thank you, Laura.
So if you're a little overwhelmed
by all the numbers and letters and acronyms,
let me give you an example of how this plays out
on our campus, in the Omaha campus
and how we use this information.
Jenni does her wizardry and she kind of provides us
this market assessment key highlights
which is what you'll see at the top part of that slide.
And it's just an overview of what all that data means
and how that comes perhaps into play on the campus level.
So we did this
with a Spanish undergraduate audience in mind.
We knew that there were a lot of folks asking questions
about online Spanish options on our campus,
but we wanted to do a market assessment and understand
if that was indeed an area of demand
or if it was just kind of an anecdotal thing
we were experiencing.
And what we found was there was demand
for Spanish speaking professionals,
but not only that there were a pretty good numbers
showing that there were a lot of degree completions,
but the providers of those were very low.
So we could get that market by having an online audience.
The other thing that this really did
for a lot of the faculty on our campus
was just offer a chance to meet and connect dots using data.
So for instance, we knew, the digital learning side,
we knew that if we had 16 credit hours
in an online foreign language,
that could help our bachelor's of arts degree programs
across the campus come online
and offer a full program from A to Z online
just by having 16 credit hours.
But the faculty in the Spanish Department
may not have known that had we not had a chance
to sit down and say, look at the demand across your area.
And maybe it's not just a Spanish degree,
maybe it's a minor, maybe it's other areas on the campus
that are supported by this demand in a broader scale.
So those Nebraska projections on the far right-hand side
and the national projections really helped illustrate that.
And it illustrated where the workforce development
areas were, not just the degrees
and not just kind of that it was an online audience
but that there were a lot of workforce needs.
And Jenni and Emsi were able to pull a lot of that for us
using data that the CIP codes allowed us to pull.
But also just where those areas were.
Were they in Nebraska and were they a little more broadly
focused across the region or across the nation.
I'll stop there and let Alyssa talk about UNK.
But if you have questions,
I'm happy to talk further about how this fits with UNO
or other programs related to this Spanish research.
Alyssa, I'll hand it to you.
-: All right, thanks Alex.
So, as I mentioned, my name's Alyssa Wyant
I'm currently serving as the Associate Director
for Online Education at UNK.
We've been partnering with NU Online since their conception,
and we've really seen a real value
in taking their market research, analyzing it
and then understanding how to best position the program
for that ultimate program growth.
So we use the research for a variety of different things,
including understanding the scope of the environment,
the demographic audiences,
understanding resource deficiencies,
looking at the labor market demand,
reviewing those costs comparisons
between either sister institutions,
or it may be those institutions
that we don't necessarily know our competitors,
that may be competitors in that space,
and really understanding specific of career outlooks
including the skills that are needed,
those degree levels that are needed
and potential incomes graduates can earn.
Oftentimes we find that those are the things
that we really hone in on when we go to market the program
or the skills, the degree level
and potential earning income for graduates.
And that's really how we get them tied into that program.
So similar to what Alex pulled out for you
with our Spanish program,
I pulled out a couple of indicators
I thought would be of interest.
So the first thing on this slide includes our key outcomes
that provide a summary of just overall findings
of the study.
This is really kind of at a CEO level glance,
but in this particular example
we examine the masters of arts and public history.
And overall that study showed that there is a demand
and employments on the rise.
So we see there's low competition
based on the schools that are reporting,
a CIP code indicating they may have broad history field
but they're really struggling to offer something
as specific as public history.
So we also note the tuition is very competitive
and affordable just based on what other schools
are offering with this program.
We then take kind of a broader scope
into a nationwide level on the right-hand side of the slide.
So we see under the national projections,
careers in the public history field,
like a curator or a local museum historian,
are projected to rise
according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
So switching gears here a little,
seeing something at that national level for online
is really key.
So we understand what the demand is at a national level.
But at UNK, we know that even those
that are in our online programs are still being recruited
from a typical 180 mile radius
that our face-to-face students come from.
So identifying if there was a need for this program
in Nebraska's workforce was also necessary.
So I think as a new system,
it's really key to look at this data
to support and grow President Carter's strategic plan
which includes the growth and development
of the workforce in our state.
So in the blue image on the left side of the slide,
you can see the projections are very similar
to that of our national growth trends,
which that's what we're really wanting to see.
So overall, I'm sure you've gathered by now
that this study was successful
and it seems like a logical problem to put online.
It's really important to know though that not all studies
end up with a happy ending.
We have had studies in the past
that we didn't look at with this level of integrity,
and with that we really struggled
to obtain and gain enrollment growth.
So by utilizing the market research, understanding it,
analyzing it, we wanna make sure
they're mission driven programs
and that they really align with both,
not only the workforce and economic development,
but then it also compliments our portfolio
as a whole system.
So from here, I'm gonna pass it back to Laura.
She'll be kinda talking to you more about
how to get started with a program demand research
at your institution.
-: Thank you, everyone.
So we had great question
that was a perfect segue to this slide,
how to request market research.
So we really work through your campus
distance education director for each campus.
And we have those folks listed here
with their email addresses for your convenience.
That just really helps for alignment with,
you know, mission and goals, strategies at the campus level.
That also makes sure that, you know,
everyone is really kind of looped in
and that also selfishly allows us to kind of manage,
you know, those requests coming in a little bit more,
you know, we kind of look to the folks on the campuses
to help us to prioritize those requests.
When it comes to our external partners,
we have sort of some cues with them.
Hanover we have two cues at any one time
and with Eduventures for their bigger custom reports
we have one cue.
And so part of my role
in managing that relationship with them
is making sure that we get maximum value
for our subscription dollars
that we pay for that partnership.
And so making sure that we've kind of always got something
in the hopper to be passing on to them
in terms of a project for them to be working on.
When it comes to the Emsi Analyst market assessments,
so that's really Jenni.
So, you know, she has limited capacity.
So we also have to manage her workload.
We can generally do things
like once it gets up to the top of the cue
in about a two-week turnaround,
but again, you know, if she's got a bit of a backlog,
then we just wanna make sure that people are aware.
We also really look to those distance education directors
to help us be aware of any timeframe
that you all might be working under,
if there are campus approvals and things
that you're trying to meet in terms of that.
We can also be flexible
maybe with some of that prioritization.
But just really working
with your distance education director.
And I know that they have maybe different titles
on your campuses, but that's really kind of their role
in terms of being that main liaison.
So work with them and then they in turn work with us.
Sometimes we'll set up a meeting
to really understand what you're trying to,
you know, the questions that you're asking,
the information that you're seeking.
We may have some probing questions about the program
and that sort of thing.
You know, sometimes we can do things
with just fairly limited amount of information
and turn that around fairly quickly.
So it just really kind of depends case by case basis,
but we're happy to help with anything that we can.
All right.
So that kind of concludes the formal presentation.
Like I said, I'm gonna do a little bit of
sort of moderator housekeeping
and then we do really wanna open it up to questions
that any of our participants may have.
So thank you for joining this NU Amplify session.
We appreciate your feedback.
We thank the sponsors.
The link to the feedback for the session
is there at the amplify website.
So please go there and let us know
what you thought of the session.
It really helps us to plan for future events.
So with that, I'm gonna stop sharing my screen
and we'll just open it up to any questions
that folks may have.
As I mentioned in the chat,
you're welcome to put any questions
that you have in the chat or if you'd like to go off mute
and ask your question live,
we'd be happy to take those questions as well.
-: Now we say to wait seven seconds, right,
like it's that out of the time.
-: Yeah, get to the point of being a little uncomfortable.
-: I might just throw on at Jenni,
what are the trends you see just generally
and maybe what are some of the challenges
that you experienced when you were doing these reports?
-: I would say, I mean, for the most part,
the programs that,
you know, you guys have come to me
with interest in developing, it seems for the most part,
there is some kind of match with current demand.
So usually things are pretty positive.
We've had a couple in the past
that have kind of showed those declining trends.
And I think the campus has responded
and take an action with those.
But I'd say, overall things look good.
And usually in Emsi, those CIP codes work,
so they work but they certainly have their limitations too.
Sometimes, very, very niche programs.
Like there's not a lot of data data there,
or if they're newer things, it's hard to find data for.
Some of like the education-based ones,
since in terms of occupation codes,
educators at the high school and elementary level
are all kind of roped into one categories,
like can make that kind of difficult.
But for the most part, you know,
it's really interesting to see the up and down trends
in the back end of Emsi.
And, like I said, with that real time job posting data,
it's really, especially during the pandemic
has been interesting to watch
'cause it's been so up and down,
which it's kind of unfortunate that it's been that way,
but, you know, definitely interesting stuff.
And, you know, we've seen success in the past with,
we've researched or done research for a program,
found areas of need, kind of developed it from there,
built up a marketing plan targeting those areas
and now we see a good deal of student inquiries come in.
So definitely in the past it's had its success
of using this model.
-: And I would just add, we have done a couple of rounds
of sort of that more proactive
kind of program opportunity analysis
and that is shared to CIOs
and the campus distance education directors.
And then, you know, I think that is one area of input
into their program development process.
Some of the big areas that we've seen
kind of bubble to the top with those before
are not surprising some of the big areas
I think you hear about anyway, business,
you know, health care, computer science,
especially kind of programming
and software development types of areas,
those kinds of things.
I think our campuses have done an excellent job,
even in the last year or two
developing more market driven kinds of programs,
demand driven and workforce aligned programs.
We've seen more and more undergraduate programs.
We've seen more certificates.
One thing that we've definitely seen as a trend
since the pandemic is that prospective students
have growing interest in shorter form types of credentials.
So the certificates and even maybe into non-credit
and kind of more workforce related.
So it's really exciting to see the university as a whole
kind of shift more into some of those areas
and really responding to the market in those ways.
A lot of the market assessments that that Jenni has done
have been a bit reactive in terms of requests
that are coming in through to us
from programs that are looking to develop something.
So we're happy to offer that kind of information,
but as she touched on, we're also really looking ahead,
especially in this coming year to get more proactive
in our uncovering of trends and opportunities
and then bringing those to our campus directors
and to others for consideration
for program development, right.
I see a question there.
-: Yes.
-: Go ahead.
-: So first I wanna thank all the presenters
for the excellent presentation.
My question was is this,
clearly you guys have a tool and a product
and is this product bought by the end user system.
And if it is a two program committees
who are looking revamp the program
based upon curriculum advisory, feedback,
can we have access to this tool
or do we have to go through somebody at UNL
or the specific campuses?
-: Yeah, so it is a tool that we pay a fee for
to have a license into the platform.
But through that then we make that information available
to campuses.
So it looks like you're at Omaha.
So I would just direct you to either Alex
or to Jackie Lindbergh to kind of start those conversations
if you haven't already.
And they know the process to request a market assessment
or more custom type of research that might be needed.
So we'd be happy to work with you through them on that.
You know, it is something that's available.
If a department really wanted to purchase their own license,
but we feel like this is a way
that we can be really efficient with those resources
so that individual departments
don't have to bear that burden
for something that you may only need
once or a couple of times in a year.
You can just work through us,
and that's part of the value
that we try to bring as a new online.
-: Thank you.
So then I have a follow-up question for Alex in that case.
Alex, so what has been, how program committees
are looking to revamp their program
to kind of be current with the market trends?
Have you given them access,
have you given actually faculty on those program committees
access to the toolset or do you take the questions
and then you drop the query
or whatever you need to do on your side?
How does that process work?
-: Yeah, that's a good question.
So in your college specifically,
I'll give you an example, Subu, machine.
One went to do a grad certificate in machine learning
and Jackie and myself met with him and said,
what are your goals?
What are the college goals or the department goals?
What are we trying to do here?
And his discussion with us
was really they were seeing
regular conversation with students kind of looking for this,
but obviously we also had some workforce development
initiatives happening.
So that was an area that he wanted to explore.
And we said if enrollment growth
is something you're looking for
and online is an area in which this demand exists,
we'd like to see what demand actually looks like
in workforce and in a greater Nebraska and national need.
So that's where that conversation started.
And we said, let's go back and do the market analysis
which is when NU Online came in.
And we worked with Jenni and Laura to do,
I believe it was a Hanover study.
I can't remember.
They did the study for machine learning
and a graduate graduate certificate audience,
pulled together the same reports that you kinda saw today
and then handed that back to the campus
and we met back with Subu and we say,
here's what this looks like for your market.
It seems like this is a good opportunity
for us to do some development in online
in that particular discipline.
And then we launched kind of that development process.
So typically it starts first with a conversation
about your goals, where you're going as a department
but also where the college is going.
And then we start connecting dots with the right folks.
There are folks on campus,
institutional effectiveness, for instance,
who have this Emsi,
so if you're doing more of a program review
that isn't specific to online,
that could be a method to connect.
We do not have our own license,
so we try to be really smart with resources
which is where we work really closely with Laura and Jenni.
-: So the office (mumbles)
should be the one led by Hank Robinson?
-: Yes.
-: Okay.
-: Yes, but if you would like to talk with me or Jackie.
We can connect the dots as needed.
-: Thank you.
-: That's a great question, thank you.
There was also a question that came in from Shawna in chat.
-: Hi everyone.
(indistinct)
-: Sorry, I joined late, but I'm just curious.
We have a challenge on our campus
where we have a lot of programs
that wanna develop an online certificate
or those kinds of things.
And the market research doesn't always support
that those programs are going to be successful.
And so I'm curious how your campus
deals with those kinds of situations
and what sort of governance you have in place
around that issue.
-: I can go ahead and take that one.
Shawna, I don't know if you heard me mention,
I just had mentioned, like not every story
has a happy ending to it,
where we find these like niche programs
that can really just elevate and take off.
So, one of the things that I think it's important to look at
is some of those key or core skills
that they're suggesting for those degree programs
and seeing if the curriculum can maybe be redesigned
to the sense that it would meet the skills and needs
of those workforce demands that we're seeing.
Sometimes it just doesn't work out, right.
Sometimes we end up scrapping the program
and that's the way it's kind of hard to see,
but it allows for those resources to be redistributed
then to another program that really could take off.
So I think either one revitalizing that curriculum
to meet those skills or scrapping it
and redirecting those resources
that's probably the best solution.
Laura, anything else you wanna add to that?
-: Yeah, I would add that some of what the market research
can be helpful is just kind of to give you insight
into what you might expect in terms of the market size.
Some of our programs are pretty niche
and that's really pretty cool, actually.
We've got some really unique programs
that meet a student need
but they may never be 100, 200 student enrollment, right.
So understanding what you might expect
in terms of enrollment can be helpful information
back to program leadership and management
in terms of budgeting and understanding
what role that particular program might play
within a department or within a college.
Sometimes programs that we offer are mission driven.
You know, so they're not, again,
there's reasons other than just revenue generation
that we offer a program.
And, you know, if there's a lost leader out there
that is just a really fantastic program
that is the only one in the state
or the only one online in the state, for example,
again, there might be some compelling reason why to go ahead
and offer that program,
even if it's not ever going to be a huge revenue generator.
But I think it's just providing a broader set of data
and insights into a program so everyone
can really make informed decisions going forward.
All right.
I think we've got about five minutes left.
So if there's maybe one more question,
we can probably take that.
Or I know we're standing between you and lunch
and there's no harm in ending the meeting
a few minutes early.
All right.
Well, hearing no additional questions,
just wanna really thank my co-presenters today
and everyone else out there on the campuses
that we work with on the market research.
I just think that the university is doing so much more
than we ever have before in terms of being
as smart as possible, as strategic as possible
when we're developing our online programs.
And that's been really exciting to see.
And again, I think like Alyssa mentioned,
President Carter's five-year plan with those partnerships
and the workforce needs, you know,
it's all just fitting right in there.
So thank you all for your interest.
And, again, you know,
please reach out to your campus distance education director.
If you've got questions or have a program in mind
that you'd like to maybe explore some market research,
we'd be happy to work with you.