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Colleges working in partnership to utilise technology to enhance the international
student experience (Ayr College and Cardonald College Glasgow)
Aim of project
This project identifies the pre-arrival experience as one of the most important factors
influencing overall international student satisfaction. Misinformation leads to unrealistic
expectations, poor retention and dissatisfaction. The international student experience
begins well before the student makes contact with a UK institution and the pre-arrival
experience is very important in ensuring the prospective student has as much information as
they need to help them make an informed choice of country, institution and course.
The aim of this project was to offer prospective international students, agents, parents and
sponsors accurate, relevant and in-depth information about all aspects of studying at
Cardonald and Ayr and living in the West of Scotland.
Summary of outcomes
The project has resulted in the development of significantly improved international websites
for both colleges, built differently but covering the same theme of providing better quality prearrival information for prospective students, their parents and recruitment representatives.
Both colleges benefited greatly from this joint project. Through partnership working we
identified a wider range of information needs, established a greater depth of market
knowledge, identified more potential solutions and ultimately delivered a better product to the
three customer groups than would have otherwise been possible if we had tackled this on an
individual basis.
We are both very confident that the new websites will help us to ensure that our students
can make more informed choices than they would otherwise have been able to make.
Project timescale
The project was approved in June 2010 with the target of completing the developments by
February 2011. Technical problems and staff illness delayed the project by approximately
one month. The sites will be launch to the public by the end of the first week in April 2011.
Project set up, management and evaluation
The project was created as the result of a joint bid led by Ayr College, in partnership with
Cardonald College Glasgow. Both teams met at the beginning of the project to discuss how
to tackle the problem in hand.
Each team began by conducting research with their respective international students and
agents prior to identifying the website amendments required.
The key points which were continually raised during research were:
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the need for a visual representation for both students and parents of life in the UK
more information on Scotland, particularly for parents, again with an emphasis on
images and video
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more images of real international students. Friends and family indicated that they
would like to be able to keep up to date with the international students throughout
their studies
research found some students and parents did not require the whole website
translated into their first language; however, parents did tend to have lower English
language abilities than their children
Project partners
One key success of the project was the open brainstorming session between the college
partners which allowed us to successfully share research, ideas and content. Cardonald
College felt that they particularly benefited from Ayr College’s experience in the international
market.
Planning: Objective setting
Following these meetings, primary research, feedback from Google analytics and secondary
research of other college and university websites, a number of common objectives were set:
1. Both teams agreed that their sites needed to be completely restructured to
accommodate the information needs of the client base. It was agreed that the sites
would not look alike but would aim to have similar content and services.
2. Both colleges agreed to involve their existing base of international students as much
as possible in the creation of the websites.
3. Both colleges agreed to create profiles of their current international students sourced
from a wide range of nationalities and course disciplines. These profiles would play
host to video, quotes, background information, student news and event photos for
their families to access.
4. Both colleges agreed to add multiple images, text and video content on Scotland and
each college’s home town (eg food and drink shopping, what’s on, things to do,
places to visit etc).
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5. Both colleges agreed to add “Student Zones” and “Parent Zones” and secure “Agent
Zones” to their websites. The student zones would focus on providing wider and
deeper information for students prior to their arrival in the UK. The parent zones
focused on directing parents towards positive tasks to help their child prepare for this
life changing experience. The agent zones concentrated on ensuring our agents
were provided with appropriate information and services to facilitate the delivery of
enhanced services to our customers overseas.
6. Both project teams agreed to add feeds from the UK Border Agency to ensure
accurate and up-to-date information on visa regulations.
7. Both colleges agreed to add new pre-arrival information, guides and checklists.
8. Both teams agreed to add Skype technology and capability throughout their
websites.
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9. Both teams agreed to develop an FAQ section where users could ask any question,
either by Skype, by email or by phone.
10. In addition, Ayr College would aim to create virtual college tours, trial green screen
technology, add additional site functionality (to facilitate accommodation and airport
collection services), develop ipod scroll and audio guides, add a job zone, test site
translation technology, create a multi-lingual moderated forum for agents, parents
and students. Ayr identified that the site should, wherever possible, be designed to
create manpower efficiencies through the automation of repetitive manual processes
and information requests.
11. Both teams agreed that this project marked the beginning of a long term
development project as they identified that it would be difficult to deliver everything
they were inspired to add to their sites within the timeframe of this project.
Project Management
Regular communication between the college partners ensured that project tasks were jointly
agreed and independently executed. The implementation of new technologies together with
overly ambitious time lines led to a few delays. A few lessons have been learned from this
project which will be taken forward into future projects.
Evaluation
The evaluation process is scheduled to begin after the site launch at the beginning of April.
Informal feedback already suggests that the students are delighted with the added
information and facilities offered by both colleges.
Both colleges are confident that they have met the overall aims of the project brief. We are
delighted to showcase the innovative ways we have approached the pre-arrival information
deficit. We will continue to strive to build upon our sites to ensure that they remain reliable,
up-to-date and informative sources of information and guidance for our stakeholders
overseas.
Challenges to the delivery of the project
Both colleges agreed that:
 the project took more time and resources than anticipated
 gathering feedback and content from agents was very difficult
 filming and photography was extremely staff intensive
 we have been delivering this project during the period of the UKBA consultation on
student immigration. This will mean that the content of our website will quickly
become out of date and require updating. This is a little disappointing but is
characteristic of the market in which we operate.
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Cardonald College found that it was challenging working within the constraints of their
existing international website. They were disappointed that they were unable to have the
new site launched in its entirety; instead it changed one section at time.
Ayr College found that they had not built in enough time for the web developers to train on
the new software they were using to allow them to exploit the full potential of the
functionality. As a result we ran out of time to completely explore every opportunity to its
fullest. We will continue to add content to the website over the next few months to fully
complete the project brief.
Sustainability
The project is sustainable because now that we both have improved websites, we intend to
build upon the good practice. For example, we will film new student video every year to
refresh and build up the visual information for prospective students. We have used RSS
feeds from key websites as a source of bringing some of the information to our students.
This will assist in keeping the information up-to-date and will maximize sustainability of the
website. The sites have been designed to allow for additional information to be added by
college staff as and when needed. We can already see areas for potential growth and
further development.
Reflections on implementing learning points
Websites are organic and need to be continually updated. Websites can rapidly become
out-of-date and therefore, require a dedicated resource to ensure the information is
refreshed and updated regularly.
“The end desire will be to have a continual relationship between international students and
the content on the website.” The student voice is critical in determining future developments.
The students represent a huge resource of feedback and advice from their viewpoints for
learning providers.
Visual images are critical in helping parents and guardians feel assured about the safety of
their children and ensuring that the student remains in touch with their family.
All project teams should build in training time for the technical staff when utilising, exploring,
combining or testing new technology for the first time as things can and will go wrong.
We underestimated just how long content collection takes and would advise more time to be
allowed where possible.
Overall both colleges have identified that the more information our students, parents and
agents have, the better prepared the student will be to cope with challenges, enjoy this lifechanging experience and thrive in their new home.
Links to further information
Visit www.international.ayrcoll.ac.uk
Visit www.youtube.com/cardonaldTV to view the student video profiles
Visit www.cardonald.ac.uk/international
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Site images
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Cardonald College Glasgow
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