Let’s discuss a 24/7 accessible knowledge base full of responses to some of the most common student questions. We say the needs of our learners “run wide and deep”. But what are students asking? The content initially represented areas such as financial aid, but quickly expanded in unexpected ways.
Let’s discuss a 24/7 accessible knowledge base full of responses to some of the most common student questions. We say the needs of our learners “run wide and deep”. But what are students asking? This knowledge base began with a menu of questions generated by student facing teams who are most familiar with the needs of learners. The content initially represented areas such as financial aid, ordering transcripts, applications, and registering for classes. But it quickly expanded in unexpected ways.
The development of learner questions migrated from being staff generated, to being student community generated. Students can post questions for which there is no current answer in the system, and then receive a personalized response from someone knowledgeable in the respective area. The AskAshford system is closely monitored to identify common themes and patterns, and content for those areas is then added to the knowledge base. By monitoring student behavior, the community of learners generate the content. This allows the content to stay most relevant to learners and for those in the organization to keep their fingers on the pulse of student needs.
Building and maintaining AskAshford required collaboration from across the enterprise, agreement upon the “correct” answer to a question, and a sincere commitment to understanding the languages, perspectives, and needs of students. It has been an exercise in teamwork and user-experience. We look forward to sharing what we have learned thus far about our students and ourselves as we perfect this very helpful tool.