School’s Back Soon!
Curriculum plans, dining hall food orders, new hires, updated school supplies, new technology like a school kiosk, event itinerary, and budget plans all need to be laid out and ready to go soon. The incoming freshman class will soon be anxiously bursting through the doors. The better your education resources are to help them along, the smoother the process will be for everyone. Using student kiosks is one way to more efficiently manage tasks that burden staff and frustrate students.
“If you’re going to tell them to pick themselves up by their boot straps, you’d better give them boots first.”
At the beginning of the new school year, some schools will give their students a thick information packet of papers and forms, and corral them into long lines for administrative processing. If only there was a better way to make some of these necessary tasks more efficient and less of a bottleneck. Well, how about letting them serve themselves?
Pictured above: Visitor Management System Customizable Interface
The schools that have discovered the advantages of student kiosks and self service on campus will be maximizing their resources while providing better service overall! Educational institutions of all levels, particularly colleges and universities are providing state-of-the-art school kiosks in their dining halls, dorms, and academic buildings. These self serve student kiosks provide students with registration tools, academic information, wayfinding tools, event calendars, printing and scanning access, mental health screenings, point of sale, campus security notifications and much more!
Pictured above: Document Kiosk at UND
Which school will you be?
An unfortunate problem schools suffer nationwide is lowered student retention efforts. As a result, more and more students are leaving school and pursuing other options. Students claim these are the top reasons they chose to leave school.
1. Too expensive– Going to college can be a huge financial risk. To some this may outweigh the benefit of earning a degree. Use digital displays and information kiosks to show students the various university, state, and national scholarships and grants available to them. Financial aid offices can be supplied with printing kiosks. That way, students can look up important financial information and print out useful documents right in the office.
2. Excessive stress – A new home, with recently earned independence, and increased academic standards are a recipe for stress. Add confusion and lack of access to information and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Give students an easy way to access information and find maps to get them where they need to be, on time.
3. Lack of advising – Right now, there is a massive problem in higher education with the lack of advising capability at universities. According to Inside Higher Ed, “Self-reported adviser ratios from colleges and universities nationwide show that, on average, there are about 300 students for every full-time adviser in a four-year public institution.” One person advising on the future of 300 students every semester is simply not enough to be able to help with class schedule, future plans, career trajectory, internships, study abroad programs, extracurricular, and mental well being. Installing kiosks in academic buildings and faculty offices with a homepage solution can organize students. Afterwards, they are prepared for meetings with the adviser, which cuts down average meeting times. This gives the adviser more time and flexibility to focus effort on students with extenuating circumstances that cannot simply be solved by a couple taps on a kiosk.
Student Kiosk Solutions
Pictured above: Enviro Kiosk Models for Indoor or Outdoor use
A self service school kiosk is essentially a computer kiosk placed in a steel enclosure with software that allows for remote access to control administrative functions such as browser lockdown, menu options, whitelisting web links, immediate reports or alerts for kiosk tampering and usage, and remotely view and support the kiosk. The primary solutions a school kiosk can provide include:
SCHEDULING SOLUTION
- Tutoring Appointments
- Academic Advising Appointments
- Share Campus & Club Events in Real Time
WAYFINDING & GENERAL INFO
- Campus Directories
- Building Information & Hours
- Contact Information
- Request Help
SURVEY SOLUTION
- Student Input/Feedback
- Gather Data for Decisions
- Screen for Mental Health
PRINTING SOLUTION
- Access homework, reading, and test results
- Print and scan quickly
- Send important e-mails
HR & ADMIN SOLUTION
- View Academic & Administrative Info
- Request/Complete/Submit Documents
- Reduce Administrative Costs
The ways we’ve listed are only a few of the many ways a self-service school kiosk increases efficiency and student retention. It provides assistance to students when and where they need it the most. Interactive school kiosks are powerful tools and are the latest technology of choice helping colleges and universities boost their student retention rates. Don’t be the school with paperwork landslide and unnecessary long wait times. Be the hero that elevates your facility and give us a call today! (603)865-1000
