Higher Education Challenges and Solutions

Higher education is extremely diverse and the challenges and issues faced by higher education institutions are just as diverse. Desire2Learn provides the solutions - a combination of products, services and expertise - to address such a large pallet of challenges and ultimately to enable institutions to achieve their goals.

Widespread Diversity, Student Retention and Graduation Rates

Challenge: In the midst of rapid transformation, how can we meet the needs of such diverse populations and still raise student retention and success?

Solution: The traditional student is now what used to be known as the non-traditional student and the non-traditional student encompasses a huge variety of parameters. There are the baby boomers who are returning to focus on their second career after retiring from their first career. There are the first generation students who are the first in their family to attend a higher education institution. There are those 60% of Americans who have no postsecondary credentials who suddenly find out that in order to get hired, they need a degree. Faculty are implementing new paradigms in their teaching and learning and collaborating more with their peers. Educational institutions are becoming more accountable for both the programs they offer and the students they graduate. And higher education itself is becoming more privatized, more global, more competitive and more accountable.

The Desire2Learn Learning Environment and ePortfolio combines innovation and leading-edge teaching and learning technology to enable your organization to provide an eLearning experience where your users can achieve results and be successful. Retention can be improved through proactive and personal communication to students and individualized learning paths to accommodate each student's unique learning style. Our Learning Environment includes an unparalleled suite of measurement and assessment tools to evaluate learning outcomes and perform formative and summative evaluations of the effectiveness of individual courses and entire instructional programs.

The Desire2Learn Data Warehouse service provides the ability to capture and analyze user data to better understand the student population and help them succeed. With our eLearning Suite of products and services, individuals who are at risk can be identified quickly and appropriate action can be taken immediately to reduce or eliminate withdraws. Advisor sessions can be scheduled and tracked and personalized communication can occur so students know you are interested in their success.

Implementing an Enterprise eLearning Solution

Challenge: Worldwide, student enrollments are increasing and budgets are getting smaller and smaller each year, how can an institution implement such a mission critical application such as an enterprise eLearning solution?

Solution: Student enrollments are at an all time high and are expected to continue to rise over the next few years. Budgets are getting smaller and institutions have to do more with less. Learning Management Systems are becoming mission critical to educational institutions globally.

Desire2Learn designed the Learning Environment as an accessible and mission-critical application. We have proven experience supporting some of the world's largest and most progressive eLearning implementations. With our extensible architecture, middleware and web services, our Learning Environment and its services can be integrated into your existing enterprise environment to provide a complete learning experience for both the present and the future. Having a common platform provides a consistent and integrated experience for all users across all products and reduces redundancy and costs.

Next Generation Technologies

Challenge: How can higher education institutions incorporate Next Generation Technologies into their teaching and learning?

Solution: Today's user demands a personalized learning experience that extends beyond traditional boundaries to include social networks of peers, evaluators, and even external experts. Desire2Learn ePortfolio incorporates Web 2.0 standard interface components such as a dashboard, tagging and inline help to engage users. Users are linked to an active network of their peers and mentors enabling learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom. Harnessing social learning enables institutions to be more responsive and learner-focused across the entire learning landscape.

Desire2Learn 2GO is a mobile learning application that lets you take your learning on the road. Accessible from the BlackBerry mobile solution and powered by the Desire2Learn Learning Environment, Desire2Learn 2GO will take your eLearning program to the next level. This solution supports rich social practices built around simple but powerful and reliable technology, fully integrated with your existing Desire2Learn eLearning solutions.

Student Centered and Personalized Learning

Challenge: Student centered learning and personalized learning are hot topics these days, how can they be incorporated into an online environment?

Solution: Student centered learning is widely accepted by educational institutions as a fundamental means to enable students to reach their highest potential and close attainment gaps. The Learning Environment offers an ideal environment for personalized learning where learners can be uniquely identified, content can be specifically presented and progress can be individually monitored. Desire2Learn ePortfolio is a powerful yet intuitive platform for collecting, organizing, reflecting and presenting learning artifacts. Taking learning to a personal level is made easy through the flexible and diverse design and sharing options. Desire2Learn ePortfolio erases the artificial boundary between academic learning and social learning and truly allows the student to be in the driver's seat.

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