Kent State University has launched a new app, KSU Navigate, that streamlines the academic advising process, making it easier than ever before for students to communicate with their advisor. The app is accessible through iOS, Android, and a web browser, making it compatible with phones and laptop or desktop computers.
Once students sign in on the platform, KSU Navigate presents advisors with appointment availability specific to their major. The app recognizes what program the students are a part of and automatically lists the advisors that are trained in the academic requirements unique to the student’s major and what times they are available. This way, students know which advisors to meet and when they are available.
Advisors also benefit from KSU Navigate. Once a meeting has been set up, advisors can access important information about the student’s academic record such as the student’s current schedule and withdrawn classes. The app also allows for direct communication between students and their advisors, makes canceling or rescheduling meetings easier and has a space for post-appointment meeting notes for the student’s convenience.
Mandy Anderson, the senior academic program director in the College of Arts and Sciences, believes that KSU Navigate will create a streamlined, accessible, and effective advising experience for students.
“Since we have a range of academic programs and types of academic advisors, students can connect with them more easily in KSU Navigate since the system is designed to route them to staff designated to advise on those programs,” Anderson said. “It’s more intuitive and removes a lot of the guesswork for students.”
Paige Jochims, a psychology major who serves as a peer advising leader, was similarly excited about how timesaving the process had become.
“Prior to Navigate, the scheduling software we used required students to scroll through a variety of options to find the college or department they wanted to schedule an appointment with,” Jochims explained. “Navigate automatically recognizes assigned advisors and the first options listed when trying to schedule an appointment will be for the student's specific college.”
KSU Navigate also comes with the benefit of running on an app on your phone, instead of needing to seek advising on a web browser.
“I think having an app version of navigate has been incredibly helpful,” Jochims remarked. “It has made it so much easier to quickly schedule appointments, see if advisors have availability, or change appointment times.”
Jochims also hopes the accessibility of the app will encourage students to use the programs available to them more often.
KSU Navigate also allows advisors to directly connect students to other resources offered by Kent State, such as tutoring or academic coaching.
“Integrating the Academic Success Center’s scheduling into one platform with Academic advising has been one of the most helpful features of Navigate.” Jochims mentioned. “It makes it much easier to be aware of the resources available within the Academic Success Center and actually utilize them.”
Anderson is excited to see KSU Navigate establish better relationships between students and their advisors through direct communication in a way that was not possible before. The new line of communication will help advisors create a better experience for students, such as the pre-appointment survey, which allows advisors to better understand what the student hopes to get out of their advising experience. Since the launch of KSU Navigate, over 50% of students are completing the pre-appointment survey.
“Targeted and personalized communication can be a challenge to build since it takes a lot of reports to identify particular groups of students.” Anderson explained. “I think KSU Navigate has the potential to streamline the process.
With KSU Navigate now fully operational, the app will provide effective and efficient resources to the student, creating an advising experience that is both personal and tailored to each student’s needs. To learn more about KSU Navigate and all it offers, click here to read the university’s article covering the app’s launch.
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