Customer Stories

With colleges and universities moving online and sending students home for the remainder of the semester due to the COVID-19 outbreak, spring commencement ceremonies are being made into virtual events, postponed to a later date, or canceled altogether. It is an incredibly challenging decision to make, as commencement is one of the most important events in one’s college career. From a survey conducted by EDUCAUSE, 14% of schools are planning on holding an online/digital commencement, 49% of schools are postponing their commencement ceremonies to a later date, and 23% of schools have yet to make a decision.

Cowley College recognized the difficulty of the situation and wanted to allow those affected most by the changes to commencement, the students themselves, to give their input about the alternate commencement options. The school sent out a push notification via their mobile campus app nudging students to complete a survey they were previously sent by email. Emails often get buried in a crowded inbox so nudging students with a push notification brings the topic back to top of mind. The average open time to an email is 6.5 hours, where a push notification has an average open time of 15 minutes, a far more effective means of communication when looking for time sensitive information. Rather then making a decision about commencement without any data to back it up, the survey gave Cowley input from their students so they could make an informed decision about the best way to proceed with the spring commencement ceremony amid the ongoing crisis.

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