Ivy Tech Kokomo: Capturing the Student Voice To Understand Their Students Needs and Maximize Staff Effectiveness

Supporting community college students comes with the difficult challenge of understanding and addressing the needs of a diverse student population. Ivy Tech Kokomo, a 2-year public institution with 2,100 students in Kokomo, Indiana, faced the same issue, as traditional methods such as surveys and focus groups were not yielding actionable data due to low participation rates. The goal was to find a scalable method to capture the Student Voice so staff could better understand their students' needs and provide more efficient support.

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Introducing “Ace”

In October 2023, Ivy Tech Kokomo partnered with EdSights to introduce students to Ace, an AI chatbot. Using EdSights' fully managed framework, Ace regularly checks in with students in a personalized manner, proactively connecting them to resources and answering their questions. 

With every response Ace receives, EdSights automatically analyzes the data, allowing Dr. Murphy and her team to immediately see real-time insights into the students most in need of outreach and aggregate trends of student populations all experiencing similar challenges. 

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Key Metrics:

• 95% Student Opt-In: Percentage of students who are opted in to receive texts from Ace
• 7900+ Texts Received: Number of texts Ace has received within the first eight months of launching
• 690+ EdSights Interventions: Ace proactively identified challenges and connected students to Ivy Tech Kokomo resources without requiring additional staff effort
• 310+ Opportunities for Follow-Up: Ace flagged students who were exceptionally high risk and who would benefit from additional staff outreach

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Ace’s Impact

Enhanced Visibility into Aggregate Trends:

• Students with Disabilities:  ACE uncovered that students in this group felt they lacked a robust support network.
• Financial Risk Among SAP Nursing Students: ACE pinpointed specific financial challenges in this student group that required further investigation and support.

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Increased Staff Efficiency:

• Ace automatically generates weekly reports for staff, identifying at-risk students based on feedback gathered directly from students. 
• Ace handles Q&A with students 24/7, reducing the volume of calls, emails, and meetings for support staff around low-complexity questions. 
• When students share a barrier with Ace, they are immediately connected with a specific campus resource to support that challenge. This leads to increased usage of campus resources without any lift required from staff. 

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Enabled Strategic Custom Communication:

• SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress) Campaign: Ace's established communication with students enables Ivy Tech Kokomo to remove the intimidation of an unexpected SAP message and ensure timely support. 
• Transfer Students Campaign: Focused on checking in with students who had recently transferred to Ivy Tech Kokomo to understand their needs better and support their transition.

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"The ability to engage with students in a two-way connection allows us to understand what our students are struggling with in a way that we hadn't been able to before. That is what attracted me from the very beginning. Additionally, the customer support we get from [EdSights] is invaluable. Having someone to monitor the dashboard and share insights is a service that would be too costly to replicate with a full-time staff member compared to the cost of our yearly contract."

- Dr. Theresa Murphy, Vice Chancellor for Student Success

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