Engaging students and increasing faculty efficiency

The challenge

• Enderun Colleges faced challenges in delivering modern learning experiences to students while simultaneously addressing administrative inefficiencies among faculty members
• Limited flexibility in course delivery

Our challenges before CYPHER were very similar to most schools, which is certain inefficiencies in the way that we deliver value to all of our stakeholders, our students, our faculty, and the ability to really focus on 21st century learning styles. We wanted to use a LMS to make improvements in two key areas. One is the delivery of learning to our students in a very modern way and the second is to improve the efficiency of the faculty, so that they could spend less time on all the administrative duties and paperwork, and have more time available to the students.

When we were making a decision on which LMS to select, the key decision points for us that ultimately led to CYPHER were, number one, the ease of use of the platform and the user experience. We felt that was very key because without a great user experience, adoption would be challenging.

The second, of course, was the capability of the platform, to streamline and to manage courses. We also needed flexible course delivery, whether it be in-class, or blended learning, or distance learning, and we felt that CYPHER performed well in all of these areas.

The solution

In terms of adoption of the platform, we were very pleased in that one school year over the course of two semesters, we were able to roll out CYPHER to our entire student body and all faculty. We did this in two phases. In the first semester, we did a selected, early adoptive group of faculty and classes, and then based on the learnings from that experience, we did additional training, and then by the second semester, we were able to roll out campus-wide.

Features

• Grading: One reason students enjoy CYPHER is because they can check their own grades, at any time, and they know the latest grade that they have, so there’s no argument what’s going to happen at the end of the mid-term - Choy Arnaldo, Professor
• Assignments: In terms of the students, they love the fact that it’s very efficient for them to access course materials, they know where they stand at all times with their grades and assignments. So overall, we’ve really had a very positive experience with our implementation - Colin Christie, Director of Digital Transformation

The results

• Enderun Colleges chose CYPHER Learning® due to its ease of use and positive user experience, recognizing that a seamless interface would facilitate smoother adoption among faculty and students
• CYPHER enabled students to access their grades and course materials easily, providing transparency and eliminating potential disputes
• Faculty members reported significant time savings, allowing them to focus more on student engagement and less on administrative tasks

Approximately one year into adoption of our platform, the feedback has been great. I’m very pleased to be stopped often in the hallways by various faculty members who say they’re really enjoying using the platform, that it’s saving them so much time, they’re able to focus more on their students.