THE PORTAL – help us help your students

1. THE PORTAL – help us help your students college, university & literacy programs & courses right where you live!

2. About Contact North • We are your recruitment and support team in small, rural and remote areas • 1986 • Non-profit organization • 112 staffed online learning centres in small, rural and remote areas, Aboriginal and Francophone communities • Support services to colleges, universities and literacy and basic skills providers

3. Where we are There are 112 online learning centres across Ontario supporting small, rural and remote areas and Aboriginal and Francophone communities.

4. What we do locally • At each online learning centre, students and prospective students can: • Meet with a Coordinator • Obtain information on available programs and courses; • Get assistance with the registration process; • Get technical support throughout the course; • Obtain support and encouragement from staff and peers as they pursue their course.

5. The Contact North | Contact Nord Portal

7. The Contact North | Contact Nord Portal • Key features: • 1,097 program options • 19,579 online course options • Includes OL courses and non-OL college online courses • Keyword search and search refinement since 2008 • Context: Getting Started, Find a Career, Student Services, Success Stories • Direct links to institutions on search results pages • One-stop shop for online learning in Ontario

8. Portal Analytics • Current Contact North Analytics: • Unique Visitors – Apr/10 to Mar/11: 43,754 • Unique Visitors – Apr/11 to Mar/12: 102,268 • 133.73% Growth • The Search Tool is the page (www.studyonline.ca) that is most frequently accessed by visitors • 92% of visitors accessing the Student Portal website use the search tool

9. Benefits for your College and OL • Increased reach in other/rural parts of the province (and to a lesser extent in other jurisdictions) • Link-outs to your eLearning/Distance education or program pages from interested individuals (registration referrals/leads) • Projected growth in unique visitors in the coming year due to promotional efforts including 750,000 course guides distributed in 112 communities • More timely information to more prospective students can lead to increased registrations

10. Current Status • Data Transfer: • 2 automated XML feeds (Algonquin, Lambton) • 8 semester based Excel (csv) uploads (Cambrian, CollègeBoréal, Conestoga, La Citécollégiale, Loyalist, Mohawk, Niagara, Sault) • 14 colleges: manual data entry is still used (not effective nor efficient)

11. Automated Data Transfer Benefits • Benefits to colleges: • Increased accuracy of course and program data • Timely access to information by Portal visitors • Link-out reports coming this fall • There is work involved to get started, then once automated there is less work than there is now for everyone involved, and better value for prospective students

12. Our Proposal • To each college: Join the Data Transfer Initiative • Fall 2011 Student Usability study: students need timely and accurate information on Ontario publicly-assisted online study options to make an informed decision • Begin by uploading Excel files containing course and program data each semester (starting in June) • Begin planning for an XML data feed for maximum timeliness and accuracy (live in 2012) • Let’s meet: luc@contactnorth.ca

13. thank you