Virtual Conference: Springshare in the Time of COVID

The purpose of this session is to share Daytona State College’s Academic Support Center, Library, and Writing Center live Chat available via each department’s website and how plans to expand the chat to other department allowed the College to continue giving it services uninterrupted once the COVID-19 lockdown began. 

Daytona State College’s Academic Support Center, Library, Writing Center, Enrollment and Advising have partnered to offer an innovative and efficient way to interact with students in the college’s online environment. Our online Chats provide students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to engage in live, synchronous communication with the college’s academic support specialists for a variety of needs. The chat gives students full access to the department services from the convenience of their home. The inclusion of Zoom and eventually, Microsoft Teams to the chat allow us to engage the students in a more direct way even when servicing them remotely. 

Once we returned to face to face interactions, we implemented Sprinshare’s Calendar module to set up appointments to give access to our students to the Library, Academic Support Center and other media laboratories. These tools, combined with the FAQ database, allow students to find relevant, contextualized resources, all of which are developed and maintained by academic support staff. 

With built-in analytics and transcripts of each exchange online, data aggregation is another amazing benefit of the Chat and Calendar appointments. We can keep track of the type of questions student are asking, measure online and face to face traffic, and use the information to plan future student engagement. Plus, the chat platform is flexible enough to accommodate various workflows. Finally, because the Chat allows us to have a specialist familiar with campus resources available to help students online, we are able to help students navigate our college’s online environment via referrals to service points on campus.