New Study: Higher Ed Leaders Name Student Engagement, Recruitment and Developing Quality Courses as Top Priority for Online Program Success

Universities Seek Scalable Solutions for Online Education Success; Nearly 30% Exploring AI-powered Solutions

SARATOGA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As online programs grow and universities seek effective solutions to scale, a recent study found that 61 percent of university decision makers who participated in the study named student engagement as the top challenge in managing online programs. According to the study, “Challenges and Opportunities in Online Learning: Four Key Findings from University Leaders”, two additional top challenges included recruiting prospective students (45%), and developing quality online courses (35%). University leaders indicated these challenges were also their top priorities for online programs, with nearly 30% of participants expressing they are exploring or interested in exploring technology solutions powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The one-on-one interview study involving 42 decision makers of 33 academic online programs across 28 universities was conducted throughout the months of June and July 2021 by Juji, a thought leader in democratizing AI and empowering organizations including education institutions to adopt AI using no-code technology. The study aimed at uncovering insights into boosting online or e-learning success, including identifying main challenges, expectations, and opportunities.

“University leaders told us while they are looking for solutions to scale out their online programs, they still need to maintain a high-quality student learning experience," said Dr. Michelle Zhou, CEO of Juji, and one of the world’s top experts in human-centered AI, "We also learned that universities want high-quality solutions that can scale and also be implemented easily and quickly.”

Other key findings include:

1. The top priority for university decision makers and leaders of online programs are student engagement (by 39% of participants), student recruitment (23%), and online course development (22%).
2. The current solutions to the top priorities are mainly human-driven and difficult to scale, while technology-driven solutions are less than satisfactory.
3. University decision makers and leaders expect technology guidance and easy-to-adopt technologies that can better support online education success.
4. Of those universities surveyed, only two noted the use of technology solutions to address challenges including student engagement.
5. Seven (7) out of eight (8) universities that are exploring the use of AI for student engagements or recruitment expressed that they don't have dedicated IT staff, and they don't have a lot of time to train AI on their own.

Dr. Zhou continued, “Cognitive AI assistants, in the form of chatbots, are potential solutions for universities to scale out student and prospect engagement still with a human touch. Further, no-code AI solutions require no IT resources and minimal set-up time. Not only will such solutions increase student/prospect engagement, but will also relieve university professionals from doing repetitive tasks, such as answering tens of thousands of student questions and guiding prospects to apply for an online program.”

ABOUT JUJI INC.

Juji, Inc. is a leading AI company that specializes in powering a new generation of AI assistants with cognitive intelligence in the form of chatbots (cognitive AI chatbots). With headquarters in Silicon Valley, the company was co-founded by Dr. Michelle Zhou and Dr. Huahai Yang, inventors of the IBM Watson Personality Insights and the world’s top experts in Human-Centered AI. Juji’s no-code, reusable AI solutions empowers non-IT personnel to rapidly build, launch, and manage a custom AI assistant using an intuitive graphical user interface in a matter of days.