We know it’s a hectic time of year, so we thank you for taking a few minutes to think about broader issues like using Abroad101 to advance study abroad on your campus. As we begin our 9th year of serving American college study abroad, we continue to enhance the features, improve the directory content and bring innovation to the field. Here’s how:
Abroad101 is Free Software
The Abroad101 software is online, “cloud based”, so you never to worry about updates or backing up your data. Abroad101 is program evaluation software that gives your students the means to tell their story and share it with the world. Unlike websites that grab quick sound byte testimonials, Abroad101’s “re-entry in a box” is designed to draw an insightful student expose of their time abroad. When students take the time and effort to produce good work it becomes a point of pride AND social media. As its own webpage you have now given the student a lasting testimonial of their time away and the resulting transformation. These evaluations are great for future advising and orientations and great for the returning students. The service is offered free to American colleges and universities, supported by advertising from program providers and foreign universities eager to reach future students.
Got Graphs? – Study Abroad Reporting
Abroad101 provides each university pie chart graphs showing how their students compare to Abroad101 averages. The graphs show overall satisfaction with the education abroad experience plus ratings on Academics, Program Administration, Housing, Food, Social Integration, Health Care, Safety, and Cost of Living. Take a screen shot, copy and paste these into presentation slides and impress your Provost!
Re-entry in 37 Questions (or more)
The standard evaluation/review is 37 questions, some Yes/No answers, some ratings and some open-ended essay prompts. The questions are designed and sequenced to guide a student through the entirety of their experience away, helping them be reflective, offer constructive criticism, list accomplishments and offer forward thinking statements. The standard set allows for an apples-to-apples comparison both on the front end (website for future students, parents) and back-end (data for downloading and analyzing). If you need more data points, Abroad101 allows additional “University Added Questions.” These custom questions are not displayed to the public and can help you justify the Abroad101 platform as your official program evaluation tool and help to consolidate your student surveying.
Reviews of Exchange Programs
Abroad101’s evaluation tool works great with third-party providers, faculty-led and exchange programs. Each foreign university has a catch-all “Direct Enrollment & Exchange” listing where students from all over the country will submit reviews of direct enrollment, consortia exchanges or bi-lateral exchange programs, all through this one listing. It’s a great place for your students to see the benefits of these programs and for students to share those with the world when they return.
The Abroad101 Pre-approved/Recommended Programs Feature
For universities who use a pre-approved programs list or recommend programs to their students, Abroad101 offers an easy way to show those choices to students searching on the site. When a student logs in to Abroad101, they will see your recommendations highlighted with an approved icon. They also have the option to view only the pre-approved programs in any directory or only view programs that have been reviewed by students from their home university. The pre-approved programs are easy to manage using your account dashboard. If you’d prefer we maintain them for you, simply email support@abroad101.com and identify the source of your approved programs list (web links, spreadsheet or other document) and our team will take care of this for you.
Summer and Faculty-led Programs
Abroad101 has over 4,500 faculty-led/university-run programs listed. Some universities use Abroad101 to manage those program evaluations/reviews and to draw future students. We welcome the submission of programs that are either open to outside students or restricted to your own. Managing these requires a free “providers” account on Abroad101, which you can request from support@abroad101.com. You’ll still get the benefit of the apples-to-apples comparison of the resulting reviews, plus be able to engage students from other institutions.
Abroad101 is a Free Directory, now with “Search by Subject”
Released earlier in the year, the Abroad101 Search by Subject directories are filling out nicely as the program providers update their listings and add their course areas. This is a great tool for advisors as students who are looking for courses outside their major can come to Abroad101 and search from the more than 350 subject areas to find a program just for them: semester, summer or even shorter term: http://www.studyabroad101.com/subjects
Free Software from AbroadOffice
If you are looking for a cloud-based study abroad enrollment management system, we would invite you to consider AbroadOffice, free software from our sister company. You use Abroad101 for the program evaluations, and AbroadOffice for the rest! Learn more about AbroadOffice and schedule a web demo by visiting The Global Learning Cloud
Don’t Worry, We’re Here to help
Our company slogan remains: Fast. Free. Easy. We like to think that the system is self-explanatory and our processes are intuitive, but just in case, we’re here to help. If you’d like a demo of the system or assistance in setting it up, don’t hesitate to contact us. Support is Free too.
For those that don’t connect with us online, we look forward to meeting you at these upcoming conferences later in the semester: IIE Generation Study Abroad Summit, NAFSA Region XI, VIII and V.
Happy Fall!
Mark Shay
CEO
Abroad101
http://www.StudyAbroad101.com
