NYU SPS Service Design
NYU SPS Service Design
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At NYU School of Professional Studies, the Learning and Teaching Nexus serves over 2000 faculty member with technology and pedagogy support. 90% of these faculty are adjunct--they're industry professionals, top of their field, running companies. Practically speaking, that means they may not have prior background in teaching, and almost certainly don't have time to muck around in cumbersome academic technologies.
Problem
Problem
The unique characteristics of the audience The Learning and Teaching Nexus serves meant that faculty would rarely attend our valuable workshops. It also meant that when they needed technical assistance, they would reach out to the Central IT office who could take days to respond.
We need to accomplish two things:
Make it clear that our role was to support our adjunct faculty
Show them just how easy it is to get dedicated 1:1 support from us
Dedicated support was just an email away, but our faculty were not aware of that.
Dedicated support was just an email away, but our faculty were not aware of that.
Research & Insights
Research & Insights
We started by mapping out how we assume faculty learn about us.
We had a few informal sessions with select faculty members and staff in the Office of Faculty Affairs.
Thinking specifically about new faculty, we realized that word-of-mouth is likely the most prominent method that faculty encounter our services.
We learned that this must contribute to faculty's lack of awareness of our services.
Analytics Strategy_frames.pdfSolution
Solution
Working with my team of learning designers, we designed an orientation session called "Getting Ready to Teach at NYU SPS" that introduced key resources, including our support services.
We partnered with the Office of Faculty Affairs (OFA) to implement the session. After initial success, OFA made the orientation mandatory for new adjuncts.
We added a dedicated language to this and all other workshops highlighting how to contact us and that we will happily set up 1:1 support.
Impact
Impact
"Getting Ready to Teach" launched in January 2024. That year, we saw a marked improvement in workshop attendance.
We've also seen a consistent uptick in 1:1 Consultation requests, a reinforcing our initial finding that just-in-time support is what faculty most need.
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