Rosenda Minella has seen students change their class schedules for a variety of reasons, from conflicting work and classes to changing majors entirely.
Minella, vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at Central New Mexico Community College, said her school has used a variety of tools to create schedules, but the plans “often quickly became outdated by the time students left the office.”
“They change their mind or change their degree entirely,” she says, “or, for example, they want night classes, so they take them, but then when they talk to their boss, they find out they can only take time off during business days.”
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Now, to navigate the chaotic world of lesson planning, educational institutions are turning to artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced technology, experimenting with tools that stitch together students' schedules with instructions for majors and classes they want to take only on certain days and at certain times.
The technological advances come at a perfect time for academic advisers to face increased workloads, says Kyle Ross, executive director of NACADA, the Global Community for Academic Advisers. Recent factors include an increase in online courses, a more diverse student population and more curricular options than ever before.
“If AI can help offset that workload and allow advisors time to talk to them about things like career exploration, how to navigate a four-year plan, alternative qualifications, etc., we're definitely in favor of it,” Ross said.
Central New Mexico Community College joins other institutions such as Texas A&M University San Antonio, Hillsborough Community College and most recently Purdue University, which announced a partnership with technology company Ellucian in late May, to begin rolling out the “Smart Plan” technology tool in 2019.
“As someone taking over 40 courses at Purdue, it's really great to have my four years at Purdue planned based on what I learned in high school and my own study plan,” Purdue junior Kyle Emgenbroich said in a university statement.
Smart Plan helps students by planning which courses they need to take and when, based on their declared major. For example, if a sophomore wants to major in Psychology, the tool will show them specifically which courses they need to take and when. If that student adds a minor in Political Science, the required courses will be updated.
The Smart Plan is intended to help students understand their course options and streamline the enrollment process.
The tool also uses AI to inform students of possible options and achievements — for example, letting them know they're just three courses away from a psychology minor — and caters to the needs of different types of students, including those with children, those in work-student programs and those attending college full time.
“Advisors really just want to give advice; they're not the ones who create the course schedule,” says Nandini Khedkar, director of corporate strategy at Ellucian. “We hear almost universally in advising sessions that they spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about the schedule and don't have much time to address all the topics they want to learn.”
Other companies are also entering the advising space: College Guidance Network offers AVA, an AI counseling chatbot that answers families' questions about the college-planning process, and Ivy, an AI counselor built by the education consulting and technology company CollegeVine in consultation with admissions officers.
The University of Michigan is developing an internal tool to help with schedule management called Atlas Schedule Builder, and sources told Inside Higher Ed that as of April the university was still piloting the project.
“Modernizing the course selection experience is a major undertaking and one that has been consistently requested by students, advisors and administrators,” Ben Heyward, director of user experience design and software development at the University of Michigan's Center for Academic Innovation, said in a university statement.
Many educational institutions are using AI and technology-driven scheduling tools to help students graduate on time. In the case of Ellucian's Smart Plan, the data from the tool can also help administrators understand which courses are more popular than others for long-term planning.
Minella said the tool was initially met with hesitation.
“Any time you introduce change, there are mixed results,” she said, “but any time we introduce a new system, we focus more on how to improve the student experience than on the mechanics of the student learning journey.”
Ellucian's Khedkar emphasized that Smart Plan isn't meant to replace advisors, but rather to streamline routine tasks so advisors can spend more time with students on bigger topics like career planning.
“It's not about taking away someone's job,” she said. “It's about letting students spend their time however they want.”
NACADA's Ross said the organization doesn't reject the use of technology for academic instruction, but it cautions advisers to be careful to keep a human touch in course scheduling and other tasks performed by AI.
“Students should have meaningful conversations with their academic advisors on a regular basis, but there may be constraints on this — some institutions have very high caseloads,” he says, “but if it's just to coordinate course schedules, a check-in is always welcome.”
