Senior Consultant, Public Sector & NFP
Liv Davies
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Digitalisation has been reshaping higher education since the turn of the century. With evolving student expectations and the risks posed by increased technology use, effective student support services are more critical than ever.
Dr Iliyan Stefanov and his team at London South Bank University are pioneering the use of digital tools and data to enhance student support, aiming for a proactive approach that anticipates and responds to student needs. In an interview with Liv Davies, a higher education recruitment specialist at JSS, Dr Stefanov shares his insights on how data-driven strategies are transforming the student experience and improving outcomes in higher education.
How do you and your team approach professional development in student services?
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and the constant firefighting that comes with managing a large department, especially when resources are limited. But I believe it’s crucial to invest in staff development regardless. After all, we’re a large department within a large organisation, and our success hinges not just on the skills our staff brought with them but also on how we continue to enhance and develop their abilities. This focus helps us achieve our goals and keeps the team motivated.
To help with this, one of my main objectives has been to conduct a gap analysis – essentially, looking at the staff we have and the responsibilities they manage and identifying where we may be falling short in terms of skills and qualifications. I also look at the development opportunities available within the university and what can be sought externally. From there, it’s about advocating for a bigger budget or reallocating our current resources to invest in staff development and address the identified gaps. I regard this as a top priority for any manager because when the skill set of our team enhances, we all benefit.
What emerging trends have you noticed in student services recently?
The student services sector is constantly evolving, with many significant changes having taken place. One of the most notable shifts over the last 25 years has been the increased demand for support from students, especially in areas like well-being and mental health. Issues such as isolation and loneliness have become much more prevalent, and it’s not uncommon for students to experience prolonged periods of depression and anxiety that hamper their academic progress.
More recently, a trend I’ve observed is the digitalisation of our services. In the past, our interactions with students were mostly face-to-face, and much of our communication was documented on paper or spreadsheets. Now, we’re increasingly using digital tools, not just in student services but across the institution.
This shift means staff and students are leaving a digital footprint, which presents a huge opportunity for us to analyse that data and get better in what we do. I see this as the next stage of development for our sector – finding ways to leverage the vast amounts of data we’re now collecting to enhance our services. Digitalisation has opened the door for us to use data to our advantage, and that’s where I believe the future of student services lies.
Is a focus on digitalisation important when hiring new team members?
Not necessarily. While our frontline staff are highly skilled and experienced in supporting students, their primary role in digitalisation is to use our existing digital platforms effectively. For example, we use Salesforce to collect data, and we can quickly train staff to use these tools. The real challenge for the HE sector is that most universities don’t currently have a dedicated unit focused on analysing this data. This is not something our current staff can easily take on; we would need to recruit people with specific skills in data analysis who can understand our goals and make sense of large datasets.
While these skilled individuals are out there, it’s often difficult to convince the universities’ executive teams of the need for these roles. The key to success is making a strong business case that shows how data analysis can have a positive impact on student retention. It’s not just a cost; it’s an investment that will benefit the university and that has the potential to transpire even in the short to medium term.
I see this as a great opportunity to use the data we already have to make meaningful improvements. Over the past decade, there’s been a big push towards efficiency, but the drive for efficiency seems to only deliver marginal improvements. There’s a difference between doing things right (which is to be efficient) and doing the right things (which is to be effective). By using data analytics to guide our student support services, we can bridge existing gaps and bring in significant returns. This is why I’m advocating to the university executives that, with a relatively small additional investment, we can achieve much more.
How are you preparing to address these new trends and the challenges they bring?
The biggest challenge in student services, in my view, is the effective use of the resources we have in place. It is often the case that on the one hand we have students needing support and on the other hand we have highly skilled and experienced teams ready to provide it, but these fail to connect or connect too late to make a timely impact. To address this, we aim to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach in delivering support.
Our goal is to implement early interventions that improve student retention and overall student experience. To do this, we need to utilise the data we already have – from student records, library usage, class attendance, e-learning engagement, use of sports facilities, etc. The challenge lies in accessing the data, as it is spread across different university departments, who use a variety of digital platforms to record it.
Once we have access to the data, the next step is to analyse it effectively. We’re primarily interested in behavioural type data, and not demographic type of data. The reason for this is that we have some ability to influence student behaviour but hardly any ability to alter demographic data. The behaviour type of data is key in helping us predict when students might need support.
Our first steps in utilising data to provide proactive student support were based on the introduction of personal development plans (PDP) to the university, housed inside our Sales Force digital platform. In its essence, a PDP is a questionnaire that students are invited to complete as soon as they enrol with the university. Once the PDP has been submitted, the system is designed to automatically complete a number of tasks: screen for risk, email students with a link to self-help resources, email students with suggested tasks to aid in issues identified in their PDP responses and notify professional support staff, instructing them to reach out to these students and offer an appointment.
As the PDP only provides a snapshot of where students are at a particular point in time, we are now working to further develop the system to provide ongoing analysis of this incoming data and provide dynamic support as necessary.
What benefits do you see this project bringing in terms of team development and workload management?
I believe colleagues would agree that we are all driven by the positive impact we can make on students’ lives, helping them get the most out of their university experience. As someone who has worked on the front lines before becoming a manager, I know how frustrating it can be when a student comes forward looking for help after struggling sometimes for months, especially when we could have helped them much sooner.
This project aims to bridge that gap by enabling professional support staff to engage with students exactly at the time when they most need support, making our approach more proactive and impactful. It also transforms how we deliver support by using data analytics to deliver early intervention, offering timely, targeted support. This allows us to assist students quickly, reducing waiting times and reducing the pressure on our resources, ultimately helping us manage workloads more effectively while still achieving sizable and meaningful outcomes.
What does this project look like for the team moving forward?
We now have a data analytics team within the directorate, called the Student Experience and Insights unit, consisting of a manager and a data analyst. Our current focus is on getting the necessary access to the raw data, which has taken about six months to justify. With the help of an external consultant, the team has been working on building a predictive model using regression analysis to identify students at risk of dropping out.
Our next step is to obtain historical data that covers as many years as possible. This data is crucial for training the model and using artificial intelligence to enhance its predictive accuracy. Our goal is to achieve aboveachieve above 85% positive prediction rate. Once the model is trained, we’ll conduct a pilot study in one of the university’s colleges. After a year, we’ll assess its impact on retention to determine its effectiveness before a broader rollout.
What advice would you give to others looking to implement similar initiatives in their institutions?
I am sure there are colleagues who may be further ahead than us in utilising data analytics to provide students with proactive support and would be well-placed to offer such advice. Hence, as a first step, I would suggest connecting with peers who are pursuing similar projects, regardless of the stage of implementation they are at. This, in my view, will save colleagues the struggle of choosing what works better. I’m always open to sharing what we’ve done and learning from colleagues who are taking different approaches. Since we’re all pioneers in this area, it’s still early days. Our approach might not be perfect, but by learning from each other, we can continue to improve.
To speak with Dr Stefanov about his ongoing project into data insights and student support, you can reach him via LinkedIn here or by email at stefani2@lsbu.a.cuk.
At JSS Search, we know that success in the era of digitisation and automation relies on both effective strategies and the right people to implement them. As sector specialists, we’re committed to learning more about the innovative work being done and the leaders shaping these changes. By understanding your long-term goals and vision, we can focus on recruiting individuals who not only meet your immediate needs but also contribute to your broader strategic objectives.
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