A week before classes begin at the University of Kentucky, students arrive on campus to move in, learn their way around campus and prepare for the new academic year. Over the past few years, a newer tradition has also become part of that week — The Tech Takeover. At the event, thousands of new UK students stop by The Cornerstone to pick up their UK-issued Pads as part of the Smart Campus iPad Initiative.
But this year’s Tech Takeover event included a first for new students — the launch of the Student Tech Checklist.
Promoting Student Success with Technology
To ensure students can access and use essential technology needed throughout the academic year, University of Kentucky Information Technology Services (UK ITS) partnered with UK Smart Campus to create the Student Tech Checklist. The checklist consists of six resources identified as essential to students’ success while attending UK. Among those resources are Wi-Fi, multi-factor authentication via the Duo mobile app, UK Invests accounts, account recovery options, Wildcard Mobile ID setup and Canvas access.
As thousands of incoming students arrived on campus from August 20 through August 22 to pick up their UK-issued iPads, students could tap their mobile or physical WildCard ID to check in. Once a badge reader scanned a WildCard ID, a UK ITS employee handed each student a printout of the checklist. Each printout offered a summary of which apps and services the student still needed to set up for the academic semester, complete with QR codes that directed students to step-by-step instructions.
Within the first 15 minutes of the Tech Takeover event on Tuesday, August 20, UK ITS employees checked in over 300 students — giving them all personalized checklist flyers. The one-on-one interactions with students at this volume were unprecedented for UK ITS staff.
Assistant Director of Communications & Strategic Engagement for UK ITS, Marci Adams, reflected on the personal touch of the Student Tech Checklist.
“We saw well over 6,000 students in three days at The Cornerstone. To think about that many students getting to interact with the human side of IT, our employees, is really special to me,” Adams said.
Increasing Adoption of Tech Resources
One of the main goals of the Student Tech Checklist was to increase adoption of the resources outlined in the list. Enterprise Chief Technology Officer for ITS Enterprise Systems Adam Recktenwald said the Student Tech Checklist helped drive some impressive adoption numbers with initiatives like UK Invests.
“The student tech checklist project at The Cornerstone Tech Takeover was an amazing success,” Recktenwald said. “We had one of the biggest spikes in UK Invests student account creation numbers since its launch, all thanks to the UK ITS team and its volunteers.”
UK Invests rewards students with money in an investment app for attending events around campus throughout the year.
Additionally, over 400 students who attended the Tech Takeover installed the Duo Mobile app for the first time, the preferred method for multi-factor authentication at UK, within the three days of the Tech Takeover event. Increased adoption of the Duo Mobile app benefits the University community, providing stronger cybersecurity defenses for our data and systems.
Many students were supported during the event on-site, with tables available for students to get lengthier, hands-on support if they so desired. For those that did not want to or were unable to stay longer at the Tech Takeover, the Checklist flyer had the information they needed. The checklist provided QR codes that linked to each essential tech app and service used throughout the academic year at UK. Overall, the QR codes received 2,423 scans.
A Checklist for Students, Made by a Student
A new program created by Nick McClure and Evey Wright on the UK ITS Enterprise Systems team made the checklist possible. Wright, a student employee and computer science major in the Pigman College of Engineering, worked to customize their program to fit the specific need of the Student Tech Checklist.
The program, internally referred to as ‘Badger,’ allows students, faculty or staff to scan their WildCard Mobile ID or physical student IDs on digital readers to check in to an event. Using information from UK’s identity management system, Badger connected the student account to a series of application programming interfaces (APIs) — which populated each students’ checklist with a green check or red x to show the status of each of the six technology items. APIs allow different computer programs to communicate with one another.
After the successful debut of Badger at CyberCon last October, we started looking for new ways to implement it,” Wright said. “I spent most of this summer adding a way for Badger events to run selected APIs on attendee data. So, in the end, I created a web page to format the checklist API output. But I really enjoyed being a part of the development process and seeing so many people use it.”
Several other developers on UK ITS team contributed to the project as well. Members of the Enterprise Applications & Outreach teams including Peter Menner and Suzanna Bentleyensured the APIs were configured correctly and the students were able to see their checklist during the iPad pre-registration process.
Additionally, UK ITS employees along with staff and students from across campus volunteered as tech concierges, offering their expertise to answer any tech-related questions or resolve issues that arose during the event. Students received immediate support that helped trouble shoot everything from phone connection issues to getting their WildCard IDs to load.
In thinking about the next steps for the project, Marci Adams is excited about what’s to come.
“There are so many opportunities to grow and improve this Student Tech Checklist concept. I can’t wait to see where it goes.”
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