School’s back for autumn – time to turn off the Alice Cooper and get students pumped for the next academic year. But we know that student engagement is no easy feat.
As students and universities alike learn to navigate and master digitally enhanced teaching and learning, maintaining student engagement can be a real challenge – especially when it comes to engagement with course reading.
Whilst it’s safe to assume that most students are motivated to go to university, not all students are motivated to study. The lure of the SU bar and student nights around campus is real and often more appealing than psyching yourself up to read Business Management 101.
So, what can universities do to engage students with their course reading materials? And how can you see if students have done their core reading before it’s too late and evident in their grades?
Boost student engagement by making the switch
No one can deny the appeal of that distinctive library book smell or the old-fashioned charm associated with holding a physical book in your hand – but the digital revolution is here and eTextbooks are now outshining physical books in almost every way.
With greater versatility than print, eTextbooks are affording students a more flexible, interactive learning experience, with tools to encourage deep engagement and level up their study experience.
eTextbooks: a whole new reading experience
An eTextbook is so much more than a book. When studied through Kortext’s world-leading Arcturus study platform, students can build their own, personalised digital bookshelf and access their eTextbooks anytime, anywhere and on any device, even offline. And with interactive study tools at your students’ fingertips, reading becomes a whole new experience.
Just as industries like medicine and transport are using immersive experience like virtual reality to enhance learning for their trainees and improve outcomes, the interactive eTextbook experience provides a more engaging and memorable study session, with active learning encouraged through in-book questions, highlighting, notetaking and even group collaboration.
Students can also save time and study more efficiently with Kortext’s copy and paste tool, easy reference export and in-book search function, streamlining the discovery of relevant content and taking some of the stress out of studying – particularly useful during exam season!
How do you know it’s working?
The great thing about eTextbooks is the wealth of data you can gather to support your students, improve content provision and build a business case for future eTextbook programmes.
Kortext provides its partner institutions with market-leading content usage and student engagement data down to individual book and student level, so you can see when and how your students are accessing and interacting with content. This data can be used as a leading indicator of student disengagement and provide an opportunity for early intervention – even just a simple nudge to open a book can be enough to get a student back on track!
Are you ready to boost engagement by switching to digital content? Contact us today for an informal chat about Kortext Arcturus, the world-leading eTextbook and smart study platform, helping students at universities around the world to learn without limits.
