Increasing student commitment with Interactive Maps & 360° Tour
For Marketing, Communications, and Web Content community college folks: Do you care about raising your enrollment numbers? Need a way to get students engaged in your school before and after they decide to attend? This is the case study for you.
The ultimate student engagement toolFresno City College is the largest community college in Central California. Servicing around 25,000 students, they pride themselves on their diverse community and student body. However, they needed to give students virtual options when the pandemic started up. Concept3D was there to help.
“The number of graduates we’ve had have increased each year. We’re helping our students complete their educational goals and earn a degree.
Kathy Bonilla, Public Information Officer
Opening in 1910, Fresno City College was the first public community college in California, and second in the nation. The school is the largest of the five in the State Center Community College District, and benefits from Fresno’s diverse environment—students can enjoy both the mountains and the ocean easily from their campus.
Fresno City College’s goal is increasing enrollment and getting more students certificates, getting them to transfer, and graduate. With COVID, they’ve been feeling the effects of the enrollment decline, and their lack of virtual tour and map tools weren’t raising those numbers. The Fresno team saw the opportunity for virtual solutions to help students understand and navigate campus to help reach enrollment goals.
“We had a tear-off map. From our website you could download the PDF, and it was just a static map of the college.”
Cris Monahan Bremer, Marketing Director in the Public Information Office
After researching other options, Fresno City College decided on Concept3D. They started by using the Interactive Map to help students navigate campus and provide real-time construction updates. Quickly, the team realized that pairing their map with a 360° Tour would be paramount for helping students and prospects access the school virtually. Concept3D’s Interactive Map is website accessible and has the features Fresno City College needed, like wayfinding and an easy-to-use CMS, especially compared to our competitors.
“We looked at several map options. Concept3D was the only solution that was accessible, which was one of our ‘must-have’ requirements. The map had the features we were looking for, and it met the legal specifications for web accessibility.”
Debbie Nichols, Web Content Engineer
Since doing a soft rollout of their 360° Tour, the Fresno City College team has used it to help prospects tour virtually and gain an interest in the school. Their Interactive Map, meanwhile, helps students navigate the campus successfully and gain some familiarity with the surroundings. Together, these two tools create a perfect combination that keeps students and prospects engaged.
“We started with the map. During COVID, we learned about the tour option, and our team was very interested. Now, potential students, regardless of location, can visit our campus. Currently, we are working on adding virtual tours of our campus museums.”
Debbie Nichols, Web Content Engineer
While both the 360° Tour and Interactive Map live on their website, the Fresno City College outreach and student services teams have been using both virtual assets to promote the school to prospects and current students. In the future, they hope to use the map as a construction tool to link to new sites at outside locations. They also hope it will provide an excellent student experience to get enrollment, transfer, and graduation rates booming.
“The Welcome Tour is linked to from our college relations pages designed for new students and from our main contact and map info page. We are in the process of adding interior floor plans and wayfinding to the map.”
Debbie Nichols, Web Content Engineer
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