Designing a Successful Academic Program: Tips and Strategies for Software Companies
Software companies play a crucial role in helping students learn and prepare for their future careers. One effective way to achieve this is through academic programs, which are designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their chosen field. However, creating a successful academic program can be a challenge.
In Part 1, we discussed Why Academic Programs work. Today in Part 2 of our series on Academic Programs, we’ll provide tips and strategies for software companies looking to design an academic program that meets the needs of students and educators while seeding your software company for future growth.
The North Star objective to ensure a successful academic program is curriculum adoption by educators. As part of your program design, be sure to take steps that reduce the barrier for faculty and other course curriculum designers to add your digital resources into the teaching and learning process. Some ways to do this include:
Provide Affordable Options:
Offer special academic pricing and discounts to make the software accessible and affordable for academic institutions and their students, staff and faculty
Demonstrate Value:
Show the educators and faculty how the software can enhance the learning experience for their students and save time and effort in their teaching.
Go beyond the offer:
Successful academic programs include an entire suite of complementary digital resources like customizable slide decks, training materials, free or discounted certification programs, digital textbooks, and assessment tools. Bonus points for building out packages of supporting digital resources that can be easily imported into popular Learning Management (LMS) Platforms like Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, and/or Brightspace
Partner with Educators:
Work with educators to understand their needs and tailor the academic program to meet those needs, as well as involve educators in the development process.
Highlight Success Stories:
Share success stories and case studies of how the software has been used successfully in other schools, colleges and universities.
Offer support:
Provide ongoing support and resources to help faculty successfully implement and use the software in their teaching.
Like any new project or initiative, it is important to design the program based on your own research and program goals. Most academic programs seek to achieve increased usage of the software over time as a way to protect and grow your market share. Your content, structure, pricing and delivery methods should be considered, and continuous monitoring and evaluating the success of the program while making necessary changes will improve the program’s impact and effectiveness. Successful academic programs are accessible, user-friendly, and provide a positive learning experience for students and teaching experience for faculty and educators.
The world’s leading technology companies have designed and implemented academic programs that provide tremendous value to students and educators and have paid significant dividends for the company itself. Stay tuned for Part 3, where we will analyze the pros and cons of the various offer types that we’ve seen across multiple academic programs.