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This newsletter is focused on highlighting features, workflows, and the product direction of Outcome's Experiential Tracking Module. Outcome's Experiential Tracking Module is quickly evolving into our 'go-to' for tackling some of the most challenging, complex and nuanced workflows. As the "new kid on the block," we are constantly adding and revising features to meet the workflow requirements being placed on it.

If you’re not already tracking experiential on your campus and want to discuss how you can operationalize or track these experiences, drop us a note. We will happily bring in one of our subject matter experts to support you. As of the publication of this newsletter, the Experiential Tracking Module has already tracked more than half a million student experiences.

In our next newsletter, we'll take a deep dive into reporting in the Outcome platform focusing on framework updates, and new reporting features. We have APIs on the way, a complete overhaul of the Insights Reporting Framework, and EL-specific reporting that will be sure to be of interest.

We hope that you enjoy this focused special issue. If you have any questions, please reach out to your product success coach.

How Can I Incorporate Competency & Reflection into My Workflows?

Before you can introduce competency and reflection into the Experiential Tracking Module you will need to have a competency and reflection model that you can work from. Creating institution-wide competency and reflection models requires a great deal of time & collaboration - significant consultation with campus stakeholders, a high level of care in design, and a focus on how and why they are used.

If you don't have a competency and reflection model in place, we can help direct you on how to use existing forms to get you started in a way that will prepare you for an eventual framework. If you do have these two elements in place, you can enable the competency and reflection steps through the Configure Experiential Steps section of the module configuration. When you enable them, we recommend you give them a base configuration by indicating what reflection methods this module will support, and what competencies it will use.

We advise allowing students to select their own competencies and typically suggest letting them select no fewer than two competencies and no more than five.

Once your configurations are in place you can add these steps to your workflow templates. Did you know you can add more than one competency step to an experience, or that you can attach competency and reflection steps to integrated experiences?

Need help understanding where to start on competency and reflection or just want to talk through your setup? Talk to your Product Success Coach, they can set up a call with one of our subject matter experts and your team.

Student UX Updates

As we've been communicating for the last few months, we have a major UX overhaul for students in the Experiential Tracking module. The Beta version will be available shortly and has been designed to be easy-to-use for students and accessible across all devices.

Take a Tour of the new UX

Additional updates are also planned to student dashboards, co-curricular, and a brand new "dark-theme" designed to conserve energy and to assist students with accessibility needs and dyslexia.

We're moving away from image-based dashboards to ensure the highest level of accessibility for all platform users

Our new user experience introduces a to-do list for students so they know what they need to work on next.

Qualifier Framework - Fully Available Fall 2023

Need to verify a work permit, or ensure a background check is legitimate? Want to check a student's vulnerable sector check once and use it across multiple experiences? Need to know if someone is vaccinated?

All of these options will be fully available in the Experiential Tracking Module through the qualifier framework scheduled for a Fall 2023 production roll-out. This framework has undergone years of development and has undergone significant testing in the last several months. We’re now in the process of finishing that development and preparing it for delivery. With qualifiers in EL you will be able to:

Define the Qualifier
Indicate if it’s a global qualifier - once verified, it’s good across any programs that use it (e.g., vulnerable sector checks)
Decide how you want the student to complete the qualifier (do you want them to answer a yes/no question or upload a document)
Provide a document template
And for documents, you can specify if the system should delete them once the qualifier is approved.

Mentorship in Experiential

You don't need to stop at curricular experiences in this module

Want to simplify the number of modules you operate? Try adding programs to your EL module. In this next release, you can add default text to our dynamic question framework. This means you can transform the opportunity form into a mentor profile. Allow students to search the profiles like you would and have the mentorship experience displayed on the students' experience record. To set up a mentorship program we recommend using the following steps in the EL module

Step by Step

Step 1 – A form step that students complete to gain access to the program (If you don’t validate student access, feel free to drop this step)

Step 2 – A placement detail form that indicates who the student's mentor was

Step 3 – Evaluation forms for both mentor and mentees

Step 4 – Student competency forms

Step 5 – Reflection forms for student participants

Features we recommend using in this set-up:

1.) Opportunities using a default text for the opportunity title and description

2.) Time tracking using the logging feature so that the mentor can approve the mentee's hours

3.) Allow students to self-place on opportunities (When a student finds a mentor, they can automatically connect with them)

A Vision for Badging - New Ideas

Badging and credentialing are topics that no one can seem to escape from these days when discussing experiential learning. We have a number of ways that we’re working on to support our partners in the roll-out and consumption of badges. As a recap, the completion of an experiential program can result in the creation of a badge for students. When setting up your program, you will need to apply a workflow template that has been configured as a credential. You can upload a badge design (.svg is industry practice) and allow the student to display it on their Experience Record – from which they can conveniently share to their LinkedIn.

The other way we want to think about operationalizing badging in your Outcome system is through the consumption of 3^rd party badges. We are currently beta testing pulling in any badge or credential a student has that is Open Badge Standard Compliant (Some light reading on what this standard is and why it matters)

Our vision is to allow students to add these credentials into the Outcome platform where they can then be worked into the institutional competency and reflection models. Our longer term vision is to allow students to use these experiences towards completion of curricular or co-curricular requirements.

Managing Programs in Experiential

The Experiential Tracking Module is seeing more and more use in managing programs on your campuses. Programs can take different shapes and settings but there are a few similarities that we’re seeing and some features we want you to be aware of.

A Mini Tour of Program Management in Experiential

Set up your types for the programs you want to include in the module.

The list above displays program types like Certificates and curricular EL types like Field Placement

Create the workflow template with all the steps you want

When creating the templates, it's important to map out the steps you will need students to complete. This is the most important step in the process.

The student experience in this module gives students a straightforward workflow for the student to complete the program.

Additional Considerations:

Workflow templates can include an option to badge or credential a student who completes an experience with this template.
Steps can be made optional - so not every step needs to be completed for the student to complete the steps. In this use case, the student just needs to complete the required steps.
Steps can be set so that students can complete them in any order.

PAC Update & Introducing a New EL Record Working Group

A lot of you have asked about our Product Advisory Committee that we announced earlier in the summer. Unfortunately, due to a few Covid false starts, we didn’t get off the ground during that time but with a healthy team, we’re on track to roll out this new feedback tool. For anyone who signed up to be included in these meetings, we will be sending out invites for our first meeting on February 9th @ 10 am PT / 11 am MT / 1 pm ET / 2 pm AT.

The topics for this meeting will be focused on updates to the Co-op module and student functionality. Each meeting will be made up of 8 to 10 individuals from a cross-section of universities and colleges to maintain regional diversity. We will do our best to include everyone who indicated their interest over the course of the next year. All discussions and minutes from these meetings will be shared in the Community.

A New EL Record Working Group

Secondly, for those schools that launched or are in the process of launching a student experiential record, we are excited to announce the creation of an EL Record Working group that will be chaired by our very own Cameron Ballantyne. This working group will help direct the advancement of our student experiential record. After months of being on the road at conferences and conversations around Common Learning Records, data security, AI, and competency matching we have lots of ideas. Conversations will not just focus on features but on new research, trends, machine-readable formats (trust us, this one could be really impactful), resume views, student naming conventions through an EDI lens, and ways the record can be a tool in an incredibly fast-changing environment. If your campus is interested in participating you can reach out directly to Cameron @ cballantyne@orbiscommunications.com

Updates & Things

98% Customer Satisfaction

Our support desk customer satisfaction rate is 98%. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to deliver their feedback on the work our team is doing.

Orbis Supports St. Matthew's House - Hamilton

We are proud to have partnered with St. Matthew's House again this year to sponsor three families and two seniors to ensure they have everything they need this holiday season. Our staff have donated their own money, time, and resources to support this incredible program

Community Feature Requests

Our next Outcome release has more than 10 community-sourced features in it. Our commitment to our community, you work hard to give us your ideas and input and we want to repay that by getting your ideas into the product.