How to Approach your Orientation Community Strategy
Communities are the best way to organize your new students and create an easy separation of content. When thinking about the student experience, it is important to think “where will my students start?”, “what is the most relevant information I should share?”, and “how will they navigate the site throughout the orientation period?”
It is also important to think about who will own your communities and what responsibilities they have. A community should not be made if there is not at least one student orientation/community leader. We also recommend having at least one staff/faculty community leader in each community. Community leaders should be regularly available and will act as the first line of defense when fielding questions for the orientation team.
While you are creating communities, it is a good time to think strategically about whether they should be public, private, or invitation only. How you are using your overall Wisr site and who is using it (enrolled students, admitted but not deposited, etc.) could determine who should have access to what information. Keep in mind that public groups are available for anyone to see and join, private groups require an invitation or approval to join but will still appear in the list of available communities to all members, and invitation only communities will be visible only to members of the group set by the admin or community leader.
With these questions in mind, below we suggest some commonly used Orientation communities in Wisr. Select some or all of these communities as you decide what makes the most sense for your Wisr orientation.
Orientation Overview
The Orientation Overview community should be your public one-stop-shop for information regarding the structure of the site, your orientation schedule, and where/when to find certain information. This is where you should host any welcome/final remarks videos/webinars as well as instructional posts that let your students/parents know what to expect in your other communities.
Not much discussion should take place in your orientation overview community as this is mostly an information hub. We recommend having a Weekly Theme Thread with information and updates for the week as well as a Topic related to which team members are regularly available and links to their profiles so your members can engage in 1:1 chat when necessary. It might also be a good place to track technical difficulties and other issues common to all users of your Wisr network.
Transfer Students
Transfer students have slightly different needs than first time freshmen as they matriculate at an institution. A transfer only community, recommended as a private or invitation only setting, can offer transfer students a home base to understand which parts of the general orientation will be relevant for them, what additional responsibilities they must complete, and programming designed specifically for their needs.
International Students
Although transfer students are also either incoming first year or transfer students, they will likely have additional requirements and questions specific to their international status to assimilate to your campus community. Having staff from your international student services office who are accustomed to managing complicated international issues available to answer visa, language proficiency, and travel requirements will prove invaluable. Ideally, you will also have community leaders who are international students representing different regions of the world to help incoming students anticipate the cultural differences they can expect on campus and where to find specialty items and services to ease feelings of homesickness. Many campuses host special orientation sessions specifically for international students and this community would be a great place to let students know if options like that are available.
Orientation Leader Hub
Since your Orientation Leaders will be using Wisr to manage their groups, we recommend creating a community for Orientation Leaders to communicate with each other and staff and act as a home base for their training, materials, and sharing tips and deadlines. This will keep all relevant information in one place. Staff can use the same practices that Orientation Leaders will ultimately use with their individual groups to schedule meetings, host trainings, and build community amongst student staff and/or volunteers. We recommend that this as an invitation only community for your student orientation leaders and staff.
Orientation Leader Moderated Small Groups
Assuming you plan to break your students into smaller Orientation groups, creating an invitation only community for each group moderated by an orientation leader allows incoming students to connect, share information about activities specific to them, and participate in private threads and conversations. These communities should replicate Orientation groups that would meet virtually throughout your in-person program. Discussion topics in this community should focus on Orientation requirements, conversations related to orientation curriculum, and frequently asked questions. For example, topics can cover upcoming deadlines, university policies, student life, etc. These small groups will make up the bulk of your communities and should be a space where incoming students have the most authentic experience and feel comfortable asking their Orientation Leader questions. Keep in mind that as you look at your Admin site, you will see dozens, perhaps even hundreds of communities, but if they are set to Invitation Only, incoming students and orientation leaders will only see the communities to which they belong.
Academic Advising/Advising Groups
Incoming students are, not surprisingly, very concerned about their class schedules, how to sequence their courses, and how to take credits towards their major to ensure on time graduation. Whether you have a professional academic advising team or your faculty have advising duties, providing space to answer student questions regarding their academic experience will be vital. If your orientation program would typically divide students into advising groups, similar to smaller orientation groups, you can create a set of invitation only communities representing each advising group led by an academic advisor community leader and perhaps also some students to provide first-hand experience.
Student/Faculty AMAs Community
An Ask Me Anything community is a great way to lean on your orientation staff and student leaders to offer your incoming students the most genuine and authentic perspectives. Use Topics and events to organize which AMAs are live and what topics they cover. AMAs are a great way to share more about student life and the student experience on campus.
Traditions and Culture
An essential part of joining your institution is learning about campus traditions, culture, and lingo (don’t forget that long list of acronyms is necessary for navigating a complex college environment). Designate a public community in your Wisr site for students to learn when and why students jump into the fountain, run naked through campus, or play so much euchre. This community will help them feel at home once they are able to step foot on campus. We recommend allowing your student ambassadors and orientation staff to rule this roost and share all the things they know and have learned about being a member of your campus community. Start threads for myths and legends, campus facts and figures, acronyms, and favorite traditions. The content of this community could also be great fodder for social activities and trivia games in your social programming.
Campus Partner Communities/Student Life
Rather than create a separate community for every “breakout session” your campus partners would plan to host during an in-person orientation, use a few public communities to organize all of your webinars, panels, and events. For example: Student Life, Athletics, and Academic Support Services. Within these communities, discussion threads/topics allow offices, programs, and services to distinguish themselves and post content. If you plan to use a community to house several info sessions, webinars, panels, etc, make sure that each Topic should have the same name as the info session/office so your members can search the discussions tab to find the content that they’re most interested in.
While Orientation sessions are usually live and in person, we recommend pre-recording as many of your “breakout sessions” as possible and posting them in the appropriate community or thread. It will be overwhelming and expensive to try to facilitate live webinars and panels for each session (especially if these sessions take place concurrently). Instead, use the time between now and when your Student Life theme week arrives to produce high quality recordings. You can share the recommendations in the Content Ideas Community in the Wisr Customers Network to walk you through the process of recording your video content.
Health and Wellness
Health and wellness is a growing area of interest for students looking for more balance in their lives. Providing information about physical and mental health services, stress management, and how students manage their health concerns is particularly important for some populations of students. A health and wellness community is also a great place to share campus policies and resources regarding alcohol and drug use, sexual health, fitness, and information about student organizations dedicated to health education. You may want to remind students that they should not post information about their personal medical histories on this public forum. To mitigate these concerns, use this community to provide contact information and links to professionals in the offices that most closely manage medical issues on your campus. This will help students have the information they need to seamlessly transfer their medical care needs from their home physicians to your campus.
Residence Life Communities
If you are on a residential campus, your residence communities are another place for students to connect with the peers they will be living with when they move to campus. Depending on when housing assignments are made and released to students, residence life communities can be great new communities added later in your orientation cycle. We recommend having your department of Residence Life maintain a discussion thread within the appropriate Campus Partner Community to answer general questions and then release new communities that echo your residence life structure when housing assignments are made public (whether that be by hall, house, or floor). It would also be a great time to pull in your housing staff, notably student resident assistants (RAs) to monitor those new communities. The creation of new residence life communities helps to make moving to college feel more real. Housing assignments and roommate information will also spark excitement and new connections on your Wisr site.
Specific College/Department Communities
If you usually build in time for schools/colleges to share information, meet with students, enable faculty/student interaction, and host sample classes, you can replicate this information in a digital experience. Create a community for each school/college and encourage members of that discipline to create content to inform students about the resources available in their school/college. Content in this community can be anything from student “My Story” posts to recorded samples classes with professors to a tour of their state-of-the-art facilities.
These communities could be public or private depending on how students are admitted to your institution. If students are admitted and therefore expected to enroll in a specific school or college, we recommend making those communities private; if students choose their major or school/college later in their careers, it might make sense for each of the academic communities to be public so students have the opportunity to explore several academic paths. Each community should also have at least one student and one faculty/staff member related to that subject regularly available to answer questions and act as a point of contact for the community.
Student Interests/Clubs and Groups Community
If your Orientation usually includes a resource or involvement fair, you can replicate this in a public community. Much like the Campus Partners community, we recommend not letting every club or organization create their own community. Instead, create one community where each group can start their own thread. Each Topic should be titled after the group/resource it discusses and members from that group should be available to answer discussion questions as well as send 1:1 chats. These discussion topics are a great place to include interviews/Q&As as well as “My Story” style posts.
Communities are searchable, so it is important the name of each Topic matches the group/resource.
Special Interest/Affinity Group Communities
Additional communities may make sense for your site. These may include: LGBTQIA+, Veterans, etc. and you can determine the most appropriate level of access given the nature of the community and whether you have pre-existing data to invite or approve student membership.
Geographic Communities
Students will likely be interested in connecting with their peers that come from the same area they do (whether across your state, country, or the world). Students may just want to meet each other online or may arrange meet-ups in their home communities. Institutions often offer summer send-off events in local communities which can be advertised through these communities.