Digital Door Mat Helps to Welcome Students

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 3, 2011) – When prospective students visit campus, they’ll have a high-tech resource greeting them.

The University of Kentucky Office of Enrollment Management has implemented Apple iPads in the the UK Visitor Center experience.  Prospective students now have the ability to search UK’s directory, schedule a campus tour, and register for UK’s “see blue. VIP,” providing them access to a personal web page and up-to-date information about their academic and extracurricular interests at UK.

“Located on the bottom floor of the Main Building within the Visitor Center, the kiosk bank of iPads will improve the data collection of prospective students to be implemented into the Hobson’s Connect Constituency Relationship Management System for communication efforts,” said Brent Porter, director of CRM for enrollment management.

UK is a trendsetter in using this technology.

“UK will be the first university to have custom iPad/mobile interest pages generated by Hobson’s, as well as a custom mobile landing page for quick access to Hobson’s Events, the UK Directory, Freshman, Transfer and International VIP registration pages, and all websites about admissions at UK,” said Tyler Gayheart, IT coordinator for enrollment management. 

The iPads, which can be configured from a remote location, refresh to a home screen when not in use and allow the students to browse only UK websites.   The innovation will allow Visitor Center employees to spend less time on the computer during registration and more time answering questions from students and parents.

This isn’t the first time staff from the Office of Undergraduate Admission and University Registrar have used this technology.  This past fall, admissions counselors used iPads at Preview Nights across the state and region for quick and easy registration into “see blue. VIP,” as well as student arrival check-in. The innovation has improved the process and logistics of registering students. 

“We are continuing to think of new, innovative, and efficient strategies to interact with prospective students and collect data,” said Don Witt, vice provost for enrollment management.  “I am very proud of the work being done by our team members Tyler Gayheart and Brent Porter to move our efforts forward!”

If you plan on visiting campus, go to http://www.uky.edu/VisitorCenter/.

For more information on applying to UK, visit: www.applyuk.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:  Amy Jones, (859) 257-1754, ext. 257, amy.jones2@uky.edu