Around 83% of students in Australia's latest Student Experience Survey feel they are developing the skills they need, which is good news for the region's tertiary education sector.
However, 28% of students also said they did not feel adequately supported by their institutions. These students could be at a higher risk of disengaging early from their courses.
Charlie Foxlee, Senior Solutions Consultant, APAC, at Ellucian, looks at the technology that tertiary education institutions in Australia can use strategically to keep students engaged and well supported until graduation.
Beyond the Classroom: What Shapes Student Engagement and Why it Matters
Student engagement is shaped by the whole student experience, not just what happens in lectures or tutorials. It includes how easily students can access support, understand what's expected of them, connect with staff and peers, and manage the practical demands of study alongside work and life commitments. Strengthening engagement therefore requires institutions to look holistically at the systems, processes, and touchpoints that influence how supported students feel day to day.
When student engagement is weak or inconsistent, the impact is often felt early. Students are more likely to miss key information, withdraw from learning activities, delay seeking support, or leave their course altogether. For institutions, this can result in lower retention, increased support pressure, and reduced visibility into where and why students are struggling.
Why Early Engagement is Critical to Student Success
The early weeks of study are when students decide whether they belong. Many are new to the institution, navigating unfamiliar academic expectations while adjusting to new social environments, work commitments, financial pressures or living arrangements.
When students feel uncertain, invisible or unsupported early on, disengagement can quickly follow. Overlooked information, unclear expectations or difficulty accessing help can create the impression that support is fragmented or impersonal. Over time, this erodes confidence and students' sense of belonging – two of the strongest predictors of whether a student persists or withdraws.
Early engagement is therefore not just about orientation or communication; it is about building trust. When students experience clear guidance, timely support, and consistent interactions from the outset, they are more likely to feel known, supported and confident enough to stay engaged and seek help when challenges arise. The challenge for institutions is how to provide this level of early support consistently and at scale for increasingly diverse cohorts of students.
5 Ways Technology Can Transform Student Engagement
Technology can help institutions to take a personalised and coordinated approach to engaging students, whether they study on campus, online or in hybrid courses. Digital tools and systems are not designed to replace the critical human interactions, but they can remove barriers to engagement and help staff to support students more effectively.
There are five key areas where technology can be used to strengthen student engagement in tertiary education.
1. Deliver a Smooth Student Experience at Every Touchpoint
Sometimes students disengage not because they are struggling academically, but because the processes they are asked to navigate are unnecessarily complicated. Confusing next steps, difficulty finding the right person to contact, or having to use multiple systems to enrol, access financial support, or book appointments can quickly frustrate students, particularly if they are balancing study with other responsibilities or are under financial pressure.
A frustrated student is more likely to give up on seeking the help they need or lose their enthusiasm for learning.
A unified SaaS solution, such as Ellucian Student, enables Student Success by making it easier for students to manage their studies, from registering in courses and units, to tracking their academic progress and accessing support services, without logging in to multiple systems.
A personalised, intuitive, and mobile-responsive UI can prompt students to complete tasks on-time and arrange appointments with advisors or support teams proactively. By making routine processes easier to manage, in a central workspace, students can focus on their learning and are more likely to remain engaged throughout their studies.
2. Identify Struggling Students Early
The timing of support and interventions can make the difference between one student completing their course and another disengaging permanently. Once a student has started to lose interest, it could be too late as their confidence, motivation, and connection with the course may be seriously affected. They may even have already made the decision to leave early.
Early signs of disengagement, such as missed lectures, late assignment submissions, low participation in online activities, or limited contact with tutors and wellbeing staff, can be hard to spot when information is fragmented or located across different departments.
Ellucian Advising helps staff to identify and support students who may be struggling. They can see a real-time, holistic view of each learner, including their academic progress, recent interactions with tutors or support teams and risk factors that may indicate they are starting to disengage. This allows advisors to quickly understand a student's situation, prioritise contact with learners at risk, and take timely action through targeted messages or check-ins before issues escalate.
3. Deliver a Connected and Consistent Student Experience
Students often seek guidance from multiple teams as they plan their studies, from academic advisors and tutors to central administration. When staff do not have a common view of a student's situation, the advice they give can be inconsistent, confusing, or based on partial information.
With fragmented systems and incomplete data, staff may miss vital context that could be relevant, such as a student who finds it difficult to submit assessments on time but is considering adding to an already demanding timetable to graduate sooner.
A fully integrated SaaS solution like Ellucian Student powers the end-to-end student lifecycle allowing advisors and support teams to see all the critical detail needed to guide students' learning journeys, including their engagement patterns and support requirements.
Our Smart Planning and Registration solution complements this by giving students a visual roadmap to achieve their goals, helping them understand how decisions about courses and timetables affect their progress. This combination of staff insight and student-facing technology delivers a connected and consistent experience that helps learners make steady progress towards course completion.
4. Make Every Communication Count
Students receive messages through multiple channels every day, which can often result in important information being missed. Generic announcements or messages that are not relevant to a student's programme, stage of study, or personal circumstances can be ignored, leaving learners unaware of critical deadlines or opportunities for social activities that encourage their sense of belonging.
With Ellucian Advising, institutions can automate and personalise messages and notifications, so students receive communications that include their names, course details, and relevant information on academic or social interests.
Messages can also be triggered by students' engagement patterns, such as missed tutorials or online course materials left unread for several days. These timely communications can help get the right information and guidance to students when they need it, without overwhelming them with unnecessary messages that switch them off.
5. Use Data to Drive Strategic Student Engagement
Staff can gain an institution-wide view of student engagement using Ellucian Advising, which brings together data on academic performance, attendance, online activity, and contact with support services across programs and faculties. By analysing this data in real time, institutions can to spot patterns and trends across cohorts, helping to shape effective strategies to improve student engagement.
If engagement in a core engineering unit of study has declined over multiple semesters, for example, staff can identify the underlying causes and trigger targeted initiatives such a review of the curriculum and learning delivery model.
How Ellucian's Solutions Can Increase Student Engagement
- Ellucian Student: a single, unified SaaS solution that powers the end-to-end student lifecycle.
- Advising: Gives staff a real-time, holistic view of student performance, enabling them to identify learners who need support, coordinate outreach across departments, and provide timely, personalised guidance throughout the student journey.
- Smart Planning and Registration: Offers students a visual roadmap of study pathways, allowing them to plan courses, see how changes affect graduation timelines, and make informed decisions to stay on track.
Explore how Ellucian's technology helps Australian tertiary institutions strengthen student engagement and retention through personalised, proactive, and data-driven support.
