This blog will be quiet for a while…

In the last few months, my job has changed and I will be shortly be leading a web development project at Lund University. As a result, I will no longer be able to maintain this blog. So, for the time being, I’m shutting down comments and will not be posting.

Many thanks to everyone who has left comments, and I wish you well with your applications and studies.

If I have not answered your comment, I apologise. You can check out the www.studyinsweden.se site, as well as the studera.nu facebook group (www.facebook.com/studera.nu) for help.

Discussion at StudyinSweden Regarding Fees

There’s a great thread regarding the introduction of fees at the StudyinSweden site – I’m a little out of the loop right now (due to the work I’m doing with  Lund University’s web development project) so expect to see more updated information there.

http://www.swedenintouch.se/Forum/Topics/Messages/?topicid=617

Application Fees – Wait, says Government Agency

Tuition fees will be implemented in 2011, and the Swedish authority for Higher Education services says that application fees should be introduced at the same time – not 2010 as previously thought.

Read about this at the ‘Local’ Swedish news in English’ site

See the press release here (In Swedish)

Non-European students to be charged tuition fees

Finally, the official confirmation for the introduction of fees:

The Swedish Government, on the 10th September, said:

“In the 2010 Budget Bill, the Government proposes that foreign students wishing to study in Sweden should pay fees.”

Read the full press release in English.

Note that the press release identifies a grant system, but details of this must wait until the Autumn.

Students Applying in 2010 Will Probably Pay Fees: New Information From The Swedish Authorities

The Swedish authority for  Universities (VHS) is investigating how to introduce application and tuition fees for Non EU students. It looks like students applying in 2010 will pay an application fee, and full fees will be introduced in 2011. The current information in Swedish says  that tuition fees will be introduced for those students starting their education in the Autumn 2011. Thus, apply in 2010, you will be paying fees in 2011 – though we must wait for the governments investigation , results on the 15th September.

Malmö university has more on this here: http://www.mah.se/english/News/News-2009/Application-fee-for-foreign-students—Autumn-Term-2010/

The governments decision can be read here (in Swedish): http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/12/80/04/bd2a502b.pdf

New Report from Eduserv on UK Higher Education Website Management

Over on my future web blog I’ve just posted on a new report from the UK, on the management of websites in Higher Education.

I’ll probably be adding more of the web management stuff there in the future and, when I can find a suitable person, giving over this blog so it can function purely as an admissions blog.

Studera.nu – New ‘Operational Status’ Blog – Updated 23rd Oct.

Studera.nu now has a blog with updates about the status of studera.nu. It’s a mixture of Swedish and English but does contain contact information for studera.nu staff.

I only took a quick look, but I did not see a link from studera.nu to their blog, which seems a bit odd.

Tip of the hat to the ever awesome studera.nu facebook group for this.

I notice that they don’t allow comments on their blog (which misses the point of having a blog, I think) so if there is anything you want to add about their posts, feel free to leave it here.

Finally, with my SEO hat on, it seems they have a bit of a problem with the page rank of both this blog and studera.nu, which seems odd given that every university in Sweden links to them.

Updated: I recently had a great conversation with VHS/studera.nu who explained that they do not, currently, have the resources to deal with the volume of questions they receive from the their blog site, nor can they enable comments at this time.  The blog is only there to report on the status of their website, studera.nu. As a result, I’ve taken down the link to their contact site as they cannot guarantee a response to questions about applications and admission procedure. For the time being, use the contact information available at studera.nu.

Summer Vacation

The great Swedish summer has finally arrived, and I’m going to be on leave. You won’t be able to leave a comment without me checking it first, which may not be for a few weeks…..

Have a great summer!

Lund University – New Web Development Project

Lund University has launched a new 3 year project with the aim of developing our presence on the web. The project will focus on improving our website (which is composed of 2 main domains, and at least 500 subdomains) in terms of how we publish, the online functions we offer and the management of content. I’ll be writing the project plan over the next few months and will be formally leading the project from September 2009.

This is an awesome opportunity for the university; over the last few years it’s become clear that the service our websites give to our users is not of the quality they expect and that change, and improvement, is definitely needed. We also need to address our presence on the web, beyond our ‘official’ websites and start engaging our target groups in a better way.

I’ve started a new blog: www.lu.se/futureweb (this is broken right now, working on fixing it 26th June) which contains information about the project. I must be clear, it it not an admissions blog although any input regarding the state of our current website, and features we could develop would be gratefully received.

I’ll still be maintaining this blog for the near future but will hopefully find another member of staff to start contributing application and admissions content.

Bad content more damaging than missing content – Noel Levitz survey of future students and University websites.

Students value website content over the ‘look and feel’ of a university website, are put off by out of date information and want to be contacted through social networking. These are some of the results of a new survey by Noel Levitz, who surveyed 1000 college bound students in the US.

The report totally emphasizes the power of content when it shows that  an alarming 57% of the respondents would drop a school off their list, of possible study destinations, if the website content is out of date, incorrect or unhelpful. This is in contrast to the lower 16% who said they’d take a school off their list if they don’t find what they need. Morale – big sites with unmanaged stinking content (to coin one of Gerry McGovern’s favourite phrases) are damaging your brand.

The report also indicates a willingness to read content and scroll through content. What’s interesting about this data is that it also shows a high frequency of printing or emailing the content – both actions which could be tracked, and used to measure the performance of the page.

When I first saw this report mentioned on Twitter the information that only 3% of applicants found a school online via research on MySpace or Facebook seemed a little surprising at first; but it only takes a few seconds thought to realize that people don’t begin a search on a social networking site. Further, the survey then goes on to show that students are positive about universities using social networks to promote their courses, or contact the students directly.  I think an excellent opportunity for this, in the Swedish Higher Education sector, is with the awesome studera.nu- national admissions to Swedish higher education facebook group. Huge opportunities exist, to help students in the recruitment process, if the universities and studera.nu itself, were to engage with the students there.

There’s a lot of good stuff packed in this 12 page report; and it totally emphasizes the value of simply asking our target audience questions. Higher Education has a unique advantage in that our existing, or potential, customers are so easy to identify and research.

The Noel Levitz report – Scrolling Towards Enrollment