Dear Canada: Better Recruitment This Year, Better Data Next Year
Academica Group and Inigral announce a Partnership: Launches Research Analytics with Inigral’s Schools App
April 27th, 2011
Today Academica announced a strategic research partnership with Inigral Inc, the developer of the Schools App on Facebook, a social media product that is specifically designed to boost recruitment and improve retention. The Schools App leverages the world’s most popular social network, Facebook, and converts students’ online social activity and data into a compelling and secure online community.
Academica and Inigral have developed two research products that make use of the social media data coming from Inigral’s unique Facebook application. “We are excited to integrate our higher education research expertise into Inigral’s innovative and highly successful social community product and add thoughtful research data and analysis to Inigral’s product,” said Philip Bliss, Chief Innovation Officer at Academica Group.
Academica’s HigherEd SocialTrends™ Dashboard provides insights and analytics for Schools’ who are using Inigral’s Facebook application. The Dashboard will also help Schools’ understand the overall usage of the Schools App on Facebook. Clients will access this report exclusively via Academica’s HigherEd Analytics Research System™. Additionally, Academica’s HigherEd SocialTrends™ In-Depth Analysis provides a comprehensive custom analysis and report that examines the kind of interactions taking place in the Facebook communities and provides meaningful analysis and recommendations from this data.
“Our Schools App can increase a student’s sense of belonging and social integration within an institution, lowering the chances of attrition. Now with the addition of Academica’s research capability the data that our community provides can really help schools understand the needs of both applicants and students,” said Michael Staton, CEO of Inigral Inc. “The research integration will be launched in June, 2011 in time for the new recruiting year ahead.”
Academica Group Inc. is a research-based marketing consultancy focused exclusively on the higher education sector, and a worldwide leader bringing marketing innovation to higher education. For 14 years, our continent-wide survey of college and university applicants (the UCAS™ Applicant Study) has set the global standard for comprehensive higher education consumer research into market perceptions and brand reputations. Academica Group has made important contributions to provincial and national higher education policy research, in areas such as postsecondary accessibility, funding, retention and student pathways studies. Back in 2007, Academica Group’s social media team was among the first to experiment with a Facebook application for prospective students. Our web development group specializes in information architecture and user interface validation for institutional websites, and has pioneered the construction of institutional web presences using the Drupal open-source content management system. Academica Group also publishes Canada’s leading daily news digest for higher education, Academica’s Top Ten, which is now read by more than 10,000 subscribers at institutions and agencies across the country.
Inigral Inc. is the emerging market leader delivering social applications to impact student enrolment and engagement. The Schools App leverages the Facebook Platform to drive student interconnectedness and belonging, increasing a postsecondary institution’s yield of accepted students and the retention of existing students. Inigral was founded in 2007 and is the only Facebook Preferred Developer focused on Higher Education. The education technology company is backed by Founders Fund, Retro Venture Partners and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
For further information, please contact:
Philip Bliss, Chief Innovation Officer
tel. 1.416.504.7228 ext 200
bliss@academicagroup.com
Academica Group™, HigherEd SocialTrends™ , HigherEd SocialTrends™ In-Depth Analysis and HigherEd Analytics System™ are trademarks of Academica Group Inc. All rights reserved.
