Cutting-edge VinUniversity Deploys Innovative Tech for Gathering Feedback

Aiming for world-class education

VinUniversity (VinUni) is a recently founded university in Hanoi, Vietnam. The university has ambitious goals: to achieve the highest international standards in research, teaching, and training, to be ranked one of the top 50 young universities in the world, and to achieve a Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) 5-star rating. To this end, they set up strategic partnerships with Cornell University and UPenn, with Cornell providing extensive consulting in every aspect of the institute’s development, including infrastructure, administration, curriculum development, faculty recruitment, and other foundational aspects.

As a young and dynamic university, VinUni is availing itself of the leading technologies available to institutes of higher learning. Recently, one of those was the Blue Experience Management platform by Explorance, a best-in-class feedback gathering, and analysis software.

“Keeping the pulse of the student experience is vitally important to the university management as we continue to grow and evolve the university,” says Tung Nguyen Son, CIO at VinUni.

Tuan Bui, Business Analyst at VinUni, searched thoroughly for the course evaluation systems available before narrowing down their shortlist to six. “We evaluated the best-in-breed providers for course evaluations, in particular we looked at what the Ivy League universities were using,” he says.

Choosing Blue for efficiency, scalability, and durability

The evaluation team at VinUni decided on Blue for a number of reasons. The first was its ease of use. “We operate with a lean team,” says Tung. “Blue can do everything we need, as the top survey systems can do, but it is one tier higher in terms of the user experience and ease of use. This has dramatically cut down the time it takes to design and deliver surveys and reports.”

Second was integration. The IT team understood very well that integration was essential to creating a scalable solution that would continue to perform well, without too much-added staff, as the university grew in size. “Blue already has many existing integration points with our current systems. Or if it doesn’t exist, it is easy to develop the integration, compared to their competitors. This was a huge plus point for us,” says Nguyen.

“Blue can do everything we need, as the top survey systems can do, but it is one tier higher in terms of the user experience and ease of use. This has dramatically cut down the time it takes to design and deliver surveys and reports.”

Tung Nguyen Son, CIO at VinUniversity

Blue 360 Degree Feedback

Third was its extensibility. As a system designed for gathering feedback, Blue can do much more than course evaluations. Once VinUni discovered that it had other capabilities that could serve other offices within the university’s administration, they realized they could leverage the system for several purposes and reduce costs. In addition to Blue course evaluations, they are also leveraging Blue 360 reviews as part of the Blue Experience Management Platform.

“We knew our HR department wanted to conduct 360 reviews for all middle managers and above,” says Tung. “Previously, we used an external vendor, which had become prohibitively expensive. This was quite an eye-opener when we discovered we could do more with the tool.”

“Our senior management was pleased that we could make our investment go farther and demonstrate continued value to the university as a whole,” he added.

VinUni conducted its first 360 survey not long after implementation last summer. All internal contacts, including direct supervisors, direct employees, and peers, participated in reviewing personnel at the middle management level and up. Once trained, VinUni was able to launch the 360 review and send reports themselves. “360 reviews are an important HR initiative. Our Human Resources office was very happy that we were able to provide this service for them this year, as we found a more cost-effective method for them,” Tung says.

50% increase in course evaluation response rates with Blue

The university ran its first course evaluation in Blue last June and saw an amazing 50 percent increase in response rates on the new platform. “The new platform has a number of helpful features for making it easier for students to respond,” says Tuan. “Students get personalized emails and reminders, and pop-ups in their Canvas Learning Management System. We saw a 90% response rate on the first launch. ”

“The result amazed us with the fact that we did not even apply Blue’s advanced grade-blocking feature, which forces students to complete the survey before they can see their test results in Canvas. We believe the more professional looking survey platform gave students more confidence that their responses would remain anonymous.” Tung adds.

The Registrar Office followed up personally with the remaining 10% of students who were non-respondents, which brought the response rate to an almost unheard-of 100%.

“ The new platform has a number of helpful features for making it easier for students to respond. Students get personalized emails and reminders, and pop-ups in their Canvas Learning Management System. We saw a 90% response rate on the first launch.”

Tuan Bui, Business Analyst, VinUniversity

Satisfied internal clients

All the new users of Blue are very happy with the system, as they are seeing significant time-saving not just in survey launch and management but in the creation and delivery of reports. “The registrar is very happy with the new system, as they don’t have to take a lot of time to create reports. They just have to run them and send a link to the report from the system itself – no more individual emailing, either,” says Tuan.

VinUni is also looking forward to features available in Blue that will further improve the student experience. “The Explorance suite of products has many more features available to us that we can deploy, such as real-time chat and BlueML for qualitative data analysis,” says Tuan. “We are keen to put these new technologies to use, as well as several new kinds of surveys, in the future.”

Outstanding customer service

As a young, dynamic university, VinUni needs to move fast. Explorance was able to provide the level of service they needed. The university’s senior management had put in a request to receive course evaluation data earlier than projected, and the internal team was able to respond. “It was very critical, for everyone involved in the project, that we launch the course evaluation earlier, and Explorance was able to work with us to achieve this rapid implementation,” says Tung.

“The service we’ve received from Explorance, starting from sales, has been a very smooth experience,” he adds. “We have worked with many, many vendors. And definitely, the sales experience that we have had with Explorance is among the best we’ve experienced, in terms of the responsiveness, the consultation, the flexibility to work with us, and understanding our needs.”

“Our salesperson has also stayed with us, even after implementation. He is now our Account Manager. This is a big plus for us, we appreciate that they remain accountable and responsible for the solution they sold to us,” he adds.

With the rapid implementation of leading technology solutions, VinUni is clearly listening to its students as part of its overall goals for developing world-class education. “With Explorance, we feel that we are being understood well, and that we have a full partner in building toward our success at the university,” Tung concludes. “We know with full confidence that we can reach out for the help or solution we need, and will get an immediate response. This is going to be a long journey that we can go on together.”

“ We have worked with many, many vendors. And definitely, the sales experience that we have had with Explorance is among the best we’ve experienced, in terms of he responsiveness, the consultation, the flexibility to work with us, and understanding our needs.”

Tung Nguyen Son, CIO at VinUniversity