We’ve advertised the Permaculture Design course in the local paper last week, and again tomorrow. We’ve sent promotional messages to email forums, and the good old word of mouth. The course starts in 2 days and we only have 3 enrollments. Are we missing something? Is permaculture an unfamiliar concept in Dunedin? Is our timing wrong? Does the course need to establish itself more? Is the price wrong?
What I do know is that is that our enrollment process we have should have less failure points. As it is now, we advertise, people call a number, they are sent an enrollment form, upon receipt of a completed enrollment form the applicant is directed to the course start location. There are 3 failure points in that process (assuming we have all of our own systems and responses working well).
- Interested person has to make contact
- Interested person has to fill out and send enrollment form
- Interested person has to turn up
In Institutions I have worked at in the past, the advertisement for the course includes the location of the start day with a more or less open invite to turn up on day 1. The enrollments are done on that day and then its straight into it. In such an approach to formal enrollments there is only one failure point:
- Interested person has to turn up
And it has a feeling of being fairer I reckon. A kinda try before you buy (an enrollment form does have the sensation of financial commitment).
The local interest in the course is disappointing so far. But on an upside we have had 2 inquiries from California wanting to participate online. Kim, the course facilitator has blogged about this. Our only online promotion has been to make the course outline and schedule openly accessible on Wikieducator. When I asked the 2 Californians how they came across our course literally 2 days after putting it on Wikieducator they said Google.
So at least the name of the course is right, for Californians.
Both are interested in obtaining a certificate in Permaculture Design. Our course is not yet established enough for such a thing, but it is our goal. As is the goal to make it accessible and achievable through distance learning. We plan to use this first running of the course to record presentations, discussions and workshops to digital media for access by the distance learners. At least one of the Californians is keen to participate at this level and to help us get the most out of this effort. It is also our goal to further develop the course and make it attractive to designers generally.
So hopefully we will gain more local enrollments in the course. Any suggestions are very welcome.
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February 21, 2008 at 9:57 am
Susan
Are we missing something? yes! ..and more content on the wiki & links permaculture.net
Is permaculture an unfamiliar concept in Dunedin? Don’t know? this question could be posed by a permaculture design participant ie a research project in the pilot phase!
Is our timing wrong? Where would permaculture design be without seasons like winter
Does the course need to establish itself more? Yes (and no) – its a pilot
Is the price wrong? a discounted course can imply it is not the real deal!
February 22, 2008 at 5:48 am
dave
you have missed a few other critical points in the process
I got no where – you try getting this to happen, you might have more luck:
1) Person who has never been to a polytech before walks in the door of a department with full ID on them
2) Person leaves the department fully enrolled
February 22, 2008 at 5:53 pm
brent
Leigh, i was also interested in the course but don’t, as you know, live in Dunedin. If it could be developed as a distance course, using WikiEd and some blogs I’d be in.
brent.
February 22, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Robin
low enrollments are in courses are interesting. I used work at the TAFE we need 6 people to run a short commercial short course. There was alot of short courses we couldn’t get numbers for. Now I one of the things I do is work with a small private company that will run a course for just one student (the course cost are high !!!) What this means is the small place is really focus on what the student needs and work change the course to met what student wants. It’s also a given that enrollment and payments and feedback all happen online. The TAFE I was working for was talking about 3 years to get that done !!!
February 23, 2008 at 2:07 pm
leighblackall
Hey Brent.. if you have time, could you watch the Wiki where we intend to load vids, audio, and other resources.. and perhaps you could offer suggestions on what we should do to make your distance learning experience better.. a blog you reckon?
Robin, yes, time is certainly a factor – especially in the more niche areas like Permaculture.. we are building up the online aspect of this course, and hope to service distance learners well…
I was thinking about a scaled fee structure for the course.. higher fee if numbers low, lower fee if numbers high.. this might give an incentive for people who are enrolling to get their friends to do so too so their fees can be less…
February 25, 2008 at 3:22 pm
graemedixon
I was interested in the course but my weekends are precious and I will not give up a Sunday for the world. Equally I feel if the Polytechnic is serious about sustainability there should be a staff discount available to encourage us to become more knowlegeable. It seems to me that its just another way to extract money.
I would be interested in an online version with some targeted visits to genuine examples of sustainable practice.
February 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm
leighblackall
G’day Graham, I am sure that a staff discount applies to this course. Do you know otherwise? I will look into it. As for weekends.. yes I hear ya! last Sunday was a day to remember hey. Absolutely perfect. While our day with the course was magnificant in visited inspiring gardens, bush land and property around Dunedin, I can see that I am not going to be able to go to all of the Sunday field trips. The times I can’t make it I will catch up with online. The next course will have a fully online self paced version…