Challenge

Ball State University, a public, four-year institution in Muncie, Indiana, needed to expand internal research capacity to meet state-mandated reporting requirements for new program development.

Solution

Ball State first partnered with Hanover to help determine the market viability of new academic programs for its graduate school, including programs for its MBA and MFA degrees. In addition to new program analyses, Ball State also wanted to apply this data driven approach to gathering the opinions of existing and prospective students through surveys and survey analysis, the first of which was a non-matriculating student survey.

Impact

Hanover and Ball State conducted an analysis to determine the causes of non-matriculation among accepted students and why some applicants fail to complete an application.

As a result of this analysis, Ball State is considering the following actions:

• Institute a faculty advisor outreach plan to prospective students with incomplete applications
• Design outreach related to the competitiveness and value of an online Ball State degree

We use Hanover to determine the market viability of potential new academic programs and help us get a pulse on our student and prospective student populations.
The most important part of this partnership is the customization aspect. Hanover listens to our needs and designs work that will get to the heart
of our key questions.
—Nancy Prater, Director of Marketing and Communications, Online and Distance Education