Abu Dhabi University: Achieving 90% Response Rates for Arabic Programs with Explorance Blue

About Abu Dhabi University

Abu Dhabi University (ADU) is a private-for-profit university in the United Arab Emirates. It was established in 2003 and has campuses in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Al Ain. The university has 5 colleges and is home to over 8,000 students, offering a range of 50+ internationally accredited programs at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in various subjects, including business, engineering, education, health sciences, law and mass communication. ADU is among the top 3 universities in the UAE and ranked 1st for Teaching in the UAE.

The Challenge: Streamlining Arabic Program Feedback

Abu Dhabi University (ADU) faced several challenges in administering Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys for its Arabic programs. These challenges included difficulties in formatting Arabic surveys due to the language’s Right-to-Left direction, manual efforts in the data uploading process, and limited language support when exporting data for further analysis. These challenges resulted in inadequate survey experience for students and low response rates.

The Solution: An Equivalent Experience for Arabic and English Programs

ADU sought a survey platform that could provide an optimized and accessible experience for its students in Arabic programs, where surveys can be administered in both English and Arabic and are accessible through the institution’s portal and Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard.

Explorance Blue stood out for its ability to meet these criteria and offer additional features such as a built-in reporting suite, a real-time response rate monitor for faculty and college staff, integration with Outlook for email notifications, advanced reporting capabilities, and an automated process to prepare data for survey projects.

The Outcome: Improving Response Rates and Student Learning Experience at ADU

The implementation of Explorance Blue yielded significant improvements in student engagement for Arabic programs, “survey response rates of Arabic programs skyrocketed! The response rates improved to 90%.” said Merlyn Kulapurath, Senior Analyst, ADU.

The platform enabled the export of survey results, including comments in Arabic, facilitating data-driven decision-making and actionable insights for program enhancement, teaching and course delivery, and various aspects of quality assurance.

The feedback loop established through Explorance Blue facilitated evidence-based decision-making, supported faculty appraisals and development processes, and drove curriculum enhancements based on student feedback. Student satisfaction scores became integral components of college deans’ and department scorecards, driving continuous improvement efforts institution wide.

“After an extensive research on survey platforms, Explorance proved invaluable in seamlessly administering surveys in Arabic, unlocking invaluable insights from student feedback in Arabic and effortlessly bridging language barriers."

— Merlyn Kulapurath, Senior Analyst, ADU