Why Swinburne University partnered with IDP Live

Our student-centred app, IDP Live, fast-tracks students through to receiving an in-principle offer before they are required to submit their applications, thereby ensuring that students can find the right courses and institutions faster and more easily.

We recently sat down with Jogvan Klein, Director of International Recruitment at Swinburne University of Technology to find out why they partnered with IDP Live and how its ground-breaking service aligns with their tech innovations.

Why did you decide to become an IDP Live partner and how does it support your recruitment strategy?

Swinburne is a university of technology so we literally have it hard-collared into our strategy to have people and technology come together to build a better world. IDP Live was well aligned when we got the opportunity, and for us, it was making sure that students had a smooth experience.

It’s been exciting to work with the IDP digital team in India, as well as the one here in Australia, to resolve something that we have all grappled with – a lot of complex information around what student’s qualification are and how that fits in with our entry requirements. So, that’s been fantastic to see, the solution in providing real-time advice to students.

What gives IDP Live and its fast-tracked recruitment capabilities the edge in the market?

IDP have such an incredible reach in any tech innovations, and developments like this get amplified so significantly. The real edge is that IDP have such an incredible global reach and it amplifies all the technology solutions, especially in this IDP Live initiative.

What synergies do you see between IDP Live’s student-centred approach and Swinburne's values and key strengths?

At the core, we are a university of technology and similar to IDP, we embrace these new technologies. A good example would be our Open Day initiative, Swintopia, which was developed not just as a response to COVID but also was something we had in the drawer already. And it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think how the Swintopia initiative and IDP Live can be brought together to provide an opportunity for students to have an on-demand open day and walk away with an offer in principle. It's quite exciting to think about how new technologies and initiatives will take us in supporting our students.

Why do you think it’s important that innovative technology, like IDP Live, is leading the sector rebound in Australia?

There is no doubt that the sector has been profoundly impacted during COVID and students are demanding more. I’ve lived on the internet for two years and I just expect a lot more than I probably did so it’s ridiculous for us not to think that our students are expecting more. Students have many more options and we need to ensure that universities remain the go-to place for education.

I often think back to my time as a student in Denmark, and the Student Services counter was open from 10am – 2pm, and then they had a lunch break in the middle of those open hours. I don’t think those kind of services fly anymore, so we need to think more carefully about how we deliver our courses, how we deliver our services, and how we do that in a way the students expect us to do it.

What would be your advice for institutions considering coming on board?

There are two pieces of advice that I would give to any institution considering: 1) Ensure you have a dedicated resource team that are able to work on it as a project as it is something that requires a bit of time and effort, however it’s really worth it.

2) Make sure you socialize what the Offer in Principle is and how it works with the IDP live platform. Internally, we found that it stimulated discussions like “if we’re able to do it that way, what other opportunities do we have for innovation?” So making sure that you actually pick the brains of the IDP staff who developed this app because it’s a really exciting initiative. For us, it really does cap off what has been a long-standing issue in bringing these complex pieces of information together in a seamless way.