WHAT HIT RATE CAN YOU EXPECT?
Higher Education. For academicians, the hit rate is usually low because so many know nothing about LinkedIn. It is a well-kept professional secret. At college and university workshops, I regularly ask how many faculty are familiar with LinkedIn. The response is frequently 25–50%, which is probably inflated due to social desirability pressure. When I invite most of those persons to join my network, 75–90% are LinkedIn newbies with me as their first connection. (EVIDENCE NOTE: At present, I have more than 200 connections with Moi as their only connection.) Overall, a batting average of 30–50% (response rate) is reasonable.
Business and Industry. With business contacts, expect a higher hit rate of 40–70%. The business world is much more familiar with LinkedIn.
FINALE. This concludes my series on LinkedIn. I hope it has been helpful. Please let me know your thoughts on what worked, what I omitted, and what suggestions you have to improve my blogs. Have an incredible 2011!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Over the past 1.5 years since joining LinkedIn, I have experimented with standard LinkedIn sources and a bunch of my own. Some work better than others for various types of connections. Once you accumulate 500 or more, LinkedIn will report 500+ next to Connections in the 1st profile box and on your Connections page.
TOP 15 OTHER SOURCES & STRATEGIES BEGINNING NOW!
1. Listserv contacts who share similar areas of interest with you
2. Professional inquiries about your publications and other activities from new colleagues and students
3. Consulting firm personnel who hired you
4. Contacts from your Website, blog, or other professional sites
5. Meeting planner or conference organizer who invites you to speak
6. HR director or center director who hires you to speak or train
7. Faculty, students, or others who attend workshops you conduct (DYNAMITE SOURCE! After all, they attended your workshop because they’re interested in your work.)
8. Professionals you meet at conferences (with new business cards)
9. Professionals on Facebook or other social media and people “following you”
10. LinkedIn professional group contacts in discussions (join a bunch of LinkedIn groups in higher education, professional associations and organizations, and relevant businesses)
11. LinkedIn connections at institutions where you have worked or gone to school (colleagues, students, classmates, clients, etc.)
12. Connections from your LinkedIn connections (scroll down their connections and click Connect on the right)
13. Members who are listed in your LinkedIn groups (to the right, click Invite to Connect)
14. On your LinkedIn Home (upper left on menu), go to People You May Know box on the right and click See More at bottom (scroll through list to find potential connectees—click Connect or Invite to Connect and invite them as a colleague)
15. Acquaintances on airplanes, trains, buses, skateboards, snowboards, and other transport equipment
What have I missed? What sources have you used to generate connections? Let me know your strategies?
What’s Next? What hit rate can you expect when you invite prospective connections? What’s the response rate in academia compared to business and industry? Stay tuned for my next blog.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
A HISTORY OF STUDENT RATINGS: Meso-Responserate Era (2000–2010)
The first decade of the new millennium rode on the search engines of the previous decade. A bunch of publications kicked it off with half a dozen edited volumes on student ratings and faculty evaluation published by Jossey-Bass in their Teaching and Learning series (Ryan, 2000, #83; Lewis, 2001, #87; Knapper & Cranton, 2002, #88; Sorenson & Johnson, 2004, #96) and Institutional Research series (Theall, Abrami,& Mets, 2001, #109; Colbeck, 2002, #114).
There were no planet-shattering technical developments, although there were several software options created specifically for online administration and reporting. Only a trickle (OOPS! Sorry. This is just residual fluid from the previous metaphor.) of articles on midterm formative ratings and other topics appeared. Finally, three books hit the Amazon pages in the last half of the decade: Arreola’s (2007)14th edition of his popular work, Seldin’s (2006) 128th edited volume, and our hero’s (Moi, 2006) psychometric-humorous attempt (see References in next blog).
Most of the activity and discourse on student ratings concentrated on practical issues. There were several trends that continued from the previous decade:
(1) student ratings data were being supplemented with other data, particularly peer review of teaching and course materials and letters of recommendation by each professor’s mommy or daddy, for decisions about teaching effectiveness;
(2) institutions reviewed the quality of their tools to consider either a commercial package, such as THOUGHT, or develop their own “homegrown” scales with online reporting by Academic Management Systems or other support;
(3) the technical quality of many “homegrown” scales prompted me to coin the new psychometric term "putrid"; and
(4) the debate over paper-based vs. online administration grew with cost and student response rates as the deal-breakers. Online packages were available everywhere. The importance of response rates to the validity of student ratings became so critical to the adoption of an online system that this era was named the "Meso-Responserate Era."
We’ve come to the end of this series. I’ve run out of jokes. The last blog will be an epilogue of a few final thoughts and jokes.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Based on the Top 10 List of Strategies in my previous blog, which ones did you pick as MOST EFFECTIVE? Oh, you didn't read my previous blog. Shame, shame. Is this your 1st blog reading? Well, congrats! Welcome to Berk's BlogWorld. I hope you find it informative and fun!
For those of you who did peruse my Top 10, what did you pick? Let’s examine the evidence and see whether you get the prize. (SIDEBAR: “Yo, Blogboy, you didn’t say a prize was involved!” Oops, sorry. It was an afterthought.)
To date, the evidence indicates that students must believe (Do you believe? Kinda like Peter Pan!) that the results will be used for important decisions about faculty and courses in order for the online system to be successful. When faculty assign students in class to complete the evaluation with or without incentives, response rates are high. Finally, withholding early access to grades is supported by students as highly effective, but not too restrictive. This “withholding” approach has been very successful at raising response rates to the 90s at several institutions.
These strategies have boosted response rates into the 80s and 90s. It is a combination of elements, however, as suggested above, that must be executed properly to assure a high rate of students' return on the online investment. The research base and track record of online student ratings belies “low response rate” as an excuse for not implementing such a system in any institution.
While the combo strategy is recommended, there is one BEST technique among the top 10 that can really spike your response rate. It will be examined in the next blog.
Let me know if you have tried other strategies that have worked in your evaluation system.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Here is a list of the Top 10 most effective strategies to get 80%+ response rates for online student ratings (Berk, 2006; Johnson, 2003; Sorenson & Reiner, 2003):
10. Faculty communicate online and face-face to students the importance of their input and how the results will be used
9. Ease of computer access for all students
8. Assurance of anonymity
7. Convenient, user-friendly online system
6. Provide easy-to-understand instructions on how to use the system
5. Administration and faculty strongly encourage students to complete forms
4. Faculty “assign” students to complete forms
3. Faculty threaten to smash students’ iPods with a Gallagher-type sledgehammer
3. System withholds students’ early access to final grades
2. Faculty provide extra credit or points
1. Faculty provide positive incentives (aka assorted bribes, such as requiring students to pick-up dry cleaning and take dog to the vet)
This is quite a laundry list of techniques. Is there any single practice that has a proven track record of success? Yup. That one is even more top-secret and a higher security “code chartreuse” technique than the others. It will be revealed in my next blog. Stay tuned.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
