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We recognize that student support systems, especially in first-year programs, play a vital role in providing comprehensive assistance and resources to students that promote success in coursework and integration into campus life. With our diverse undergraduate student population at UNC Charlotte, students’ first-year experience is a crucial time to offer academic and social student support and foster a sense of belonging through social connection and interaction with NinerLink.

NinerLink involves leveraging technology to enhance and extend the impact of high-impact learning practices through the following overarching community goals, which are reflective of the project’s core purpose to ensure an equitable and inclusive blended student support solution:

  1. Promoting Engagement and Belonging
  2. Promoting Peer-to-Peer Discourse
  3. Promoting Learning Efficacy
  4. Promote Personalized and Adaptive Support

NinerLink is Powered via InScribe, an AI-integrated community platform for higher education institutions that supports opportunities for students to come together online for various purposes and intentions (Figure 2).  InScribe’s built-in AI assistant ROSI supports the curation, archiving, and recommendation of digital learning resources when students seek help.  In addition, ROSI serves as a digital community moderator, flagging student posts when there is a need for human intervention (harmful posts, unanswered posts, negative sentiment and affect, etc.). 

NinerLink communities are designed directly with UNC Charlotte  faculty to provide the most useful and beneficial student-support mechanism for their students. Communities may be contained to a single  course or section, or across multiple courses/sections (called “Commons”) to expand student access to supportive peers, TAs, resources, and information. 

Characteristics of NinerLink communities include: 

  • Student-Led Discussion Boards
  • Student-Led Chat (including Group Chat)
  • Resource Archiving
  • AI-Driven Resource Curation
  • AI-Driven Resource Recommendations
  • AI Community Moderation
  • Human (typically TA) Community Moderation
  • Live Review Sessions and Reminders
  • Canvas Integration
    • Single sign-on login
    • Three point navigation via Canvas, Inscribe Mobile App, and Inscribe Web Portal
  • Student-Useage Analytics 
  • Resourse Useage Analytics
  • Customizeable Reputation Points for Community Engagement based on:
    • Questions Posted: Questions started.
    • Answers Posted: Responses provided to questions.
    • Shares Posted: Share posts created (statements).
    • Share Responses Posted: Responses to share posts.
    • Replies: Replies to responses to either share posts or questions. Replies are one level down from responses so think of them as a follow-up question to an answer given, or a follow-up to a particular response on a share post.
    • Reactions Given: Total number of reactions given to share posts, questions, and resources.

The launch and implementation of NinerLink have proven its strengths,  that combining in-class support with online student support can bring forth a stronger sense of help-seeking in coursework, build peer connectedness and belonging, instill greater learning efficacy to help students find resources to study, and offer an accessible, affordable, inclusive, and equitable student support platform.  

*The Pilot of the NinerLink Project received the 2024 Online Learning Consortium (OLC) INNOVATE Excellence in Online and Blended Student Support Award.