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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. 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 a meaningful 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 and affordable 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.