Photo courtesy of Navigate app
Pepperdine University started using the app Navigate with the goal of providing students with easy access to academic support. The app went live after the Spring 2018 semester. The core goal of Navigate is to lead students on a successful pathway towards graduation.
Navigate provides students with the basic resources to view their schedules (and download them to a phone calendar), create study groups and manage a personalized to-do list for their specific grade level. The app highlights making appointments with academic advisors and future academic term planning. It allows for students to stay in class, dorms or the library without having to go to main campus to seek out academic help. Later in the year, students will be able to plan their spring semester classes on the app or on the Wavenet website portion.
“We had about 600 to 620 students before NSO who had already downloaded the app,” said Kendra Killpatrick, senior associate dean for Seaver College.
Incoming freshman started using Navigate on the launch date, May 1.
Although Pepperdine’s Navigate is personalized for students on Pepperdine’s campus, Navigate is also used at other universities and colleges. Killpatrick said Pepperdine choose to partner with Navigate because of the mobile app and the academic planning aspect.
Freshman Alisha Harris said she thinks the app is great when it works.
“It keeps crashing,” Harris said. “When it works it’s super helpful, but it doesn’t always work”
Similar complaints appear on both Google Play and the Apple App store. The app has a tendency of crashing during the log in process for students, but those students that successfully log in counter less problems with unexpected crashes. The easiest fix to the crash is refreshing the app and attempting to log in again.
According to users on Google Play, Navigate only received an average of 2.4 star rating (127 reviews). The Apple App store gave the app the same rating of 2.4 (119 reviews), with many of the reviews citing bugs in the program for phones. The bugs were mainly crashes at the beginning of the app.
“All the information that is there is useful information,” Harris said. “It makes things more convenient.”
Killpatrick said the goal of the app is to help “students be successful.” Linking all campus resources to one place gives students easy access to these sites. With the app also being on a hand-held device, it gives students academic tools right at the tips of their fingers.
Pepperdine reminded freshman through emails, and throughout the week of NSO, to download and use Navigate for the first week of school.
Navigate comes along with a few other changes in academic support, such as the Counseling Center’s move to the Student Assistance Center near the Center for Communications and Business.
Currently 1,300 Pepperdine students use Navigate. In order to attain the goal of 2,000 students using the app, Donuts for Downloads will be Monday through Wednesday next week. Over 80 classes will spend 10 minutes downloading the app and in return, they will receive donuts.
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Email Emily Morton: emily.morton@pepperdine.edu
