Abstract: Education has changed as a result of technological advances. Distance learning, particularly online learning, has rapidly increased its presence in higher education. Millennials, a new generation of students who have grown up with the Internet, are college-age. They expect access to the Internet to manage their daily lives. However, as they enter college, many discover that support services that are requisite to a successful college experience, are available on-campus but not online. The goal was to determine what contemporary college-aged students expect as online student support services so that institutions will know what to provide. Data gathered through interviews with administrative support staff were used to modify a published survey and to guide construction of new questions. The modified instrument was validated by three experts and revised accordingly. All current students at Farmingdale State College were invited to respond to the web-based instrument that examined the current status of online support services. Following full-scale implementation, the data were analyzed. Results were used to create recommendations and considerations for the implementation of online support services at the college reviewed by the Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. The final report is a comprehensive resource for college administrators who serve millennial undergraduates. It contains valuable information and guidance for the development and implementation of student support services in the 21st century. A serendipitous finding was that many non-traditional, older students expressed comparable needs for online support services.

Keywords: millennial students, online support, student support services, support services

Download this article: ISEDJ - V9 N1 Page 67.pdf

Recommended Citation: Pullan, M. (2011). Online Support Services for Undergraduate Millennial Students. Information Systems Education Journal, 9(1) pp 67-98. http://isedj.org/2011-9/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2010)