The American College of Financial Services

Challenge 

Enhancing professional standards 

Since 1927, The American College of Financial Services (ACFS) has provided professional education to finance practitioners. The college offers students the chance to work toward professional designations, certifications and master’s degrees, enabling them to improve their knowledge, advance their careers and help their clients achieve financial security. 

Elizabeth Pearsall, assistant provost for teaching and learning, explains: “We measure our success by degree conferral rates and how well learners do during course assessments. For undergraduate designations, we have a target of at least 70% of students meeting all learning outcomes—and it’s even higher for our graduate programs. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that students can apply the knowledge and skills they have obtained with us in their careers and help to build a better society.” 

ACFS brings together experienced industry leaders and finance experts to deliver course content to students. Today, much of this teaching takes place online, using advanced digital tools to engage and support students and guide them toward success in their assessments. 

“One of our goals is to transform the educational experience,” says Pearsall. “Of course, we need the experts in our faculty to provide insights on the changing financial sector, but we also have to think about how learners are getting that content and working with the information. That’s where my role comes in, and it’s why we need the right learning management system (LMS).” 

Solution 

Supporting student progress 

In recent years, ACFS’s partnership with D2L has proved central to the successful delivery of its professional designation, certification and graduate degree programs. For example, the college draws on data-driven insights from the Performance+ and Class Progress tools in D2L Brightspace to monitor student engagement and progress, to then take steps to optimize content. 

“Really engaging students in D2L Brightspace is one of our main focuses,” notes Pearsall. “We’re taking the data about the tools that students are using and where they spend their time inside of D2L Brightspace, and then redesigning the courses and navigation bar to enhance the experience.” 

Harnessing AI to create dynamic experiences 

Keeping courses challenging and stimulating for students is never easy, even for experienced faculty members. That’s why ACFS recently joined a D2L beta program focused on enhancing the Creator+ content authoring tool in Brightspace with AI components found with D2L Lumi that generate practice questions and interactive knowledge checks using existing course materials.  

“Without a doubt, the AI tools in Creator+ are speeding up course design and creation,” adds Pearsall. “We don’t have to wait on a subject matter expert to go and write questions and answers. Instead, we can take content that they’ve given us and then go ahead and create new materials.  

“Faculty that have adopted Creator+ absolutely love it. I particularly like it because it’s native to the LMS, which makes it much easier for people to learn once they know Brightspace.” 

Accessing responsive, round-the-clock support 

The partnership between ACFS and D2L is about much more than just the technology. The college also takes advantage of 24/7 support from D2L to help students who need extra guidance using Brightspace, while Pearsall and her team often reach out to their dedicated D2L Learning Administration Manager (LAM) for assistance with customizing content and workflows in the LMS. 

Pearsall explains: “Our LAM is great. Having immediate access to someone with all that advanced knowledge about the back-end management of Brightspace has been invaluable. It’s great to be able to say, ‘We need to do x,’ and have an expert respond quickly and show the best way to do it. D2L delivers the responsiveness and support that we need.” 

Result 

Increasing degree conferrals 

Since the initial deployment of Brightspace, ACFS has seen a highly positive effect on engagement levels as students work toward professional accreditations and degrees. “The biggest impact is that we now have the ability to engage students in multiple ways, whether through instructor interactions, intelligent agents, or via content built natively in Brightspace,” says Pearsall. 

Over the four years since first using Brightspace, ACFS has also tracked a clear increase in degree conferrals—demonstrating the positive influence of the LMS on student success. “The college has seen an 18% year-over-year rise in conferrals of undergraduate-level professional designations and certifications, and a 13% increase in graduate degree conferrals,” shares Pearsall. 

One key factor behind this trend has been the use of intelligent agents in Brightspace. “We use intelligent agents very regularly to identify and help students who may be falling behind, and offer them additional support,” explains Pearsall. “There are other factors, but I think that moving to Brightspace has had a significant impact on overall student success at ACFS.” 

ACFS is now working on many initiatives with D2L to further enhance its learning programs. For example, the college will continue to redesign its course materials, and plans to use predictive analytics and adaptive learning tools in Brightspace, as well as launch faculty training. 

Pearsall concludes: “The possibilities of what we can do are endless, and our partnership will continue to grow in the coming years. That’s in large part due to the robustness and flexibility of the Brightspace platform. Adapting D2L Brightspace for the financial industry has been one of the cornerstones of how we are transforming the educational experience for our students.”