23 October 2018 
Karel Thomas, Executive Director
The Office for Students has published an 88-page report "Student Information Use and Behaviour: An update to the 2014 Advisory Study for the Office for Students" which includes observations and recommendations for how information for students can be improved. One of the key points is "There is no ‘one size fits all’ information solution, nor is there a shortlist of criteria that those considering HE use. This drives the need for information to be tailored to individual cases, as the outcomes of student choice are inherently personal." The report is reiterative throughout, making the 88 pages not quite as onerous a read as they first suggest. This is the basis for further work by the OfS described in “Better support, better decisions, better outcomes” in which the OfS promises [they] “are taking the first steps in developing a new resource to better support decision making about higher education” which will help students navigate and understand available information and data, and be integrated with other key sources of information, using personalisation to ensure that students can quickly identify and find the information that is most important for them. Prospective students are in for a feast of information with “carefully designed data visualisations to make engagement with key datasets easier”. If you can't wait for this, and are developing your own ways of communicating with prospective students, you can quench your thirst for inspiration by downloading a Routledge FreeBook Student Recruitment in Higher Education.
