What is the Adobe Creative Campus Program?
The Adobe Creative Campus program started in 2015 with a gathering of schools who had the strategic vision to provide Adobe Creative Cloud to all of their students. These schools aimed to cultivate digital literacy and foster creativity as essential learning outcomes across the curriculum. They sought to promote student engagement and develop critical thinking by providing students with a personalized "digital makerspace" for creating content instead of just consuming it. The program continues to grow and bring together multiple stakeholders who represent academic and administrative leaders from a wide array of institutions, large and small, public and private, liberal arts and technical. They share best practices with the common goal of cultivating digital literacy for all students with a focus on learning experiences that enable student success.
Executive Summary of Student Success Metrics from Enrollment to Career
- ENROLLMENT: 85% of high school seniors say that how well a school embraces innovation is an important factor when choosing a college.
- RETENTION: Students in courses using Adobe Creative Cloud were 8% more likely to return to school next term than those who were not, and first-term students in these courses achieved 2.4x higher course grades compared to all students.
- MASTERY: Across all students, those in Creative Cloud courses achieved 4.5% higher rates of A and B grades and 8% higher course grades than those who were not.
- INCLUSION: African-American students achieved 2.2x higher course grades in Creative Cloud courses versus students outside of these courses, and students in the lowest GPA quartile earned 1.7x higher grades.
- CURRICULUM: Creative Campus institutions have measured robust integration of the Adobe platform across the entire campus, with leading use in applied areas such as engineering and business, with activation of 92-95% in these majors.
- CAREER: a 2021 study by LinkedIn found that hires for graduates with Creative Skills has grown 78% in the past two years and that these hires had 16% higher starting salaries with 2-3x higher salary increases.
Narrative of Student Success Metrics from Enrollment to Career
OVERVIEW
Study after study have proven the importance of student engagement to their success from enrollment to retention to graduation to career, especially for students who were not included in narrowly defined, traditional models of teaching and learning. Engaged pedagogies go by many names (active learning, high-touch learning, flipped classrooms, experiential learning, etc.), but what they all have in common is the essential move away from students as passive, disconnected consumers of content toward them becoming active, connected producers of ideas. A Spring 2020 survey by Inside Higher Ed reveals that the top concern for campus leaders (81%) during the pandemic has become student engagement. Institutions of all profiles and sizes are finding quantifiable success through the Creative Campus Program because the Adobe platform, as the worldwide leader for producing and sharing ideas digitally, compels students to learn by doing, creating, and making. And the digital literacies, fluencies, and agilities that students develop through the integration of Adobe Creative Cloud across the curriculum are increasingly in-demand across all industries, professions, and careers.
ENROLLMENT
85% of high school seniors say that how well a school embraces innovation is an important factor when choosing a college, according to Accenture's report "Higher Education Will Never Be the Same." Adobe Creative Campuses like the University of Texas San Antonio and Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida are foregrounding their commitment to innovation and student-centered learning to differentiate their brands and drive enrollment. Enrollment at UTSA has increased through the pandemic, and IRSC highlights free access to Creative Cloud for all of their students on their home-page and prospective-student marquees.
RETENTION
A 2021 study conducted by Civitas Learning found that students in courses using Adobe Creative Cloud were 8% more likely to return to school next term than those who were not, and first-term students in these courses achieved 2.4x higher course grades compared to all students. The Civitas Learning study, titled The Impact of Adobe Creative Cloud on Student Success, systematically and rigorously measured the integration of the teaching of creative and digital literacy skills—using Adobe Creative Cloud as the primary tool—across the curriculum at three higher education institutions, according to standardized institutional metrics such as term-to-term persistence (retention). Faculty, staff, and students in the Civitas study consistently reported a positive relationship between the use of Creative Cloud and student learning and engagement, which is a likely cause for improved term-to-term persistence.
MASTERY
Across all students, those in Creative Cloud courses achieved 4.5% higher rates of A and B grades and 8% higher course grades than those who did not, according to the study The Impact of Adobe Creative Cloud on Student Success by Civitas Learning.
INCLUSION
In a 2021 study by Civitas Learning, African-American students achieved 2.2x higher course grades in Creative Cloud courses versus students outside of these courses, and students in the lowest GPA quartile earned 1.7x higher grades. Faculty described the equity that was created between students when everyone was given access to the same tools to complete an assignment. Qualitative reasearch in the Civitas study revealed that , prior to the adoption of Creative Cloud, the quality of multimedia assignments was more a measurement of a students’ resources rather than their learning – becoming an Adobe Creative Campus has helped to resolve this inequity as all students have access to Creative Cloud without incurring additional costs.
CURRICULUM
Creative Campus institutions have measured robust integration of the Adobe platform across the entire campus, with leading use in applied areas such as engineering and business and activation of 92-95% in these majors at Clemson University (see Figure 1). Before 2015 and the launch of the Creative Campus program, most college educators probably assumed that Adobe software would be used primarily by students majors such as visual arts, design, and architecture. But, in the current age of digital transformation, all students in all majors need to have digital literacy and creativity skills, as evidenced by the dramatic increase in use across all disciplines at Clemson University, which was one the first Adobe Creative Campuses. Figure 2 reveals that the highest and most rapidly accelerating Creative Cloud use by volume on that campus is in the College of Engineering, Computing, and Applied Sciences.
CAREER
The demand for creative skills is accelerating. A 2021 study by LinkedIn found that hires for graduates with Creative Skills has grown 78% in the past two years and that these hires had 16% higher starting salaries with 2-3x higher salary increases (see Figures 3 & 4). In 2015, "Creativity, originality, and Initiative" debuted on the World Economic Forum "Future of Jobs" top-ten skills report (see Figure 5). The forecast for 2020 accelerated Creativity to the third spot, and the view toward 2025 keeps Creativity as one of only four top skills remaining from the 2015 ranking. Consider the evolving nature of the fundamental Five Cs of higher education student outcomes:
- to communicate effectively
- to think critically
- to creatively problem solve
- to work collaboratively
- to prepare for a career
Each of those outcomes hasn't just been inflected by digital technologies, they have all been fundamentally redefined by information, media, and networked systems. Can today's students and tomorrow's workers achieve any of those outcomes in meaningful ways without digital tools? Such transformation is certain to continue to accelerate, which is why the very top of the WEF skills list for 2025 includes, for the first time, "Analytic Thinking and Innovation" and "Active Learning and Learning Strategies."
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