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About the Project |
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ANNUAL REPORT 2000Title Page LEARNING ANYTIME ANYWHERE PARTNERSHIPS (LAAP) TITLE PAGEANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT ADDRESS OF PROJECT DIRECTOR(S): PHONE: (303) 541-0302 FAX: (303) 541-0291 PROJECT YEAR (1) Partner Organizations and Contacts Contact: Pat Shea, Assistant Director for Member Services Kansas State University
Annual Project DescriptionWestern Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners Students participating in distance education academic programs must also have access to student support services. In the rush to get courses and programs online, institutions often neglect student services for distance learners. When student services are considered, the most common services incorporated into a time- and location-independent format are those within the "administrative core" (admissions, financial aid, registration, etc.). Like traditional campus-based students, online learners need to access other support services such as tutoring, academic advising, personal counseling, career counseling, and library services. Higher education institutions and other providers must take advantage of technology to deliver student services to online learners in a way that effectively meets their unique needs. This project focuses on Web-based student support services, defined broadly, and will ultimately result in: a commercially developed package of service modules designed for the Web, including services not currently available from any software company; Web-based student services models developed at three partner institutions; a set of guidelines for institutions interested in building their own "home-grown" Web-based student services; and detailed case studies of the institutional change processes required to implement Web-based student services. Activities during year one primarily focused on planning and assessment, which are necessary steps to successfully implement a new approach to student services delivery. Communication systems, both internal and external, were established through the development of a listserv, public information Web pages (http://www.wiche.edu/telecom/Projects/laap/index.htm), and a Web-based workspace for partners. An advisory board made up of institutional members from national associations and other organizations was established. The advisory board members have the task of providing insight into developing and integrating Web-based student services in their specific areas of expertise. Following the project "kick-off" meeting in February, each of the partners created a "vision team" within their organization and tasked them with assessing the current system of student services delivery and establishing goals and outcomes for project implementation at the institutional level. Over the course of the three-year project, each institutional partner will implement changes to selected student services. The corporate partner, SCT, will collaborate with the institutional partners in developing an understanding of what services are needed and the types of features desired in a software product by both students and staff. While SCT develops a commercial product, the institutions will create "home grown" solutions. All will share in learning from each other's processes and accomplishments. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) is serving as external evaluator. The evaluation seeks to document the value added to the individual members through participation in the partnership. Evaluators will also track the impact and diffusion of the innovative student service each member creates within its own institution as well as the impact of being part of the project partnership. Additional evaluation will be through SCT's software testing process, which involves planning and monitoring the software testing efforts. Kansas State University Kapi'olani Community College Regis University Systems and Computer Technology Corp. (SCT) Grant # P339B000294 Key Descriptors: LAAP Project
Part A. Project StatusEstablishing a Working Relationship Unlike most of the other LAAP projects, Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners began in January 2000. The focus during these first five months has been on developing a working relationship among the five partners and establishing a joint work plan for producing project deliverables. During the balance of the project's first year, partners will focus on the creation of a vision for new Web-based student services. Establishing a Working RelationshipThe institutional partners, Kapi'olani Community College (HI), Kansas State University, and Regis University (CO), along with corporate partner SCT have each identified a project director for their work on this project. The roles and responsibilities of these project directors and that of the partners' teams have been defined in letters of agreement with the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), lead partner and fiscal agent, and a unit of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). In addition, the letters spell out expected financial contributions-cash and in-kind-for the three-year project. All partners have signed these agreements. A six-member advisory board consisting of leaders in key student services-related fields has been established. The advisory board members provide information and advice about developing and integrating Web-based student services in their specific areas of expertise. They also play an important role in disseminating results and information about this project. Included on the advisory board are representatives from the following organizations:
The initial "kick-off" meeting for the project was held six weeks into the project on February 17-18, 2000, in Boulder, Colorado. All the project directors, advisory board members, the project evaluator, and invited consultants with expertise in Web-based student services attended. The objectives of this meeting were to:
Guiding Principles (Table 1)
Institutional ProfilesThe institutional profiles revealed that all the partners have a strong commitment to developing Web-based student services, but they also called attention to striking differences in institutional structures and cultures, the state of current student service offerings, and the types of populations served. Although this will make collaboration among the partners more challenging, it also ensures that the resulting services will be relevant to a broader spectrum of institutions. Kansas State University (KSU) is a 4-year research university serving over 20,000 students each year. Of these students, approximately 1,000 students registered for distance education courses for the Spring 2000 term suggesting that approximately five percent of the total student body participates in distance education opportunities at KSU. Forty-three percent of students participate in both campus-based courses and distance courses at KSU, and 33 percent of students enrolled in distance education programs are degree seeking. KSU, through its Division of Continuing Education, currently delivers distance courses to students in 42 states and six countries. Kapi'olani Community College (KCC) in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a community college serving over 7,000 students each year. Approximately 1.5 percent of the total student body participates in distance education opportunities. Almost 70 percent of the students enrolled in distance education courses also are enrolled in campus-based courses. The remaining 30 percent of students are located on neighboring islands, other campuses on Oahu, or are out-of-state. Distance enrollments are primarily concentrated in health programs such as medical assisting and emergency medical services. Student services developed in this project will target these health program students. Regis University's School for Professional Studies (Regis) is a graduate and professional school within a private university in Denver, Colorado, serving over 10,000 students each year. Approximately 30 percent of its students take both distance courses and campus-based courses. The undergraduate program has numerous local students who interchange online courses with campus-based courses for the sake of convenience. Approximately 60 percent of the total student group, both undergraduate and graduate, are from out of state. All students enrolled in distance programs at Regis are degree-seeking students. SCT, the corporate partner, was founded in 1968 and is the largest company in the academic administration software arena. Its Banner 2000 product, a campus information system, provides the following information and capabilities: admissions, course catalog, course schedule and descriptions, grades, student address and email verification, registration, account balance, transcripts, and financial aid history, award status, and loan disbursement amounts. With the addition of Campus Pipeline to its offerings, SCT has expanded into Web functionality for administrative student services. SCT holds 48% of the market share of schools larger than 2,000 students and has over 1,200 universities and colleges as clients. Current Student Services OfferingsAll three institutional partners currently offer a wide variety of on-campus student services. Consistent across the three institutions, few of these services are offered online. KCC, KSU, and Regis all provide pre-enrollment services, library services, bookstore services, and communication services online, although the delivery of these services differs in terms of online format. Most are purely informational, providing the student with 24-hour access to static information. Some services are interactive, allowing the student to search or choose options that modify the page display and accept information in forms completed by the student online. Very few services are customized in terms of tailoring the information displayed to the specific student based upon the student's stored profile. Admissions, financial aid advising, and help-desk services are provided online by two of the institutions, Regis University and Kansas State University. Both institutions offer predominantly informational access to the Admissions and Financial Aid Offices. However, KSU provides online applications for admissions and scholarships, online forms to request additional information, and links to relevant resources such as the FAFSA (Federal financial aid application), ACT, and selective services. Regis provides online forms to request additional information as well as "print and mail" forms for admission and financial aid. Additionally, KSU has an elaborate technical support help desk staffed Monday through Friday, 8:00-5:00. In addition, KSU provides 24-7 access to a wide variety of solutions online. Those student services beyond the administrative core such as orientation for new students, academic advising and tutoring, personal counseling, career counseling, transcript evaluation, and diagnostic testing/assessment are not being offered online-or only in a very limited way-by these institutions. SCT's Campus Pipeline seamlessly integrates the power and access of the Internet with the security and personalization of the campus information system. Campus Pipeline currently offers email and other communication tools, academic services such as access to grades, transcripts, and financial aid, chat software, and the ability to customize content delivered daily to the student's home page. Through this LAAP project, SCT plans to expand the functionality of this product to include those student support services that are not considered part of the "administrative core." Although one of the goals of this project is to move in the direction of customized Web-based services, this necessitates — in many cases — integration with a campus's Student Information System (SIS). Since none of the institutional partners have similar SISs or use the corporate partner's product and are, in fact, all transitioning to new systems, this will add an additional level of complexity to effective collaboration.
Communications InfrastructureTo promote communication and collaboration among the partners, a communications infrastructure has been established. This infrastructure consists of two primary components. A listserv, donated by the University of Hawaii and maintained by the Western Cooperative, provides a quick and easy method for project leaders and other key participants to post and receive timely information relevant to the project. The other component, designed by the Western Cooperative and still under development by SCT, is a Web-based Collaboratory (See Table 2). Accessible via an Internet browser, project participants will be able to enter this password-protected environment featuring:
Developing a Joint Work PlanIn developing a joint work plan, the first step was to define the project in more detail. Four critical issues surfaced immediately:
These issues have been resolved as follows. As a first step, the Western Cooperative compiled a draft list of the "full array of student services" for modification by each partner. This process is still underway, but it will eventually result in a revised and aggregated list that will provide a common understanding among the partners in this project. Not long ago, the boundary between on-campus and distance students was distinct. This is no longer the case. On-campus students are increasingly accessing instructional material on the Web. They expect to access student services there as well. As a result, the partners agreed that they must view the services to be developed in this broader context recognizing that there may be additional services or information needed by online learners. Although the proposal identifies the need for a "full array of student services," it does not presume that this will be the outcome of the project. Moreover, the proposal leaves it to each partner to determine which services to develop and the extent of each partner's effort. Thus, the suggested work plan drafted by the Western Cooperative respects the autonomy of the partners, but establishes a general framework for working both independently and collaboratively on an agreed-upon timeline. Part of that general framework calls for the institutional partners to adopt a similar approach in identifying the services to be developed in this project. Over time student services on many campuses have developed in an ad hoc manner as needs, trends, and funding made them possible. The Web offers an unprecedented opportunity to integrate and customize student services, increase their quantity and quality, and make them more accessible and user friendly for students. It also provides a new infrastructure for student services staff that can-if designed well-allow for more efficient operations. To take full advantage of what the Web has to offer then, it was determined that institutions are best served by creating a comprehensive vision for new student support services and then prioritizing these services for development. Thus, the work plan calls for the vision teams of the institutional partners to work during July and August 2000 with consultants to document at a high level the key practices and policies driving their currently provided student services. The vision teams will then evaluate the effectiveness of these services and determine the types of students-distance and/or on-campus students-using them. They will also focus on the amount of integration or potential for integration of these services with one another, online versions of these services, and the student information system. In September the vision team at each institution will work with consultants to create a vision for the delivery of Web-based student services for their institution. This vision will provide the context within which the team will identify the highest priority services for development during this project. The vision teams will also begin working with campus leaders on a plan to transition the institution's staff to support the priority Web-based student services to be developed. At this point, too, the partners will share their visions and priority lists. Where there are common interests, the partners will define how they wish to collaborate. Current plans for collaboration range from: sharing information about plans for developing a student service; working together in evaluating existing software or in the development of a new software solution for a particular service; or testing or adapting a solution developed by another partner. A critical issue still to be resolved in this collaboration process is that of ownership and intellectual property as it relates to software solutions. Thus, the first year workplan is focused on defining in as much detail as possible "what" the student services developed in this project will be like. Years two and three will be focused on "how"-the development and implementation of new Web-based student services.
Evaluating Project ProgressThe evaluation of the Beyond the Administrative Core project focuses on several areas. First, the evaluator, National Center for Higher Education Management System (NCHEMS), will document and analyze the cultural and policy barriers to implementing student services beyond the administrative core as the institutions select projects to complete for the grant. Second, the evaluator will gather information on the value added to the individual institutions from participation in the coalition. Third, the impact and diffusion of each new student service created both within the home institution and throughout the coalition will be documented. Finally, the evaluator will provide on-going feedback and assessment expertise as institutions develop their student services. Initial site visits conducted in year one to understand the baseline from which each institution is working will be repeated in year three to determine progress and obstacles to the implementation of online student services. In year two, telephone interviews will be conducted with key personnel at each campus and with a wide range of students. Throughout the life of the grant the evaluator will be involved in all meetings and will continue to monitor the listserv. To date, the NCHEMS research associate assigned to this project has been involved in all high-level discussions about the project and attended the initial "kick-off" meeting at the start of the grant. In April and May 2000, she visited each campus for a three-day site visit to gather baseline data and information on the institutional culture for adapting student development services for online purposes. She interviewed a total of 60 administrators, faculty, and staff — 16 at Kapi'olani Community College, 22 at Kansas State University, and 21 at Regis University. Analysis of these interviews will be used for institutional case studies and to construct "lessons learned." Her preliminary report indicates that at each campus a vision team has been formed; most are planning on doing a majority of their work this summer. Each campus is choosing a narrow area in which to develop its own student service to be offered online. The vision teams are beginning to run into considerable policy obstacles as they decide on which area to focus for the grant. The first obstacle has been the misunderstanding that "student services" are only administrative processing systems such as admissions, registration and financial aid and not student development services such as counseling, academic advising, career counseling, etc. This problem is widespread. Another pervasive attitude is that student services are institutionally separate from academic matters; this also reflects a commonly held belief underlying the structure of most postsecondary institutions with parallel and separate administrative structures for academic affairs and student affairs. This structural isolation is exacerbated because online courses are the purview of yet another distinct unit, distance and continuing education. This raises yet another problem; when administrators, faculty and staff are asked about putting student services online most people assume that they will be offered exclusively to online students. It is only during the interviews that those not immediately associated with the grant see the possibility of online student services for all students, both on-campus and on-line. It is within this environment that the institutional vision teams are attempting to move forward. To this point, there have been no difficulties gathering data and no changes or delays to the original evaluation plan are expected at this time. Sustaining the ProjectSeveral efforts are underway to assure that the accomplishments of the Beyond the Administrative Core project are sustainable beyond the LAAP program's three-year support. First, the institutional partners are developing a long-range vision for a comprehensive set of Web-based student services. The priority services created in this project will be developed in the context of this larger vision, ensuring that they are more likely to be sustained and grow. Second, the Western Cooperative is compiling resources about Web-based student services with the assistance of the advisory board and others. In partnership with Kapi'olani Community College, WCET is working on a concept to develop a clearinghouse Web site that would make this information available to the public. These resources include information from national associations working in this area, particularly those developing guidelines such as Academic Advising Standards developed by the Distance Learning Task Force of NACADA; ACRL's Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services; counseling guidelines such as the Ethical Standards for Internet On-Line Counseling, Standards for the Ethical Practice of WebCounseling, NCDA Guidelines for the Use of the Internet for Provision of Career Information and Planning Services, and ACES Guidelines for Online Instruction in Counselor Education; and the Web-accessibility guidelines and tools to measure design effectiveness. In addition, efforts are underway to identify products and services available in the marketplace to support Web-based student services. Third, through Western Cooperative Consulting, the Western Cooperative will provide a matching service to institutions seeking consulting services in the development and support of Web-based student services. As the project progresses, resumes will be collected and categorized for easy access in response to requests for assistance. Information about Western Cooperative Consulting may be found on WCET's Web site at http://www.wcet.info/consulting/. Recognizing Project Efforts and ImpactAlthough this project began in January 2000, just a short five months ago, there has been significant interest from other institutions. In March, informational project Web pages were created and hosted on the WICHE Web site. The Web site (http://www.wiche.edu/telecom/Projects/laap/index.htm) provides information on partners, advisory board members, supporters, and current activities as well as links to press releases and planning documents. The project Web pages have received almost 600 hits in two months. Representatives of a number of institutions have contacted WCET to indicate that they are confronting similar issues and to seek additional information. WCET is maintaining an email distribution list to update these individuals periodically about progress in the project. In addition, conversation is ongoing with other potential partners-some who have contacted WCET and others that WCET has approached-about joining the project to provide additional expertise. WCET, project partners, and advisory board members have also made presentations about the status of the Beyond the Administrative Core project. A set of WCET-designed PowerPoint slides facilitates these efforts. To date, presentations have been made at the annual meeting of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), the Association of Canadian Community Colleges conference, TechEd conference, and Innovations conference. This project will also be discussed in a session at the Western Cooperative's annual meeting in November 2000. Articles about the project have appeared in the June issue of Syllabus Press, in the April edition of Counseling Today, the American Counseling Association's monthly publication, and in the January and May 2000 issues of Communiqué, WCET's newsletter which is also available online at http://www.wiche.edu/telecom/Resources/.
SummaryAlthough it is too early to predict, expectations are that the student services developed in this project will have substantial impact on online learners. Indeed, access to student services plays a significant role in student retention, and thus, on student learning. It is the goal of Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners to design a web of student services through which no student will fall.
Part B. Progress of Partner Organizations Kapi'olani Community College Kapi'olani Community College — submitted by Mike TagawaDuring Spring 2000, the College established a vision team consisting of faculty and staff from the health programs, library, student services, and technical support services. In addition, the deans of Student Services and the Health Education programs are represented. As an initial step, the College participated in a baseline assessment of existing student support services for distance students with NCHEMS. Since then, preliminary discussions have focused on development of a comprehensive life-long learner student support services model. Populations to be serviced will include high school students, college students, incumbent workers, and the community at large. Given the breadth of the new populations to be serviced by the health programs, primary emphasis will be on development of a pilot project within the health sciences rather than institution-wide. However, in the long run, it is anticipated that the model could be replicated within other programs or institutions. Due to the absence of any integrated information services system, efforts will be undertaken to develop individual solutions for piloting online student support services. Beginning Fall 2000, the health programs will begin piloting the following services: a) online counseling and advising services for high school and Medas students, b) supplemental instruction services with synchronous (student peer mentoring) and asynchronous (basic learning skill modules), c) exploration of incumbent workforce web services (e.g. job listings, follow-up skill object surveys such as those developed by Skillsnet, career advising), d) community educational web services (to complement a long-term health care cable television series), and e) establishment of digital library services (online resources and learning communities). The objectives of these efforts are threefold: 1) developing online services that create a lifelong relationship between the institution and its students around the concept of online learning communities, 2) differentiating and repositioning support services between those requiring high cost labor and those that can be substituted with technology or low cost labor to meet the needs of the expanded student base to be serviced, and 3) developing the technology capability to move the College toward becoming a learner centered institution. Two major challenges can be anticipated. First, because individual technical solutions are being developed for each service, there will be inefficiencies in the initial development of that support infrastructure. Second, because services proposed define the distance learner population much more broadly than those simply enrolled in the Medas program, considerable uncertainty exists about the nature of the services that will be required to address the needs of these diverse populations. Kansas State University — submitted by Mel ChastainOur role over the past year. At K-State, the initial task has been one of coordination and cooperation between those units that have provided "traditional" student services to resident learners, and those units that are focused on serving the distant, place-bound, asynchronous learner. The issues are both political and technical, but the "vision" team at K-State consists of units servicing both traditional and non-traditional learners, and they are uniform in their ambition to reach solutions that are mutually beneficial. The development process. Given the comprehensive list of services provided to conventional and distant learners, the task for the vision team was to develop a strategic plan for prioritizing, then addressing each student service not now provided by the institution. Using the four quadrant "how important", "how well provided" matrix, the vision team divided the more than seventy types of student services into five categories (communications, instructional support/academic services, student community services, personal services, and career services) then asked each vision team member to "rank" each service by how "important" each service is, then by how "well" it is currently being provided. Analysis of these four quadrant matrices has enabled the visioning team to concentrate on the "important" services that are not being provided well. Hurdles and setbacks. Technical problems appear to be more serious than political ones. For instance, each service unit needs access to their own, as well as each others' data bases (if we are to achieve truly unilateral student services, regardless of the location of the learner). To do that, a common "authentication and verification" system is needed, so data provided to, from or about a single learner can be seamlessly transported between data bases without contamination. However, each of these services have been developed over time with software systems and management applications that are not only different from one another, but are also, in many cases, "one-of-a-kind" products built by the unit itself. Therefore, the development of a ubiquitous data base will require time, resources, and considerable re-engineering. Evaluation progress. The WCET's third party evaluator spent three intensive days of interviews, discussions and retrospective analysis with the vision team, faculty, administration and learners. Once the report from that evaluation is shared with the vision team, preparation for the first of two consultants will begin, as the team assesses where it is and develops the vision statement for where it hopes to be at the end of the process. The second consultant will help us develop that strategic plan. Affecting student learning. Without this goal, there is no purpose in developing more effective student services. At least two other K-State national initiatives (The Plains Academy Co-op Partnership, and the Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology project) deal with assisting faculty in curriculum revision and the appropriate use of available technology to improve the learning environment for the asynchronous learner. Without equal concentration on the provision of student services, those efforts are wasted effort. The attention being afforded those projects provides the stimulation for continued diligence toward the stated objectives of the LAAP project.
Regis University — submitted by Ellen WatermanInitial Meeting. Regis University participated in the organizational meeting in Boulder in February. The meeting was an eye-opener for us, as we were introduced to such a wide range of possibilities of Beyond-Core Student Services. There was especially high interest in counseling on-line among us all. Great enthusiasm was created by this meeting, from which we went home and began to build our Vision Team. Vision Team. The Vision Team for the LAAP Grant was determined through the input of all SPS Deans and a broader university group called ROI, Regis Organizational Improvement. It is made up of middle and upper level management throughout the University and meets regularly. Through a presentation to that group very early on, we were able to identify a broader range of interested people. Invitations to join the Vision Team were greeted with enthusiasm. We purposely kept the group to 10-12 people, a working group easier to convene, and determined that they would gather larger groups as needed and appropriate. LAAP Project Evaluator Visit. Karen Paulson visited Regis May 10,11 and 12. During her time with us, she had 13 visits with a wide variety of campus personnel. The preliminary result from the Regis perspective is that this greatly heightened the visibility of the project in the Regis community. We very much look forward to her report. Discussions and Results. Regis has intended to do a Student Services inventory for some time, so the opportunity to do this within the LAAP grant activities was an excellent fit. However, the support of Dean Bill Husson's idea to not only inventory Student Services but also define and rate the levels to which we were performing them was welcome. Consequently, we greatly anticipate the visit to our campuses in late summer of WCET consultants who will not only help do an inventory of Student Services, but also to begin to define levels of performance in Students Services with us. Preliminary Project Interest. Initially, people came into the project with strong leanings as to what Student Service we should address here at Regis. But awareness has broadened, and more understanding of this opportunity in relation to the core mission of Regis University, one coalescing idea is developing. It is that we focus on building community online. It is very much something we would like to do better with such a large online student population. We are well aware that the more "community" there is with online students, the less isolated they feel, the more successful their learning experience is and the more likely they are to achieve their academic goals. Again, this is preliminary. Everyone is committed to the process as we go forward. SCT — submitted by Peggi MunkittrickChallenges. Due to the organizational restructuring at SCT, it has been difficult to establish a readiness team. Also, because the person hired to oversee this project was new to SCT, there were challenges associated with "championing" this project through the organization. These issues resulted in delayed paperwork and missed deadlines. The next challenge to overcome will be related to the establishment of effective and efficient communication processes, both within SCT and with all project participants as a whole. Continued Participation. SCT will continue to participate in all project activities as defined in the Letter of Agreement. Additionally, it is SCT's intention to continue promoting the project in journal articles and conference presentations. Most importantly, we look forward to identifying the specific online student service opportunity that SCT will pursue as a result of the grant activity.
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