About the Project

ANNUAL REPORT 2002-2003

Title Page
1. Summary Paragraph
2. Executive Summary
3. Project Description
Appendix 1, Year Three Evaluation and Final Case Study Results
Appendix 2, Guidelines for Creating Student Services Online

TITLE PAGE

FINAL REPORT

GRANT NUMBER: P339B990294

PROJECT TITLE:
Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners

GRANTEE INSTITUTION:
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE)

NAME(S) OF PROJECT DIRECTOR(S):
Pat Shea, Assistant Director, Western Cooperative for Educational
Telecommunications

ADDRESS OF PROJECT DIRECTOR(S):
P.O. Box 9752
Boulder, Colorado 80301

PHONE: (303) 541-0233 FAX: (303) 541-0291

E-MAIL(S):
pshea@wiche.edu

FIPSE/LAAP Program Officer(s): Brian Lekander

PROJECT YEAR (3)

GRANT PERIOD 1/1/00 — 3/31/03

Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners

Partner Organizations and Contacts Project Web site: http://www.wiche.edu/telecom/Projects/laap/index.asp

Lead Partner: Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications USPS Mailing Address: FedEx or UPS Mailing: P.O. Box 9752 2520 55th Street Boulder, CO 80301-9752 Boulder, CO 80301

Contact: Pat Shea, Assistant Director for Member Services Phone: 908.608.9084; Fax: 303.541.0291; pshea@wiche.edu

Other Partners:

Kansas State University 128 Bob Dole Hall Manhattan, KS 66506-6902
Contact: Mel Chastain, Director, Kansas Regents Educational Communications Center Phone: 785.532.7041; Fax: 785.532.7355; Chastain@ksu.edu

Kapi'olani Community College 4303 Diamond Head Road Honolulu, HI 96816
Contact: Michael Tagawa, Dean of Instruction Phone: 808.734.9518; Fax: 808.734.9828; Tagawa@hawaii.edu

Regis University 7600 E. Orchard Road Denver, CO 80111
Contact: Ellen Waterman, Director, Distance Learning Phone: 303.964.5447; Fax: 720.489.1310; Ewaterma@regis.edu

SCT 4 Country View Road Malvern, PA 19355
Contact: Peggi Munkittrick, Senior Director, Teaching and Learning Strategy Phone: 610.578.6053; Fax: 610.578.7564; pmunkitt@sctcorp.com

LAAP Project Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-Based Student Services for Online Learners Progress Report June 2001

1. Summary Paragraph

The WCET LAAP project, Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-Based Student Services for Online Learners, achieved its primary goal of creating new online student services at the partner institutions. It also produced a robust set of guidelines and a detailed set of case studies that will help other institutions engage in similar processes while creating their own student services. And the project changed the national conversation about student services in the online environment. At all levels, the project proved that student-centered services belong online and can benefit all students and their institutions.

2. Executive Summary

A. Project Overview
The WCET LAAP project Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-Based Student Services for Online Learners supported the development of new student services for the online environment. The partners — three institutions and a corporation — created the services and documented the processes they used. WCET compiled a set of guidelines and lessons learned based on the partners’ experiences. A detailed set of case studies documented the institutional changes that occurred at the partner institutions. Other interested institutions may benefit from the project partners’ work by reviewing the case studies and adapting the guidelines. The project’s Website, http://www.wcet.info/projects/laap/index.asp, chronicles the project’s progress and outcomes.

B. Problem
Students participating in distance education academic programs must have access to student support services, just like those available to on-campus students. Unfortunately, in the rush to get courses and programs online, institutions often neglect student services as a whole. They assume, very unrealistically, that those students who do not come to campus for their education will be able to come to campus to access student services.

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.) rather than the full array that is needed. Other services — such as tutoring, academic advising, personal counseling, career counseling, and library services — are essential to student success and retention.

The project addressed those very services using a holistic approach that integrates academic suite services with administrative core services. Each of the institutional partners planned, designed and implemented a student service that will serve as a model for transforming other student services on campus or within its system.

C. Background and Origins
WCET brought experience in researching online student services to the Beyond the Administrative Core project through an earlier FIPSE-funded project, Putting Principles into Practice: Promoting Effective Support Services for Students in Distance Education Programs. The earlier project culminated in the online “Guide to Developing Online Student Services” which provided general tips for designing effective online student services, brief discussions about the needs of online and distance learners, and guidelines for basic good practice in delivering these services via the Internet. It also developed a Web tour of institutional Web sites with good practices in online student services. (http://wiche.edu/telecom/resources/publications/guide/guide.htm)

For the Beyond the Administrative Core project partners, WCET sought institutions that represented different higher education profiles: Kansas State University is a large, public, land-grant institution; Kapi’olani Community College is a small, community college in the University of Hawaii system; Regis University is a medium-sized, private institution in Colorado; and SCT is a for-profit business in Pennsylvania. All the partners shared an interest in using technology to improve services for their students.

D. Project Description
The central activities and outcomes of this project were on-site consultant visits, the development of home-grown and commercial student services online, a resource-rich Website, guidelines on developing student services online, case studies on the institutional change involved in transforming student services to an online environment, and a Webcast series on student services for distance learners.

Each partner used various teams throughout the development process: a “vision team” of administrators, staff, faculty and students to think broadly about what could be accomplished; a “design team” of student services and IT administrators and staff to develop scenarios that describe how the new service would function; and a “development team” that implemented and tested the new service. These teams functioned through the phases of the projects: pre-launch, assessment, planning, design, development, implementation and evaluation.

A key consultant to the project helped the partners understand and bridge the ubiquitous communication gap between IT staff and educational staff. This was especially helpful for the design teams as they used glossaries, scenarios and Unified Modeling Language (UML) to communicate much more effectively. These communication tools allowed the team members to focus on WHAT the project should be, instead of HOW it could be accomplished.

Each partner developed a different student service, using different technology, based on the unique situation at its institution:

• K-State enhanced its K-State Online platform to provide academic advising support
• Kapi’olani used a free-ware portal to provide learning support for an academic program
• Regis stretched its DataTel administrative system to provide push and pull communication and tracking for its orientation to academic advising service
• SCT developed the e-Education Infrastructure which ties together a variety of valuable services into a seamless platform

An unanticipated — yet highly appreciated — consequence of participating in the project was the improved relationships and communication between the various team members who hadn’t worked together before, hadn’t considered services from the students’ point of view, or had been frustrated by the IT-education staff communication gap. This project not only created new services, it created processes and relationships that will benefit future projects on these campuses.

While the partners focused on their own institutions, the WCET staff developed and disseminated information about student services online. A 14-part Webcast series, "Providing Student Services to Distance Learners" offered live and archived hour-long presentations. Guest experts provided valuable information and perspectives on such topics as student information systems, trends in electronic student services, accessibility issues, cybercounseling, orientation, library services, and more.

E. Evaluation/Project Results
As the project progressed, new challenges and opportunities arose. The most significant challenges were insufficient funding and incompatible technologies at the partners’ institutions. The project budget was not able to support onsite visits by WCET staff and consultants at the outset of the project when that kind of hands-on assistance and motivation could have been very helpful. Early progress lagged because it was too difficult for the partners to organize by themselves. The flipside of the inadequate funding was the incredible volunteer support provided by members of the project advisory board and other leaders in the field. Their interest in and support for the project added immeasurably to its success.

Dr. Karen Paulson of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) served as the project evaluator. Dr. Paulson participated in all project partner meetings and engaged in site visits to interview each partners’ project participants. In the April 2003 report, “Year Three Evaluation and Final Case Study Results,” Dr. Paulson concluded:

Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners” was a success. The grant changed the conversation nationally about which student services should be provided in an online format, that online services were for all students, and that services should be personalized to the student. The partner institutions succeeded in developing institution-specific student service modules that will make a difference on each campus; in addition, the culture at each institution has experienced changes. Finally, the corporate partner also learned a lot about how student services are developed on-campus. The Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications is to be commended for facilitating a well-done project.

F. Summary, Conclusions, and Lessons Learned
In summary, the Web can provide a way to re-design and integrate services to serve students better while streamlining processes to reduce staff load and costs. To accomplish this and provide the personalized and customized services students want, however, there must be a robust student information system in place upon which to build.

Because the project focused primarily on the process of transforming student services, our key lesson learned may be very valuable to others interested in doing the same:

• It's about people, not technology.
  Moving student services to the online environment is primarily a challenge of leading people in a new direction. Dealing with politics, policies, practices and culture are human, not technical, issues.

3. Project Description

A. Project Overview
B. Problem
C. Background and Origins
D. Project Description
E. Evaluation/Project Results
F. Summary, Conclusions, and Lessons Learned

A. Project Overview
The Beyond the Administrative Core project produced the grant’s required four deliverables:

• Student services models developed at three partner institutions

• A set of guidelines for institutions interested in building their own "home-grown" Web-based services

• A commercial solution expanding access to personalized student services

• Detailed case studies of the institutional change processes required to implement Web-based student services.

The partners developed these student service models:

• Kansas State University, academic advising

• Kapi’olani Community College, learning support

• Regis University, orientation to academic advising

• SCT, the e-Education Infrastructure along with additional functionality in its existing products and new non-proprietary products.

The guidelines for creating student services online provide an overview of the issues related to student services, a description of the projects’ seven phases, a discussion of cross-phase issues, demonstrations of the model services, and lessons learned by the project partners. The case studies of institutional change are included in the guidelines.

The project’s website, http://www.wcet.info/projects/laap/index.asp, chronicles the project’s progress and outcomes.

B. Problem
Students participating in distance education academic programs must have access to student support services, just like those available to on-campus students. Unfortunately, in the rush to get courses and programs online, institutions often neglect student services as a whole. They assume, very unrealistically, that those students who do not come to campus for their education will be able to come to campus to access student services.

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.) rather than the full array that is needed. Other services — such as tutoring, academic advising, personal counseling, career counseling, and library services — are also essential to student success and retention.

The project addressed those very services using a holistic approach that integrates academic suite services with administrative core services. Each of the institutional partners planned, designed and implemented a student service that will serve as a model for transforming other student services on campus or within its system.

Because of this project, there are individuals on partner campuses with the vocabulary, process skills, understanding of technology and appreciation for online services who will insist on expanding — perhaps at a quicker pace — these types of services.

The project partners learned a wide variety of lessons about online student services, including:

• Students are students
  There is no real difference between the needs of the resident student and the distant learner in terms of access to online services.

• It's about people, not technology
  Moving student services to the online environment is primarily a challenge of leading people in a new direction. Dealing with politics, policies, practices and culture are human, not technical, issues.

• The user is king
  It is essential to design web-based services from the users' perspective. The students and staff who will use a new system will be primarily task-oriented — paying a bill, running a degree audit, scheduling an appointment — so they will expect an integrated, personalized and customized interface. Institutions should plan to meet their needs for self-service, general help and personalized assistance. The full range of optimized services include online and real-person/real-time resources.

• Speak a common language
  It can be difficult for educators/student services staff to communicate effectively with IT staff about new online content and usage. Project teams should use glossaries and scenarios (a script that specifies actions a user and an undefined system take to accomplish a task) to bridge the communication gap. Team members will learn a good deal about the “other side” and will develop working relationships that carry over to new projects.

• Policies and practices will be challenged
  Systemic changes in higher education, such as creating Web-based student services, are bound to disrupt policies and practices. Endorsement and support from top leadership is essential in addressing student information system, tuition, communication management and budgetary issues.

• There has to be a reason to collaborate
  Collaboration can be effective when there are commonalities among the projects. Lacking those commonalities, sharing information about decision-making processes can also be helpful. Trying to force collaboration between unlike projects, however, can waste time and resources.

The project partners’ understanding of the process of transforming student services to the online environment grew, of course, over the three years of the project. Each reached the golden moment, when the “proof of concept” was achieved; when an online student service became a real, and replicable, product. Most importantly, the new services reinvigorated the original intent of student support — to assist students in being successful learners — that had become somewhat obscured by bureaucracy. By using technology to provide access to learning support, academic advising and library services, the projects are directly supporting the students’ core learning mission.

C. Background and Origins
WCET brought experience in researching online student services to the “Beyond the Administrative Core” project through an earlier FIPSE-funded project, “Putting Principles into Practice: Promoting Effective Support Services for Students in Distance Education Programs.” The earlier project culminated in the online “Guide to Developing Online Student Services” (http://wiche.edu/telecom/resources/publications/guide/guide.htm) which provided general tips for designing effective online student services, brief discussions about the needs of online and distance learners, and guidelines for basic good practice in delivering these services via the Internet. It also developed a Web tour of institutional Web sites with good practices in online student services. Unfortunately, the Guide was not available when the Beyond the Administrative Core project began, when it could have been most useful in helping the partners review and understand online student services. Today, however, the Guide remains the top ranked website when searching on Google for “online student services.”

For the Beyond the Administrative Core project partners, WCET sought institutions that represented different higher education profiles: Kansas State University is a large, public, land-grant institution; Kapi’olani Community College is a small, community college in the University of Hawaii system; Regis University is a medium-sized, private institution in Colorado; and SCT is a for-profit business in Pennsylvania. All the partners shared an interest in using technology to improve services for their students.

Each partner faced various organizational structure and policy challenges. All PIs dealt with doing this project in addition to their regular work and scrambling for additional resources.

K-State, an institution with a culture based on local autonomy, encountered two significant challenges: access to student information in various databases and differences in advising processes. The database issue involved:

• discovering that there were 17 different databases with crucial information about students

• acknowledging who “owned” the databases and that few owners wanted to share the data

• making executive-level decisions to vest database control in the Office of the Registrar

• creating a user interface for academic advising purposes that reads the databases while leaving them in their original distributed locations

• grappling with the project implementation phase demand to be able to write to the databases

K-State also struggled to devise a single online advising system on a campus that uses many types of advisors and different advising processes. After several failed attempts at achieving consensus, a “flow diagram” was developed which described the general sequence of events through which a learner and an advisor interact during the matriculation process. Some tinkering and modification yielded a process for which there was general “buy-in” from the cluster of advisors on the project team. Common interests for automation were identified, including:

• electronic program of studies form (including student ID and email address)

• email addresses and easy email processes

• transfer course list

• course equivalencies

• student degree audit

• electronic copy of graduation application

• ACT scores

By focusing on the commonalities while respecting the differences, the K-State Continuing Ed IT team created online academic advising tools by expanding its course management system K-State Online functionality. Now, just as instructors use K-State Online for online courses, academic advisors use K-State Online for the majority of advising activities.

Kapi’olani Community College faced major institutional difficulties: a labor strike, an administrative reorganization, the bankruptcy of the new student information system provider, and the selection of another SIS provider. While those tumultuous events played out, two important theoretical changes were made. Kapi'olani decided to create a physical one-stop shop for many student services along the 70/20/10 model (70% self-service, 20% generalist service and 10% specialist service). A review of the State of Hawaii personnel job descriptions by the dean of students found that there was no job description for a one-stop shop generalist. So the dean searched for a remedy and found a state pilot program to test the generalist position description.

The KCC project team engaged in a re-conceptualization of online learning support. Starting from a notion to create basic tutoring modules online, the team expanded its reach to include:

• a program-based, not course-based, approach to learning

• program orientation

• skill assessment, remediation if necessary, and certification

• community-building and peer mentoring

• supplemental instruction

Knowing that the University of Hawaii would provide a new SIS and portal in the near future, KCC chose to use a freeware portal to conduct its proof of concept testing for learning support. Now the KCC model is being considered for replication throughout the UH system.

Regis University delved into communication policy issues. By choosing to use push-pull technology (push means that some scripted messages are sent when triggered by an action or date and pull means that system users seek certain information) in its new orientation to academic advising service, Regis encountered several policy options:

• Should Regis require applicants and students to have an email account?

• Should all Regis students have a Regis email account? If so, all official Regis communication could be sent to Regis accounts which would meet FERPA regulations, and the email account would not change during their time of affiliation with Regis, eliminating one of the biggest problems of students’ email...they change all the time!

• If Regis email accounts are not required, who would be responsible for keeping email addresses up to date? For bounced emails?

• Should the quantity of email and types of messages be managed? What role could customer relationship management (CRM) play in a communications policy?

• What would be the budget impact of moving communication from paper/printing/postage-based to email/network/infrastructure-based systems?

These policy issues remain pending.

D. Project Description
The Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners project involved three institutional partners, Kansas State University, Kapi'olani Community College (HI) and Regis University (CO), one corporate partner, SCT, and project leader, the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET). The project had the following goals and objectives, all of which were achieved:

1. Recognize online learners' needs for student support services, defined broadly, and in a variety of contexts.

2. Use this knowledge of needs in guiding the development of commercial and "home-grown" Web-based products adaptable to online learners needs in a variety of contexts.

3. Develop a variety of customizable service modules based on individual student profiles and including the usually neglected services.

4. Develop basic guidelines and Web templates for institutions interested in creating a comprehensive Web-based array of student services for online learners.

5. Track the processes involved in "re-engineering" student services in the partner institutions.

6. Produce comprehensive case studies of these processes.

7. Disseminate widely both at the end of the project and beyond the lessons and products of this project, including the software package, student services guidelines, and case studies.

1. WCET and partners design and initiate processes to foster a process for exchanging information and ideas.

2. SCT develops commercially available software package with modules focused on the neglected student services.

3. Partner institutions develop Web-based student service modules.

4. Partner institutions implement changes in staff roles resulting from new approach.

5. WCET and partner institutions track institutional change processes throughout the project.

6. WCET and all partners produce guidelines and standards for Web-based services.

7. All products be reviewed for compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed through W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative.

8. WCET and all partners disseminate project results both during the project and after its completion.

Major Aspects of Project
The central activities and outcomes of this project were on-site consultant visits, the development of home-grown and commercial student services online, a resource-rich Website, guidelines on developing student services online, case studies on the institutional change involved in transforming student services to an online environment, and a Webcast series on student services for distance learners.

Key Assumptions and Planning Strategies
The project partners developed the following guiding principles for their work:

1. The Web designs and products developed in this project will be learner-driven and provider-structured. The designs and products will be based on a strong understanding of user needs and on user testing.

2. Student service models will be based on well-established guidelines and standards, such as the ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services, World Wide Web (W3C) Content Accessibility Guidelines, the NACADA Statement of Core Values of Academic Advising, and CAS standards, where they exist. Where they do not, the need for guidelines will be identified and documented. As appropriate, guidelines for student services that are developed by the project partners during the course of the project will be published.

3. The student services staff responsible for implementing newly developed online student services modules at partner institutions will be involved in the initial planning process.

4. As appropriate, Web service modules developed through this project will focus on customization, providing a Web interface linked to an individual student's profile and interests, and enabling the student to answer easy questions for him/herself and to contact as quickly as possible a real person when further help is needed.

5. Student services models developed in this project will be designed for replication by other institutions developing similar services.

6. All partners will share information about their project activities and progress openly and on a regular basis with one another through communication systems established by WCET. In addition, information about the project's processes, products, and results will be widely shared with the public both during and after the project.

7. Partner institutions will track and document the process through which student services models are developed at the institution.

Phases of Development
The partners pursued the goals, objectives and principles through a seven-stage development phase approach: pre-launch; assessment; planning; design; development; and implementation and evaluation. For the most part, two phases were accomplished during each of the project’s three years.

• Pre-launch
  During this phase, the partners worked to organize themselves and resist the temptation to jump straight to a technology quick-fix. They determined what they were trying to achieve, secured support from the top leadership, assembled a cross-functional vision team to provide project oversight, and set up a communication mechanism.

• Assessment
  The partners concentrated on defining terms, understanding and evaluating how student services actually worked on their campuses, making an inventory of the technology used to support student services, identifying related campus initiatives and priorities, and determining their project’s timeline and scope.

• Planning
  This phase proved to be perhaps the most important. The partners’ vision teams engaged in “blue sky” thinking about what new services could be like and how services could meet the needs of students by providing an actual service, not just information about a service, and by offering a web experience that is seamless, personal and enhances the student’s relationship with the institution. The teams also factored in real-life concerns of campus priorities, resources, policies, practices and attitudes in finalizing the plan.

• Design
  New team members joined the various projects to help design the specifics of the new service. The design teams articulated WHAT a new service SHOULD be like — with both automated and manual components. The teams based their work on the idea that technology should enable the vision, not define it. Team members worked with project consultants to learn skills that enabled the student services subject matter experts (SMEs) and the IT staff members to communicate more effectively. (See below for more information.) Together they used a number of templates to inform their work plan. They also identified ways to evaluate the success of the project.

• Development
  More new team members, primarily IT staff, joined the projects. With input from the IT and graphic designers/developers, the SMEs wrote storyboards or rules (the path a user might take through online options, e.g., if the user selects option A, then offer options M and N on the next screen). Then the developers created the look-and-feel, the user interface and the prototype or alpha version of the service. The vision and design teams reviewed this first version, along with key stakeholders. Suggestions for improvement were offered, considered, and some implemented.

• Implementation and evaluation
  Prior to implementation, the partners provided training as necessary to staff and students to use the new service successfully. Once appropriate revisions and expansions were made to the pilot versions, the new services were deployed to the broader constituency. The services included a feedback mechanism to amass input from users for problems and requests for additional functionality.

Project Communication Tools
Through the assistance of the project consultants, team members learned and applied four new communication techniques/tools using: a graphic representation of student services, glossaries, unified modeling language (UML) and scenarios. These techniques helped get team members “on the same page” and be able to communicate more effectively with each other.

1. Graphic
   At the project start, the partners felt the need to explore the term “student services” and the relationship between services. The result of their discussion and analysis was the following graphic.

   

2. This web of student services helped the partners visualize the connections between the suites of services — as well as appreciate the scale of work before them. (At the 2002 WCET annual conference, many student services administrators mentioned using this web with their staffs to help them think about the services holistically.) The institutional partners chose services in the academic services suite for their home-grown solutions while the corporate partner expanded its work in the administrative core and in the communications suite.

3. Glossaries
   The partners struggled as they developed glossaries of terms to reach agreement between team members on words and concepts. For example the K-State the team members came to understand that “academic advising” had different meanings in the various colleges and there were different types of advisors doing different types of advising. They created an academic advising service that incorporated the commonalities between colleges and among advisors and allowed for some differences.

4. Scenarios
   During the phase of the project when the partners were figuring out WHAT should be done — well before addressing HOW it should be done — the partners developed scenarios. Scenarios are written in simple English and they describe a continuum of interactions between the system users and the system itself. Without reference to any particular system, the partners wrote out the sequence of events involved in achieving a goal, its pre-conditions, steps, and post-conditions. An example is below:
   

6. 

7. These scenarios were very helpful in articulating at a granular level what should happen to successfully carry out the online service.

8. Unified Modeling Language or UML
   UML is a picture language with ovals, straight lines, stick figures and so forth. It graphically represents what happens in the scenarios. Its purpose is to promote communication between two groups — the educators and the IT staff — who often think and speak about their work in incompatible ways.

When the projects progressed to the HOW phase, the scenarios and UML were invaluable for the IT staff who wrote the programming code.

Another communication tool, fairly standard in the web development arena, is storyboarding. Project teams developed storyboards to decide on the look-and-feel, the flow of new screens and other factors that define what the web-based experience would be like. Regis, for example, developed 19 storyboards for individual file status tracking, ten in the School for Health Care Professions and nine in the School for Professional Studies to accommodate important differences in the various programs.

K-State held key meetings in the television studio and videotaped the proceedings to capture the presentations and discussions for team members who were unable to attend. This method of communicating what happened in meetings proved well worth the effort, especially for a key stakeholder who was able to keep up with the project and continue to give it the priority status it needed.

Scale, Intensity and Resources
The projects grew larger, changed and had institutional impacts beyond original expectations. The monetary resources available through this project covered a small portion of the actual costs. There were two factors that impacted SCT’s project activities: 1) as a publicly-held corporation, SCT underwent several reorganizations that reflected movement in the high-tech market; and 2) company representatives were not able to discuss or share their ideas until well after the fact because of intellectual property concerns. Project leader Peggi Munkittrick was able to bring the web of services concept back to SCT as it devised the e-Education Infrastructure:

It was through participation in this project that SCT learned about and embraced a comprehensive approach to student services, beyond its original focus on data administration.

Kapi’olani Community College expanded its conceptual understanding of helping students with online supplemental instruction. At first KCC planned on creating online tutoring modules. Then the staff came to realize that the Web and portal technology could provide a robust, multi-dimensional learning support system. They used a freeware portal to prove their concept and will expand its use in other areas, starting with academic advising.

Regis began its work focusing on the process of supporting applicants in the post-admission to pre-academic advising stage. Their work expanded to include the admissions process, introduction to RegisNET and WebAdvisor, a push-pull communications system, and a digital portfolio product. Through the broad and successful use of scenarios, the IT, administration and services staffs have become aficionados of using technology to track and manage Regis-student interactions.

K-State expanded a key concept and institution-wide tool. At the project’s beginning, distance students were considered to be in a separate class/world from resident students. Responsibility for them was located in the Division of Continuing Education and they were charged a different tuition fee from resident students. Then K-State determined that 85 percent of their distance students were actually resident students who chose to take classes online. The distinction proved invalid! So the academic advising program created through this project was designed to meet the needs of all K-State students. By expanding the functionality of their home-grown course management tool, K-State Online tool, they have a new academic advising infrastructure.

Working Relationships and Challenges Among the Partners
The project benefited from having partners who were stable (who stayed with the project from beginning to end), savvy about their institution’s politics and culture, and had the leadership skills to be successful. While they supported each other, they also were motivated by “coopitition” to keep up with the others. There were challenges as well. The partners worked on different services, with different student information systems, in different types of campuses. They found they could share information but not collaborate in the actual design of a service due to insufficient commonalities.

Efforts were made to share information and do some basic collaboration on concepts through an online collaboratory and an online collaborative workspace. Initially, SCT offered to host an online collaboratory site where partners could deposit and share working papers about their project. Due to reorganizations, SCT later had to recall its offer and K-State provided its K-State Online system as the repository site temporarily until WCET could develop one specifically for the project.

After the teams developed their scenarios and flow UML diagrams, the WCET staff posted them in a WCET-designed online collaborative workspace (http://wiche.edu/telecom/LAAP_lab/index.htm) and asked the team members to review each others’content and comment and answer questions in a threaded discussion. IT staff team members were asked to work through an online buy/build/partner matrix to evaluate the software and hardware needs. No one participated in the activities because the team members felt they simply did not have the time to do so and that they did not know enough about the other partners’ projects to provide useful feedback at that time.

Description of Services and Students Served

Home-grown solutions
Kansas State University developed an academic advising program that is designed to serve all K-State students. Based on the substantive input of full-time, part-time and faculty advisors, online academic advising is based on core transcript data elements: name, SSN, address, e-mail, home address, ACT scores, photo, phone number, major/options, requirements/taken, and electives (restricted and free), transfer courses accepted (that apply to degree), transfer courses in limbo, K-State GPA (by semester and overall), and University general education requirements. A student and her/his advisors can concurrently access the same data and discuss it in person, on the phone or online via real time chats.

IT staff created an interface that seamlessly pulls the above data from 17 databases. The interface was based on the existing home-grown course management system, K-State Online. Users may personalize the interface for font size, layout, and type of data shown. A streaming video describing and demonstrating the new service is available at http://www.dce.ksu.edu/advise/advisedemo.ram.

Kapi’olani Community College developed a learning support system for students in the medical assisting program. Because it uses portal technology, it offers a personalized and customized interface and a variety of features: a calendar, orientation materials, a section for program communities, and sections for tutoring and advising. (It includes orientation and advising because they were reclassified to be instances of non-academic tutoring.) It offers: an interactive advising tutorial to guide pre-medical assisting students through the programs admissions process; WorkKeys testing and KeyTrain tutoring for soft skills; and tutoring modules on rules and pronunciation of key medical terms, dosage calculations, and introduction to the use of WebCT. An anatomy tutorial is under development. A peer mentoring system has also been devised so second year medical assisting students are the first responders to questions that first year medical assisting students post on the bulletin board.

The KCC IT staff used MetaDot portal freeware to develop the prototype for a learning support service. This approach to learning support and the technical infrastructure supporting it are already considered models for Kapi’olani as well as the University of Hawaii system as they implement SCT’s Banner SIS and Campus Pipeline portal. A streaming video describing and demonstrating the new service is available at http://uhtv.hawaii.edu:7070/ramgen/kapcc_dlm/healthportal.rm.

Regis University developed an orientation to academic advising service for the applicants and students in the adult education programs. The team was determined to use the Web to provide a service, not just information. They created a new process whereby applicants can track their progress through the admissions phase by receiving “pushed” information when the DataTel student information system receives and logs in the various required documents (application form, transcripts, letters of reference, etc.), information about registering for RegisNet and library privileges, and directions on scheduling an academic advising appointment. Applicants and students may also “pull” the same information from Regis’s online WebAdvisor.

The Regis team worked with a consultant from DataTel who wrote new programming code to accomplish these tasks. Essentially, the consultant expanded the SIS’s administrative functions to perform communication functions. Like K-State, Regis tweaked its existing student information system to add functionality enabling a new student service.

Commercial Solutions
SCT began this project with no institutional partners using its products. It also faced an element of distrust that it could provide non-proprietary solutions. In light of these challenges, SCT has made significant progress in offering online student service commercial solutions.

The first product, SCT Connection for WebCT, offered new administrative functionality for users of that course management system: dynamic course creation; coordinated faculty assignments; automated course registration process; synchronized drop/adds; attendance tracking/academic history; real-time grade submission and global name changes.

Through market analysis and adaption, SCT subsequently developed the e-Education Infrastructure mentioned above (under Scale, Intensity and Resources). It encompasses a comprehensive view of student service: users; presentation infrastructure; applications in academic, administrative, personal and community areas; data storage infrastructure; hardware; and services. Thus far, SCT has built, bought or partnered with other software companies to bring to market several applications:

• academic

  • "what-if” degree analysis for academic advising

  • degree audit for academic advising

  • course and individual assessment

• administrative

  • "quick admit” for admissions

  • transcript request

  • “Trac Dat” for academic planning and institutional assessment

• personal

  • career and personal counseling

  • “iWebfolio” a digital portfolio for tracking and documenting admissions, community service, career/professional material, dissertation, scholarship applications and any other type of important content

• community

  • “Project Socrates” for creating and supporting dynamic communities (still in development)

Trac Dat, iWebfolio, and Project Socrates are not SCT-platform specific; they may be integrated into other homegrown or commercial SISs. The others functions are enhancements within the SCT SIS products.

At the project end, the University of Hawaii has purchased and has begun implementing the Banner student information system and Regis is considering the iWebfolio product.

Project Impact Outside Partners

There were four main avenues for disseminating information about the project: a Website, a Webcast series, presentations at meetings and published articles. Since the beginning of the project, WCET posted information about its structure and intent. In May 2002 WCET launched a substantial new site, http://wcet.info/projects/laap/index.asp, with six sections: About the Project, Project Partners, Resources, Guidelines, Webcast Series, and Consulting. From April through mid-December of that year, the website received over 340,000 hits.

The "Providing Student Services to Distance Learners" Webcast series attracted over 1200 live participants in 14 Webcasts on the following topics: library services, trends in electronic student services, academic advising, cybercounseling, Web accessibility for people with disabilities, student information systems and personalized services, learning support, orientation, student financial aid, bridging the student services/IT communication gap, and LAAP project demonstrations with K-State, KCC, Regis and SCT. The Webcasts were available live and through an archive at no cost to the viewers. Feedback on the Webcasts came from evaluation forms posted at the end of each presentation. The following anonymous comments were typical:

• “It isn't so much what I learned; rather, it has more to do with the overall impressions I received. I love all this stuff, but many of my co-workers are very resistant to it. This will just help reinforce what I've been telling them that technology is changing the roles we have as counselors, and we need to adapt.”

• “Wonderful demo! BSU is currently discussing expansion of such services to distance education students so this was a very valuable presentation for me to see. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

• “Some of the general ideas are very interesting, and provide a jumping-off point for future work. I want to review some content in the archive, too.”

In 2002, WCET staff made several presentations to disseminate information about the project. Project director Pat Shea served as the keynote speaker at the 3rd Annual California Virtual Campus Student Services Conference on March 28 and presented at IBM Innovation in Student Services: Integration for the Future Conference on July 26 and at the FIPSE Project Directors' Meeting, November 22-24. Project assistant Sue Armitage presented at eCollege’s 3rd Annual CiTE Conference on April 11. All the key project participants — Mel Chastain, Mike Tagawa, Ellen Waterman, Peggi Munkittrick, Pat Shea, Sue Armitage and Karen Paulson — participated in a WCET annual conference preconference session on November 6, 2002.

Mike Tagawa participated in the Best Practices in Student Support Services for Allied Health Video Conference June 3, 2002 and shared what he had learned through his participation in the LAAP project.

Several articles were written about the project during 2002:

• “Really Serving Students at a Distance” by WCET Executive Director Sally Johnstone in Syllabus magazine, April 1, 2002, http://www.syllabus.com/article.asp?id=6244

• "Peering into the Future of Web-Based Services for Online Learners" in Educational Pathways, online article, 2002, http://www.edpath.com/wcet.htm

• "WCET Partnership Creates New Online Student Services" by Jina Moore (Intern, U.S. Department of Education, FIPSE), online article, October 16, 2002, http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/LAAP-article.html

• “Student Services Webcast Series Successfully Launched” by Pat Shea, WCET newsletter Communique, January 2002

• “Moving Tutoring Online” by Michael Tagawa, WCET newsletter Communique, September 2002

• “FIPSE: Thirty years of learning anytime and anywhere” by Karen Paulson in Change magazine, Sep/Oct 2002

Several leaders in the student services field have remarked on the project’s value:

• Gary Kleemann, Chair, National Association for Student Personnel Administrators’ Task Force on Distance Learning said, “The WCET LAAP project, Beyond the Administrative Core, helped many of us bring into sharper focus the complexity of the issues involved in developing quality online student services. Perhaps just as importantly, it helped us recognize ways that we might improve our face-to-face services as we worked to bring quality services online. The end results were better services for all students."

• Janet Ross Kendall, Director, Distance Degree Programs, Washington State University said, “Washington State University offers six undergraduate degree-completion programs and is known as a national leader in providing student services to distance learners. Our staff considers WCET to be leaders in compiling information and making recommendations about online student services, and we have used WCET student services resources and materials in developing and refining aspects of our program."

• Dan Granger, Director of Distributed Learning and Extended Education, California State University, Monterey Bay said, "The type of work that WCET has done on online student services has saved us thousands and thousands of dollars."

In 2002, a student services consultant database was launched. WCET identified consultants among its staff and members with expertise in designing new electronic services. These consultants, working through Western Cooperative Consulting (WCC), will be available to assist client campuses and collaborative ventures to plan, design, and develop their services.

E. Evaluation/Project Results
The partners succeeded in meeting the project's main goal of creating and deploying new student services online and anticipate continued success in using the processes learned through the project to enhance other online services.

As the project progressed, challenges and opportunities arose. The most significant challenges were insufficient funding and incompatible technologies at the partners’ institutions. The project budget was not able to support onsite visits by WCET staff and consultants at the outset of the project when that kind of hands-on assistance and motivation could have been very helpful. Early progress lagged because it was too difficult for the partners to organize by themselves. The flipside of the inadequate funding was the incredible volunteer support provided by members of the project advisory board and other leaders in the field. Their interest in and support for the project added immeasurably to its success.

Dr. Karen Paulson of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) served as the project evaluator. Dr. Paulson participated in all project partner meetings and engaged in site visits to interview each partners’ project participants. In her 2001 evaluation, she found that:

In just the first two years of this project, the dollar value of time and effort donated by external consultants totals over $120,000. …In the first year of the grant (January to December 2000), over 69 full days were donated. In 2001, over 52 days were donated. This time and effort went into advisory board functions, supporting the scenario-building process, providing feedback to the three institutional partners about their student services, and preparing for and leading Webcasts. If these days were to be paid for by the grant, at a daily rate of $1000/day (a bargain for the expertise level of the people involved), over $120,000 additional dollars would have been required.

While diversity among partners can lead to robust discussions and previously undiscovered options, it can also result in “siloed” efforts. There were almost no similarities among the partners: each had a different student information system (SIS), mission, organizational structure, time zone, and student service project. At the beginning, none of the institutional partners used the corporate partner’s software. (Kapi’olani Community College, as part of the University of Hawaii system, recently began to use SCT’s Banner student information system.) Consequently, most of the partners’ work was done in isolation. The institutions could share module design at a conceptual level, but not as a working software product because each was based on the particular institution’s individual view of the student service and its technology.

Because the services were implemented at the project’s close, a full qualitative evaluation of the services is unavailable. Some early quantitative data, however, has been collected on the impact of two programs:

• Regis reported that “Because the staff who built the scenarios in the beginning are the practitioners for student services, they continue to expand functions for the systems in all areas. The Library Notification Module has been accessed 2196 times since it was activated. We estimate the time saved because of automation of application status information has been about 330 hours for the first 6 months. The adaptation of the resource is already far beyond our knowledge. Basically it has been integrated into the Regis systems as a mainstream capability.”

• Kapi’olani Community College found that participating in this project made it much easier to get money for technology. In past years, the project leader could barely scrape together $50,000. Once the project built up steam, he was able to acquire $250,000 internally and one million dollars externally for upgrades.

In the April 2003 report, “Year Three Evaluation and Final Case Study Results,” the project evaluator concluded:

Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners” was a success. The grant changed the conversation nationally about which student services should be provided in an online format, that online services were for all students, and that services should be personalized to the student. The partner institutions succeeded in developing institution-specific student service modules that will make a difference on each campus; in addition, the culture at each institution has experienced changes. Finally, the corporate partner also learned a lot about how student services are developed on-campus. The Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications is to be commended for facilitating a well-done project.

The evaluation included the following table, which displays the project’s goals or objectives, identifies whether they were completed, and what evidence was used to determine completion.

Table 1. Goal and Objective Achievement

Please see Appendix 1 for the full report.

Plans for Continuation and Dissemination

WCET has developed a very robust Website as mentioned earlier with full documentation about this project, including this final report. In early May it will send an electronic postcard to its membership and those of other national associations announcing this resource. In addition, WCET has recently registered the project Website with many search engines.

The project director has responded to several recent requests for presentations to other campuses or consortia beginning to develop their own student services. In addition, WCET has undertaken some new projects that will build on and extend this LAAP project:

• An audit service — In partnership with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU), WCET has developed an audit tool identifying the critical components in 10 student services and how these services could be provided online at four generations of increasing sophistication. WCET will launch an audit service this summer whereby it will review an institution’s online services and make recommendations to improve their quality.

• In August, Jossey-Bass will publish a book Student Academic Services in Higher Education: A Comprehensive Handbook for the 21st Century. This book will contain a chapter “Online Academic Services” which will discuss some of the outcomes of this project.

• In June, WCET will launch a new online communities environment for its members. One of the topic areas will be student services. Discussions are expected to build on those begun in this project.

• In June WCET will launch it student services section of its EduTools site. This will provide information on technology products and service providers supporting student services. This should be an easy “one-stop” shop for technology solutions as campuses design their new services.

• Through Western Cooperative Consulting (WCC), WCET offers in-depth assistance in designing new Web-based student services.

• WCET is seeking funding to continue its Webcast series on student services.

Each of the partners is also planning to continue its work in this area. K-State is currently testing its academic advising system with a wider group of advisers. It is also planning to add more functionality such as a notes bank for recording adviser notes and dialogue with an advisee. Kapi’olani Community College is developing plans for another learning support community for its humanities programs. In addition, it is working on the transition of the learning support service from its freeware environment to the Campus Pipeline environment, which will give it more functionality. Several of the other colleges and universities at Regis are now developing ways to use the new communications system. In addition, Regis has just completed its study of electronic portfolios through this LAAP project and will be determining how it wants to proceed with final selection and implementation in the next few weeks. SCT continues to develop its various products, with a new release of Trac Dat expected very soon. Additionally, it plans to continue development of functionality in the other areas of its e-education infrastructure.

F. Summary, Conclusions, and Lessons Learned

In summary, the Web can provide a way to re-design and integrate services to serve students better while streamlining processes to reduce staff load and costs. To accomplish this and provide the personalized and customized services students want, however, there must be a robust student information system in place upon which to build.

Each of the institutional partners in this project developed new services that will better serve their students. More importantly, however, these projects helped campus leaders and staff to embrace new ways of thinking about how best to serve students and the role technology can play in that.

The corporate partner brought several new products to market — some proprietary and some not. Through their clients, SCT will better serve students too. But like the institutions, the more important legacy of this project may be in helping to broaden this corporation’s vision to embrace a comprehensive and integrated view of student services.

Because the project focused primarily on the process of transforming student services, our lessons learned may be very valuable to others interested in doing the same:

• It's about people, not technology
  Moving student services to the online environment is primarily a challenge of leading people in a new direction. Dealing with politics, policies, practices and culture are human, not technical, issues.

• It’s time to end the silos
  Student services have developed over time as the need for them arose on campus. Many have separate policies, practices, and technical infrastructures. New technologies make it possible to integrate services into a cohesive system of student support. This requires re-engineering student services — designing new policies and practices — and takes a cross-functional campus team to make it happen.

• The user is king
  Web-based services should be designed from the users' perspective. Students are primarily task-oriented — they want to pay a bill, run a degree audit, schedule an appointment — and they don’t want to think about which department provides what service. They prefer a single sign-on to integrated, personalized and customized services and the options of self-service, general help and personalized assistance. The full range of optimized services includes online and real-person/real-time resources.

• Internal consistency and integrity are vital
  The extent to which an institution puts its student services online should be consistent with its mission, culture, and priorities. If an institution is enrolling distance students in online courses, it must provide those students with accessible services of equal quality to those for campus-based students. Otherwise, these students cannot be expected to succeed at the same rate and it calls into question the institution’s commitment to learning for all of its students — not just those privileged to come to campus.

• Technology should enable new services, not define them
  At a rapid pace, new technologies are coming onto the market. New versions of existing software are common. In envisioning new services, the focus should not be limited by what is possible today. By defining the ideal and then phasing in the solutions as the technology becomes available, the best service will result.

• The student information system and portal play key roles
  Student information systems (SISs) and portals play critical roles in the provision of personalized and customized student services.

• It may be old, but it still works
  There is no one system that will support all of the student services. There will always be a need to integrate new functionality with old functionality. Also, the solution may include using some functionality in your existing system, not previously utilized. It is important to understand the functionality of all automated systems so that they can be used to their fullest extent, even if consultants and extensive training must be employed. Under-utilization is wasteful and expensive.

• The problem may be the interface, not the infrastructure
  All the information a student or staff may need in a service may be Web accessible, but the format may not be user friendly. By developing a graphical interface with format options — e.g., different views with cascading options — users may be better served.

• Outside experts move projects forward
  Outside experts bring a broader perspective and objectivity into the project that can help transcend campus politics. Scheduled visits from a consultant in organizational change or best practices in online student services also provide motivation for project teams to accomplish goals. In some cases, the expert may not bring new expertise, but rather validate what the campus is doing — and this can be equally important to project progress. The LAAP project partners identified site visits as one of the most important influences in their success.

• Distance staff should take a leadership role
  On many campuses, the staff of the division of continuing education or other outreach unit has provided both the courses and the services for distance students for many years. They have tremendous expertise in providing remote service that is convenient and just-in-time. As today’s campus population looks increasingly like the distant population, it is important that this experienced staff be tapped as a valuable resource in the redesign of services to support all students.

• A cross functional team is key
  To integrate student services and create a new way of serving students, institutions need broad representation from admissions, registrar's office, student services, disabilities services, marketing, faculty, IT and students.

• Developing decentralized services means focusing on the commonalities while respecting the differences
  Perhaps as much as 80% of a service is the same across campus, but the last 20% can vary significantly. The trick is to design a system that builds on the commonalities with the flexibility to accommodate the differences via customization. That means understanding the needs, processes, and policies of each college/department/program in enough detail to make the system work for them.

• First things, first
  It is ideal to put the administrative core services — admissions, registration, financial aid, student accounts — online first so that you can build upon them. These centralized services have many established rules, regulations, and operating procedures so it is easier to achieve consensus about what the new services should be like. Then you can move on to the decentralized ones where each department may have its unique needs.

• There will never be enough time or money
  Re-designing student services with technology applications costs money and takes time — particularly in the startup phase. Projects will expand to fill both limits so it is better to get started than wait for the perfect combination that may never come.

• Collaborative and outsourced services will grow
  It will become easier and more cost effective to outsource some student services delivered via technology. By working together, institutions will be able to provide a higher quality service than they could independently. This will require institutions to define outcomes for their services and measures to determine quality.

Appendix 1, Year Three Evaluation and Final Case Study Results by Dr. Karen Paulson of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems

Introduction
Evaluation Methodology
Evaluation Findings
Limitations
Conclusion
Appendices of Case Studies

Introduction
In February 2000, the U.S. Department of Education awarded the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) a Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnership (LAAP) grant. Kansas State University, Kapi'olani Community College (HI), and Regis University (CO) are institutional partners in the grant, and SCT Corporation is a corporate partner. The purpose of the grant was to develop online student services modules that at that time were not commercially available. Additional grant goals were to create a framework with guidelines for other institutions to use as they developed their own “home-grown” online student services as well as detailed case studies of the institutional change process that the three institutional partners experienced as they developed their online student services. Early on, the partners agreed to the following guiding principles for the project.

• Grant products will be “learner-driven and provider-structured” grounded in an understanding of user needs and based on user testing.

• Grant products will utilize existing standards such as those established by the National Academic Advising Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and others.

• Student services staff will be involved from the beginning.

• Online student services developed by the grant will have at their core “customization.” That is, the services will be created to be responsive to a student’s individual circumstances and needs.

• The process used by grant partners will be documented and designed so it can be useful to other higher education institutions.

• All grant partners will share openly their progress, processes, and results with each other and with the public as the basis for the “best practice” guidelines being developed and the case studies of institutional change that will be disseminated.

WCET contracted with the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) to evaluate the grant. They also asked NCHEMS to conduct case studies of institutional change, one of the grant deliverables.

Grant principal investigators (PIs) chose institutions to participate purposively to represent three distinct sectors of higher education — community colleges, private institutions, and state land-grant institutions. Project goals and objectives can be found in Table 1 below (from www.wcet.info/projects/laap/about/about.htm).

Evaluation Methodology
The evaluation used multiple methods to determine how implementation progressed and what impact the grant had on those involved. The evaluation was largely formative in nature. Methods used to collect data over the course of the grant included participant observation at multiple grant-related meetings, in-person interviews and focus groups with personnel from partner institutions, telephone interviews as well as document and website review.

Baseline site visits to the three partner institutions occurred in March, April, and May 2000. The evaluator met with 23 faculty, staff, and administrators at Kansas State University, 17 at Kapi’olani Community College, and 20 at Regis University. Follow up site visits at the three partner institutions happened in October 2002, two and a half years after the initial site visits. The evaluator met with 17 faculty, staff, and administrators at Kansas State University, 15 at Kapi'olani Community College, and 17 at Regis University. Interviewees were student services personnel, e-learning personnel, campus technical and computer support people, deans and provosts. Faculty and administrators from all three institutions participated in telephone interviews about the scenario process mid-way through the grant. In addition, the evaluator participated in meetings, was a member of the grant listserv, regularly reviewed documents (such as those produced during the scenario process), email correspondence, and websites, and consulted with WCET grant personnel.

The first year evaluation and baseline case studies focused on the broader issues inherent in a) delivering student services online and b) examining how the partnership might function. Year Two consisted largely of institutional partners working through the scenario process with their local committees; therefore, the evaluation, too, focused on the scenario process. Finally, Year Three evaluation specifically focused on the student services developed at each partner institution as well as what cultural changes had occurred at each institution over the course of the three-year grant that had an impact on development of the chosen student service.
The evaluator engaged in participant observation during both grant-related meetings and site visits to partner institution campuses. Five grant-related meetings happened. The first was held in November 1999 prior to award of the grant; the principals involved met at the WCET annual conference. The first official grant organizational meeting occurred in February 2000 in Boulder, Colorado. In November 2000, grant principals who attended the WCET annual conference again met to discuss progress. The second official grant organizational meeting happened January 2001, again in Boulder. Finally, the last grant meeting was in November 2002 in Denver, Colorado prior to the WCET annual conference. In the course of the site visits to the partner institutions in Year One the evaluator interviewed in-person and in focus group settings 60 grant participants and administrators; in Year Three 49 grant participants were interviewed. Fifteen individuals were interviewed via telephone in Year Two.

In order to have a baseline understanding of the provision of student services online and its relationship to traditional student service units, in late 1999 the evaluator interviewed Dr. M. Lee Upcraft, retired Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs at The Pennsylvania State University and author of numerous books about student services. Dr. Upcraft indicated that almost no precedent existed for online student services — beyond the administrative core — delivered to large numbers of students.
Near the end of Year Two, all individuals who had helped with the WCET LAAP project provided information on how much time they had volunteered and for which activities. These data were gathered using a tabular form each person completed. The purpose of this evaluation activity was to illustrate the amount of time and effort above and beyond FIPSE funding that was necessary to complete the project.

During the course of the grant, the evaluator was a member of the grant listserv and received copies of most grant-related email correspondence. Trivial messages (those that acknowledged receipt of information, etc.) were discarded. Review included 163 email messages from 2000, 322 email messages in 2001, and 342 email messages in 2002. She also received documents written as part of the project, including drafts and final versions of scenarios and drafts of the guidelines developed. The evaluator also spent time exploring the newly developed student services online and attending training events.

Table 1. Goal and Objective Achievement

Evaluation Findings

The grant met its goals as indicated in the table above. Additional observations and unexpected outcomes are included here:

• The principal investigators at all three institutions crossed cultures — they were not solely from student services or from distance learning. They were able to see across multiple constituencies. They had political savvy. People respected and listened to them and were willing to act based on their leadership, even if the participants were not always sure about the final outcome.

• Early in the grant emphasis was given to not simply developing student services only for online learners but online student services for all students. Each institutional Vision Team also came to this understanding on its own early in the project. As simplistic as this modified understanding may seem, it was crucial to the development of these student services modules. The project could no longer be dismissed as ancillary to the main focus of a campus because all students would ultimately use the outcome.

• Scenarios helped the process considerably in a couple of instances; in other cases the scenario process was an ordeal for the participants. Overall, scenarios helped by making concrete a student service the understanding of which had previously been largely based on assumption and verbal description. The scenarios helped determine what was common about a student service or process across multiple disciplines and/or units.

• All three institutions experienced a substantial lull mid-grant when many people felt that little would ultimately result from the grant. However, with 6 to 9 months remaining before the end of the grant, all experienced a burst of fortitude, energy, and innovation. Reasons for this renewed energy varied across the three partner institutions. At Kansas State University a meeting occurred that had the right combination of decision makers and personnel who would carry out the development; at that meeting all the pieces fell into place, agreements were reached, and development moved quickly after that. At Kapi’olani Community College, the state system of higher education chose a new student information system, which allowed decisions to be made and the project accelerated from that point. Finally, at Regis University, an external student information system programmer came to campus and, using scenarios developed by the project, allowed them to activate capabilities that substantially sped up its progress.

• All three institutions found that what at first blush seemed like an enormous and unmanageable task could be accomplished when small steps were taken to make progress. In two of the three institutional cases, the task was broken down to a manageable size piece. Then, by activating or taking advantage of existing software or programming structure, they were able to make a difference by harnessing the power of something that was already available on campus. At the third institution, a system decision eliminated previous uncertainties about capabilities of the student information system.

• Regis and Kapi’olani participants noted that they had learned the value of seeing the institution from the learner’s perspective and putting that foremost in how they designed their services. This shift marked a distinct change in how some people thought about the institution. Even those people who had been “learner-centric” previously often did so from their narrow window of the world from their unit’s perspective, and they did not worry about whether their information and services meshed or integrated with other units and how a student might perceive those seams. People are now aware of these differences and the need to explicitly explain those differences.

• SCT, the corporate partner, noted that it faced initial distrust and skepticism because of previous history other participants had with other vendors. The company also noted that had similar issues and it required non-disclosure agreements from those involved. Nevertheless, the relationship of corporate and institution partners resulted in more conversations and better understandings all around.

• While putting student services information online is important, participants at all three partner institutions noted that person-to-person interaction is still necessary. The level of service possible in-person is expected to be qualitatively better compared to previous in-person service, with more time devoted to in-depth and sophisticated discussions. Participants are also hopeful that putting student services online will help develop “more independent, self-directed students.”

• As noted in the Year Two evaluation report, this project was possible through the substantial support of multiple external volunteers, in addition to the untold number of hours devoted to the project by numerous participants at the corporate partner and the three partner institutions.

• One limitation of the student services modules that were developed is that their usefulness may be limited to their institutional settings. But the approach used by the three institutions to think through which student service to adapt, how to approach that adaptation, and how to build support across campus will be useful to other institutions. In addition, the modules created are good models to use as prototypes for faculty and administrators to view for ideas.

• At all three partner institutions participants felt that the LAAP grant had a substantial impact on their campus cultures.

• One participant noted — and everyone agreed — that the key to progress during the grant was the use of “dreaded” deadlines. The site visits by WCET personnel, the external consultants, and the evaluator meant that an “event” was always coming up that was a reason to have the next aspect of the project done. These deadlines were the key to maintaining progress, partially because institutional participants wanted to meet the deadline, partially because they did not want their partner institutions to meet a deadline that they did not.

• The project has also helped the three partner institutions focus on disabilities and developing student services that are usable by students of all abilities. Many interviewees noted that grant participants have become vocal advocates of services that meet accessibility guidelines.

Limitations

The evaluation was limited in several ways. First, because the focus was on developing student services from scratch, there was no baseline information available. Second, the project and the development of the student services moved forward concurrently; therefore, the evaluation was largely formative. Activities are being planned to conduct usability testing and summative testing at some of the partner institutions, but that will occur post-grant. Third, due to resource limitations, the evaluation focused predominantly on the institutional partners and less so on the corporate partner.

Conclusion

“Beyond the Administrative Core: Creating Web-based Student Services for Online Learners” was a success. The grant changed the conversation nationally about which student services should be provided in an online format, that online services were for all students, and that services should be personalized to the student. The partner institutions succeeded in developing institution-specific student service modules that will make a difference on each campus; in addition, the culture at each institution has experienced changes. Finally, the corporate partner also learned a lot about how student services are developed on-campus. The Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications is to be commended for facilitating a well-done project.

Appendices of Case Studies

Appendix A, Final Case Study at Kansas State University
Appendix B, Final Case Study at Kapi'olani Community College
Appendix C, Final Case Study at Regis University

Appendix 2, Guidelines for Creating Student Services Online

Please see the Guidelines.