Is the IPAS solution effective or just another resource consuming - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Is the IPAS solution effective

• r

just another resource consuming diversion to improve the Student Planning and Advisement Process? The Real Facts from Two Community Colleges

Presenters

Montgomery County Community College

• Kathrine Swanson, Vice President for

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management

• Celeste Schwartz, Vice President of

Information Technology and College Services

Prince George’s Community College

• Tyjaun Lee, Vice President for Student

Services

• Joseph Rossmeier, Vice President for

Technology Services

About Us

• Serve over 21,000 credit students annually
• Comprehensive campuses in Blue Bell, Pottstown,

Culinary Arts Institute, and Virtual Campus

• Over 100 associate degree, certificate and workforce

training programs

• Dual Admissions with over 30 colleges/universities,

including highly selective and international institutions

• Achieving the Dream Leader College and 2014 Leah

Meyer Austin Awardee

• One of 43 Gateway to College programs in the country
• Voluntary Framework for Accountability

• 2014 Student Body

Credit Students 19,451 Noncredit Students 25,579 Total Students 42,712

• Employees

2,665

• National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Security Two-Year

Education (2010-2015)

• One of only 16 college across the country named a White House Champion of

Change

• Headquarters for CyberWatch, an NSF regional consortium dedicated to

Cybersecurity

• Home to the first middle college in Maryland—The Academic of Health

Sciences at Prince George’s Community College

• Top 25 associate degree producers among African-American students
• Achieving the Dream
• Complete College America
• AACU Roadmap

About Us

Project Overview

• What is IPAS?
• Each schools reflection
• Lessons Learned/The Real Facts
• Discussion/Q&A

What is IPAS?

This project focused on the development of Integrated Planning and Advising Support Systems (IPAS) with emphasis on all three of the broad, student-facing functions:

• educational planning
• counseling and coaching
• risk targeting and intervention

The project was driven by student success and process efficiency.

Student Success Network

• Redesigned Student Planning and Advising
• Technology Support for Student Success
• Project Timelines
• Expected Outcomes Achieved

Original Expected Outcomes

• Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory -

reduce the student gap score in advising

• CCSSE - improve ratings on the benchmark

for students who believe the college provides support for learners

• SENSE - improve performance on the early

connections benchmark

• Improve student completion

Original Expected Outcomes

• Increase the number of faculty engaged in

early alert

• Noel-Levitz - reduce the student gap score

for the question: “students are notified early in the term if they are doing poorly in class”

Original Expected Outcomes

• SENSE – Improve ratings on:

– “Advisor helped set academic goals to create a plan achieving those goals” SENSE – Improve ratings on “College staff member talked with them about commitments outside

• f school”

– “Specific person assigned to them to see if the needed information or assistance”

• Noel-Levitz - reduce the gap score for : “my

academic advisor is concerned about my success as an individual”

Original Expected Outcomes

• Improve student persistence from fall-to-

spring for first-time students

• Improve fall-to-fall persistence for first-time

students

• Improve student course success outcomes

as measured by the percentage of students receiving an A, B, C, or P, for first-time students

Project Summary

• Provide students with academic planning tools
• Allow advisors to provide intrusive advising

through academic planning and early intervention

• Allow faculty and advisors to monitor progress

and identify at-risk students to inform early intervention plans

• Empower students with feedback on their own

academic progress

• Allow advisors to track student progress through

completion

Applicant receives packet Assignment of Advisor New Student Registration Session Communication to accepted students by Assigned Advisor Placement Testing Recruitment – Prospect – Applicant Educational Planning Between Weeks 4 - 8 (1st semester)

Mandatory meeting with Assigned Advisor

Holistic Evaluation Assigned Advisor 2nd Semester & Beyond Student Success Network New Student Orientation Completion, Commencement, Transfer and/or Job Placement

College

Ready?

YES NO

Project Summary

Applicant receives packet

Communications Management (CRM)

New Student Registration Session

Portal, WebAdvisor, Starfish, SEP, Email, Blackboard

Communication to accepted students

CROA reports and Outlook (CRM)

Placement Testing

Accuplacer & virtual proctoring

Recruitment –Prospect – Applicant

(CRM)

Educational Planning

Student Educational Planning (SEP) Focus 2 Montco Money PA TRAC

Holistic Evaluation

Image Now

(Transcript Capture/Evaluation)

2nd Semester & Beyond Student Success Network

SEP, Starfish (Advisor/Student Dashboards)

New Student Orientation

+ OrgSync (Online Orientation Tool)

Completion, Commencement, Transfer and/or Job Placement

PA TRAC, PA Job Gateway, College Central

College Ready?

YES NO

On-line prep Ex: Plato, My Foundations Lab

Technologies Utilized

Next Step

Overall Project Impact

Project Timeline/Cost

• Project timeline 20 months

– Early Alert – Students appointment scheduling – Student planning/degree audit – Student Dashboard – Assessment

• Project funding

– Gates Foundation – College Tech Fee Budget

• Decrease wait time for student advising during peak and non-

peak periods from 1 1/2 hours to 30 minutes—Achieved.

• Decrease time to complete SatisfactoryAcademic Progress plans

from 1 hour and 45 minutes to 1 hour—Data still being collected but achievement highly likely.

• Decrease number of yearly advising appointments by 10%

annually—Data still being collected but achievement highly likely.

• Increased number of Satisfactory Academic Progress students

that Advising will serve from 30% to 75%--Data still being collected but achievement highly likely.

Original Expected Outcomes

• Increase students who use technology for educational

planning purposes to 80% from 39% today— Achieved— All new students required to have a plan and returning students placed on registration hold until plan is developed.

• Increase retention services from 30 to 100 in first year

from 100 to 250 in the second year— Too early to tell as additional year of tracking required.

• Decrease the number of students graduating each year

with 90 credits or more by 10% through the use of faculty advisement— Achieved.

Original Expected Outcomes

• This IPAS solution facilitated the acquisition and

deployment of new self-service software modules to enhance the student advising and programming planning and tuition/fees payment activities.

• Project also improved the students’ front door experience

by providing them with a digital student appointment system to schedule meetings with Student Services and faculty.

• Project also simplified access to vital course/class

information from the learning management system via the portal.

Project Summary

• New—
• Ellucian Colleague Student Finance
• Ellucian Colleague Student Planning
• Ellucian Integrated Learning Platform
• Starfish Connect Student Appointment Scheduling

System

• Upgraded—
• Ellucian Colleague Portal
• Ellucian Mobile

Technologies Utilized

• Project benefits achieved improved initial front door experience
• f students.
• IPAS grant stepped up College’s timetable to acquire and deploy

these new self-service modules.

• Project very successfully applied the use of technology in the

process to improve the student’s front door experience.

• Project depended heavily on student input garnered through

special “Feedback Friday” meetings with students.

Overall Project Impact

• Student Finance module now offers students a single stop to

review their entire financial status in terms of accounts receivable and financial aid.

• Student Planning module now offers students, on a self-

service basis, complete details about their academic program status.

• Starfish Connect now provides students with the ability to

schedule appointments with Student Services and faculty advisors without coming on campus.

Overall Project Impact

• ILP provides a dynamic link to transmit information between

LMS and ERP, and shows students pertinent learning information on portal. Also provides:

• Grade submission
• Portal access to LMS courses
• Course creation and student enrollment information
• Daily attendance
• Retention alert messaging

Overall Project Impact

• Project duration per the grant was 18 months, effective July

1, 2013, with the IPAS solution to be sustainable and expandable beyond this timeframe.

• Total project cost was $399,000, of which $100,000 was

Gates funded.

• Balance of funds came from a combination of strategic

funds via the College’s Strategic Plan and the Technology Services operational budget.

• Project cost included project manager salary/benefits for 18

months.

Project Timeline/Cost

Lessons Learned

Successes and Challenges

Ultimate Impact on Student Success

Ultimate Impact on Student Success

Challenges

• Change can create anxiety
• Communicating with students – the need for

repeating messages and using multiple channels

• Communicating with faculty/advisors/staff –

how soon and how often

• Working with three vendors on

implementation plans and integrations

• No tool is perfect resulting in a lists of

enhancements sent vendors

 Aligned with the College’s Envision Success Strategic Plan initiatives related to improving the front door experience  Encouraged the College to modernize various student services processes with new functional capabilities and communication channels  Increased further integration of various software components that provides students with easier access to critical information necessary for program planning and tracking purposes

Ultimate Impact

• n Student Success

 Aligned with the College’s Envision Success Strategic Plan initiatives related to improving the front door experience.  Encouraged the College to modernize various student services processes with new functional capabilities and communication channels.  Increased further integration of various software components that provides students with easier access to critical information necessary for program planning and tracking purposes.

Ultimate Impact

• n Student Success

 Encouraged greater engagement between students and advisors.  Provided greater access to other student services.  Permits self-advising for students who have been program placed.  Provided an easier pathway to registration, financial aid, and student receivable accounts.  Provided, via the Portal, up-to-date class information in one location.  Facilitated the student appointment scheduling process with various student services and faculty advising.

Ultimate Impact

• n Student Success

Challenges while making this a successful project:

• Managing multiple software implementations
• Managing multiple vendor/college timelines
• Providing ample time for students to test prototypes

prior to full deployment

• Managing change and risk of various student services

processes

• Supporting the Student Services staff and faculty to

recognize and value full power of new software tools

• Ensuring staff were sufficiently trained with both in-

person training sessions and self-training tutorials

Challenges

• Using the “soft launch” marketing approach to deploy

the reengineered processes

• Creating consistent messaging for promoting these re-

engineered processes

Challenges

• College had to extend timeline by six months:
• Project involved major cultural and process changes in

how the College does business

• New software required some debugging
• Inclement weather
• Recognized importance of minimizing disruption to

enrollment processes

• Life experience

Challenges

Questions?

Contact Information

Montgomery County Community College

• Kathrine Swanson –kswanson@mc3.edu
• Celeste Schwartz – cschwartz@mc3.edu

Prince George’s Community College

• Tyjaun Lee –leeta@pgcc.edu
• Joseph Rossmeier – rossmejg@pgcc.edu