The "Guide to Good Practice" recommendations in the previous sections focus principally on the need to provide basic student services information and, in some cases, electronic forms on the Web. They also point to the importance of creating links throughout an institution’s Web-based services as well as to relevant external, Web-based resources. Because most schools are only beginning to provide student services via the Web, the recommendations in the previous section can help institutions create minimum good practice in online service provision.
There is a kind of "continuum of good practice" in using the Web for student services that can be described as follows:
Step 1: Post information
on courses, curriculum, and student services.
Step 2: Create links to
and from campus-based services and to external Web-based resources.
Step 3: Provide Web-based
applications for admission and Web registration systems.
Step 4: Develop systems
that give students access via the Web interface to their individual records, enabling them
to initiate and handle routine transactions on their own.
Access is password–protected to authorize use.
A. At a
minimum, these systems allow students to make changes in their address or password and to
have read-only access to other parts of their records, such as grades.
B. The more advanced systems use highly interactive, self-help approaches. They are designed to give students, rather than central and departmental administrators, control over many decisions related to their academic careers. Students can determine, in a virtual environment, the impact of one decision on another. They can ask "what-if" questions to help determine their academic progress. The best of these also address students' non-administrative needs, including counseling and academic support. A number of institutions have now moved on to a Step 5.
Step 5: A Campus Portal. Campus portals offer personalized interfaces for all users. Through a secure access point, portals offer students (as well as faculty and other users) customized access to a variety of information and tools, including self-directed student services. Some institutions are building their own portals, while others are working with commercial vendors.
This final section of the Guide is designed to show examples of two current advanced approaches to providing services on line. The two institutions whose Web-based services are described below are certainly far from alone in making such highly interactive decision support systems available to their students. (See, for example, the (University of Minnesota’s) One Stop Services, which have made that institution a well-known leader in online service provision.) A significant number of colleges and universities have developed—or are in the process of developing—similar comprehensive Web-based services. Moreover, for-profit vendors are also marketing very sophisticated packages of services to institutions around the country. Online and distributed learning, in general, are such fast-moving targets that new systems for student services are now increasing in variety and sophistication very quickly.