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Overview
WCET’s LAAP Project on Student Services
What Are Student Services?
Motivating Forces for Online Services
Suggested Evolution of New Online Services
Who is the Audience for New Online Student Services?
Should All Services be Online?
Do Off-Campus and On-Campus Students Need Different Services?
Most campuses, recognizing the important role that student services
play in learner success and retention, have a full range of student
services in place to support their on-campus learners. Yet, many
have failed to provide the same level of service to their off-campus
learners who cannot come to campus.
Indeed, serving the off-campus student has not been part of the
mainstream campus agenda for most institutions due to a lack of
both the resources and the flexibility to meet the unique needs
of these students. Where service has been provided, it has most
frequently come from the units offering distance courses or programs
(e.g., the Division of Continuing Education). On many campuses this
has resulted in duplicate systems, one for off-campus and one for
on-campus students, supporting such core services as admissions,
registration, and student accounts, as depicted below:
For other non-core services, such as advising and tech support,
the responsibility has often fallen to faculty members teaching
the courses. The goal should be to implement student services online
for as many of the on-campus and off-campus student needs as possible
(that is, minimize offline services).
Now that the e-learning population is expanding so rapidly, this
bifurcated system is no longer viable on many campuses. Not only
is this dual systems mode of operation expensive and inefficient
for institutions, it is an unfair burden for faculty and a confusing
and frustrating process for all students. This is especially true
for students who live on campus, but enroll in online or other mediated
distance courses — estimated at 80% of today’s e-learning population.
For example, these students must enroll in some courses via the
campus registrar and others via the Division of Continuing Education,
paying different tuition and fees. At some institutions, the for-credit
courses offered through the Division of Continuing Education or
other units may not count toward a student’s degree or certificate
program — even as an elective! This is not good student service!
Students expect and demand one voice and unified services from their
single institution.
Moreover, all students deserve access to a full array of student
services and until we provide these we cannot expect to see the
same levels of student success and retention between on-campus and
off-campus courses. Additionally, today’s students expect services
to be available at a time and place convenient to them. This is
most broadly achieved by putting services online.
WCET’s LAAP Project on Student Services
In its project, Beyond the Administrative Core: “Creating Web-Based
Student Services for Online Learners,” WCET worked with three partner
institutions and a corporate partner to develop new online student
services. The institutions were Kansas State University (KS), Kapi’olani
Community College (HI), and Regis University (CO); and the corporate
partner was SCT (the manufacturer of Banner and Plus student information
systems and other student services software). To learn more about
the specific student service applications developed in this project,
go to model services.
This three-year project (2000-2002), funded by the U.S. Department
of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education
(FIPSE) through its Learning Anytime Anyplace Partnership (LAAP)
program, has resulted in this set of guidelines to help other institutions
put their student services online. These guidelines are intended
to provide some general direction and recommended steps in implementing
online student services. How the guidelines are used on each campus
will vary with the campus culture and its intention to put some
or all services online.
What Are Student Services?
The term “student services” varies in meaning from one campus to
another. Indeed, this term and those used to refer to certain services
may vary significantly within a campus. For example, at one of the
universities involved in the LAAP project the term “academic advising”
had four different meanings within a single department of one of
the colleges.
The lack of consensus may be due to the evolving and fragmented
nature of student services. Over time campuses have added various
student services as the need for them arose. Some of these services
are centralized, but many are not. Moreover, many operate in their
own “silos,” with separate technology infrastructures and different
policies and procedures. To establish some consensus for discussion
about student services, the LAAP partners adopted a web
of student services graphic for the purposes of the project
that depicts an array of services that should be available to online
learners. The dotted lines at the outer edges indicate that this
is not an exhaustive list.
Most of the existing services on the physical campus today were
designed from the institution’s point of view. Students move from
office to office integrating these services, sometimes encountering
conflicting information and advice. Unfortunately, many institutions
repeat this experience for students in the online environment where
students click from page to page, again integrating conflicting
information and advice.
The Web provides an opportunity to deliver integrated student services
designed from the student’s point of view. These new services, blended
by associated functions, cross service boundaries and are customized
and personalized for the individual student. For example, Penn State
University has developed an online service to late-drop a course.
Through a series of interactive steps with the eLion system, students
assess the impact of dropping a course on their grade point average,
receive information about tutoring, learn about the impact this
action will have on their financial aid, and find out how dropping
this course will affect their progress toward program completion.
Blended together are academic advising, registration, tutoring and
financial aid information to provide the student with the full context
in which to make a better decision. Visit the eLion
demo for further information.
Student services, the online version, provide a “conduit”
between and among the student community and the institution community,
as shown below.
The student, a parent, or others from the student community [see
top left of diagram] can use the online student services [see middle
of the diagram] to communicate with a faculty member, with a staff
member, with an information system (such as, a student information
system or SIS), or with other elements of the institution. In addition,
students can communicate among themselves and institution members
can communicate among themselves through the student services online
“conduit.”
Motivating Forces for Online Services
There are several motivating forces for implementing integrated,
consistent online services. These include:
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Declining budgets
At the time of this writing, most institutions are undergoing
severe budget cuts. In order to provide the same or a better
level of service, institutions must find ways to automate routine
services and make them more easily accessible.
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Growing enrollments on campus
and online
Due to the decline in the economy and the arrival of the baby
boomer echo, enrollments are growing. Some institutions cannot
accommodate additional classrooms on their physical campus and
are using online and other forms of mediated instruction to
meet demand. For the same reasons, institutions cannot add more
physical student services offices and are using the Web to augment
or replace traditional services.
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Increased accountability
Student services play an important role in learner success and
retention. With the expansion in e-learning enrollments, the
regional accrediting agencies have taken an increased interest
in the provision of services for this population and have made
a commitment to address this subject in their evaluations of
institutions.
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Student expectations
Students expect their institution to offer comparable, if not
better, service than they experience in their personal lives
for social, medical, commercial, and other services. Among these
expectations are:
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Self-service
Younger generation students, in particular, want to serve
themselves. By developing more self-service options, institutions
reduce staff workloads for routine tasks, freeing these
professionals to focus on the more important individualized
service students prefer. This also enables institutions
to provide expanded access to certain services — in some
cases making them available 24x7.
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Just-in-time
Students have grown accustomed to securing instructions,
information, and advice as they need it — rather than in
the one-time data dumps popular in the past. The Web allows
institutions to meet this expectation with concise packets
of service at specific or on-demand intervals preferred
by the student.
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Personalized
In the era of computers, generic service is obsolete. Students
want and expect to be recognized as an individual.
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Customized service
Today’s postsecondary population is more diverse than ever
before and one size does not fit all. Increasingly, students
will expect institutions to deliver services that are appropriate
for their specific needs or interests. Managing this relationship
well will be key differentiator among institutions in the
more competitive environment on the horizon.
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Customizable services
“Choice” is the definition of this era and using it effectively
is necessary to avoid information overload. Students want
to choose formats, views, and preferred services for easy
access at their convenience.
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Push &
pull choices or selections
New technologies make it possible to both collect and send
information/service to students as needed, as below:
Students will increasingly expect institutions to “push”
reminders, relevant information, and other services to them
as appropriate. This type of communication has policy implications,
such as how should institutions manage their communications?
See policy issues.
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Interactive information exchanges
Increasingly, students will expect interactive pages that
take them more quickly to the specific information or service
they desire, as shown above.
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Integrated and consistent
services
Good student service calls for integrating related services
to provide a seamless and unified experience for the student.
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Competition among institutions
As state funding decreases, institutions will become increasingly
competitive for students and the tuition dollars that they bring.
The institution’s image on the Web — already most prospective
student’s first impression of the institution — will grow in
importance. Services will become one of the key distinguishing
factors among institutions in the electronic environment where
students can move to a competitor with a click of the mouse.
Indeed, Phil Farley of IBM/Tivoli Software in his keynote address
at the WCET annual conference in 2002 identified improving student
services as one of the best competitive returns for an institution.
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Smart usage of new technologies
New technologies and the Web make it possible to automate and
integrate many student services to provide better learner-centered
service. By providing staff with new technology-enabled tools
to automate routine tasks as well as perform some of the more
sophisticated and time-consuming tasks, they can provide the
student with the more valuable “high touch” service students
prefer.
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Suggested Evolution of New Online Services
As institutions put services on the Web, they often move through
a series of stages from putting information about services on the
Web to providing interactive, personalized and customized service
via the Web. Indeed, Darlene Burnett
describes four generations of services:
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Generation 1—Content
The information is presented from the institution’s point of
view, using terminology and organization that mirror the physical
organization and processes of the institution.
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Generation 2—Content in Context
The information is channeled for population segments. For example,
there are separate paths for prospective and matriculating students
to various student services. These services are distinct entities,
however, still reflecting their physical organization.
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Generation 3—Customization, Personalization,
and Community
New “one-stop” services — like enrollment services — aggregate
and integrate a range of related services to provide personalized
and customized service from the student’s point of view. Transaction
services, portals, and communication tools enhance the student’s
experience.
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Generation 4—High Tech/High Touch
Services are designed to establish and nurture a relationship
between the student and the institution. Some of the identifying
features include process orientation from the student’s point
of view, decision-making tools, personal recommendations, proactive
communications, and real-time interaction with the institution.
At first glance it may appear that this progression from one generation
to another is simply the reflection of the increased use of technology.
Although technology plays a key role, indeed that is the easy part.
This progression really reflects an enormous shift in the way institutions
have traditionally operated and there is a plethora of policy, turf,
financial, and cultural issues to address with each advance.
Who is the Audience for New Online Student Services?
The question is simple; the answer is not. Each campus must develop
its own definition on several fronts.
Range of students
First, there is a wide range of students: prospective, part-time,
full-time, matriculating, transfer, inactive, graduating, first-generation,
international students, students with disabilities, those on campus,
and those studying at a distance … and the list goes on. Each student
has some unique needs that require specialized services. Good electronic
solutions, then, must address the commonalities with the flexibility
to accommodate the differences.
Definition of student
Second, when and over what time period is a student a student?
This is a very difficult question in the electronic environment.
In the physical environment it is easier to determine when a student
is eligible for services and when he is not; the eligibility period
is often directly related to his or her physical presence on campus.
In the electronic world, where courses may be open-ended or have
multiple start and end dates, the time boundaries are not so finite
and the implications for the technology infrastructure in terms
of service and storage are immense.
Involved parties
Third, most services involve both students and staff — even those
self-service student services. What does the staff need to support
this new service? Too often, institutions rush to put services online
without the backend infrastructure to support the new “automated”
process. This can result in poorer service. For example, many institutions
have the put their applications online without the database support
on the backend to truly automate the process. Staff receives the
data via email and then enters it into a database. More students
apply because it is easy to do so. In many cases, the staff has
more applications to review … students must wait longer for news
of the outcome … and yet the yield in enrollments remains about
the same as before.
Additionally, some services also need to serve a third party such
as parents, prospective employers, or even legislators. Thus, it
is important to know the needs of each of these constituent groups
when developing technology solutions. Who outside the campus community
might want to use your services? For example, many campuses provide
some level of service as part of their outreach mission to their
local communities. Others (such as, the Kentucky Virtual University
and the University of New Mexico) provide library access to all
citizens of their states. What parameters must you set for free
and fee-for-service access to services? How do legislators view
this plan?
Should All Services be Online?
Nearly all services should have some online presence, even if it
is just at the information level. Some services (such as, registration)
can be totally accessible online, while others (such as, testing
or counseling) may be only partially so. For example, institutions
may offer some counseling services online for their in-state students,
but only information for their out-of-state students due to licensing
issues.
What is important for all online services, however, is easy access
when necessary to a live-person via other remote methods such as
online chats or instant messaging, email, telephone, or fax. The
institution should clearly state when live help will be available
and what the response time is likely to be inside and outside of
normal business hours.
One of the issues that institutions will face in the years ahead
is how to best staff some services so that equal attention is given
to those seeking assistance online and those seeking assistance
in the face-to-face environment. Can the same staff do both or will
it be necessary to dedicate some staff to each? If services cannot
be fully integrated, how will campuses track the use of student
services so that there is one integrated record for each student?
Do Off-Campus and On-Campus Students Need Different
Services?
They need the same services with a few twists. For those off-campus
students who live outside the area and cannot come to campus, services
should include affordable alternatives for those components that
cannot occur online. For example, textbooks should be available
for order by mail far enough in advance of the class start date
for a student to avoid rush postage charges. Institutions should
be prepared to establish interlibrary loan, testing, and local laboratory
arrangements to accommodate all students registered in the class.
Throughout the Web site, telephone numbers should include the area
codes and address should include zip codes. Distance courses are
more likely to be on non-traditional schedules with more flexible
start and end times. This means that the electronic systems that
support services associated with them (e.g., registration, add/drop
procedures, etc.) must be more flexible. In addition, it means making
some staff accessible in non-traditional hours such as evenings
and weekends. This may be by synchronous or asynchronous methods
as appropriate.
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