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Transcript of The Role of the SIS in Designing Personalized Student
Services Webcast
Slide: WCET Presents a Webcast Series: “Providing
Student Services to Distance Learners”
PAT: Hello, and welcome to
the WCET webcast series, Providing Student Services to Distance
Learners. I am Pat Shea, the Assistant Director for WCET and I'm
coming to you today from our east coast office in Summit, New Jersey.
Also joining us from WCET's headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, is
my colleague Sue Armitage. Hello, Sue.
SUE: Hello, Pat, and hello
to everybody in the audience. I was noticing in the chat box before
we started where people said they were from and it's Arizona, Nevada,
Alaska, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey and Colorado. So, hello to
everyone out there and if anybody else has not told us where you're
from, just go ahead and tell us in the chat box.
PAT: That's great. Well, and
our special guest today is Bill Haid, the Executive Director of
Enrollment Services at Colorado State University, which is in Fort
Collins — I think. Is that right, Bill?
BILL: That's right.
PAT: And Bill will talk with
us today about the role of the student information systems in designing
personalized student services. Welcome, Bill.
BILL: Thank you, Pat. I'm
glad to be here.
PAT: And just so we can get
started and get an idea of how many of you in the audience are familiar
with the HorizonLive environment I would like to ask you tell us
now if you have participated in a HorizonLive lecture before by
clicking on the green "yes" button above my picture right
there, on the bottom right hand side. If you have not participated
in a HorizonLive, go ahead and click "no." Let’s get used
to interacting a bit on screen. So the responses are coming in.
SUE: Oh, it's catching up.
It looks about half and half, okay.
Slide: The Role of the SIS in Designing Personalized
Student Services
Slide: Moderator Pat Shea of WCET with Bill
Haid, Executive Director of Enrollment Services at Colorado State
University
PAT: Well, that's good to
know. Okay, during today's session, we invite you to make comments
related to Bill's presentation in the chat box. Many of you are
experts in this field of student information systems and this is
a good opportunity to share your knowledge and experiences, or even
your frustrations, with this. So please do so, along in the chat
box, as Bill's presenting. If you experience any connectivity problems
or technical problems, though, we ask that you not put those in
the chat box but that you use the help button that you see there
above the chat box, to send a personal message to HorizonLive tech
support. And they also have some people attending this session and
they'll watch for problems and be in touch with you.
SUE: And if you would like
to send a private message to someone participating in the session,
click on the "tell" button. Only the person you have selected
will see your message. I would also like to mention to all of you
a quirk of Internet technology. The audio and visual content reach
you at different speeds, so there may be some disconnects between
what you see and what you hear. We'll do our best to sync it up,
but please have a little patience with us.
Question: What is your primary area of responsibility?
PAT: Okay, and so that we
can get a better sense of what your interests are today, please
respond to the question that's about to appear on your screen. And
that question is, “What is your primary area of responsibility?”
IT, or you're a director of distance programs, an enrollment manager,
a student service provider, a member of the faculty, an administrator,
or other. If you would just use one of the radio buttons there to
indicate what is the closest to your area of responsibility, that'll
give us a sense of who's attending today. And while you're voting,
I want to tell you that this particular presentation, the role of
student information system in designing personalized student services,
is the sixth in our webcast series on providing student services
to distance learners. Each month through June we will have a webcast
on a different student service. And the ones that we've already
had are archived and available from our site. This series is part
of WCET's work on its Learning Anytime, Anywhere Partnership Project,
which is funded by the US Department of Education. And the LAAP
project involves three partner institutions and a corporate partner
in creating Web-based student services for online learners. Our
sincere appreciation also goes to HorizonLive for making it possible
to bring this series to you electronically.
Slide: Answer to Question
PAT: Okay, Sue, do we have
some results?
SUE: Yes. Interesting breakouts.
The highest percentage is with student services providers, and then
director of distance programs, and faculty — and IT. That's
a good mix.
PAT: That's great.
Slide: WCET: The Cooperative advancing the
effective use of technology in higher education
PAT: Okay. Now it's time to
tell you a little bit more about our guest Bill Haid. And, Bill,
I'm going to let you do that. So can you tell me a little bit about
your background?
Slide: The Role of SIS in Designing Personalized
Student Services:
Bill Haid, Executive Director of Enrollment Services, Colorado State
University
BILL: Sure. I'd be happy to,
Pat. Presently, I'm the Executive Director of Enrollment Services
here at Colorado State University. I've been in this position for
a couple of years, and have responsibility for the Registrar, Student
Financial Aid, and accounts receivable, as well as a couple of technical
support units. Previously, I was at the University of Colorado,
in Boulder, for ten years as Registrar, and also worked at the University
of New Mexico and Arizona State University where I started a few
years ago in this business. I've been involved in student information
systems in most of the jobs as I've gone through my institutions,
and I have had experience in converting systems from manual systems
to automated databases. Then we've gone to the stage of bringing
in the integrated systems and the telephone registration, and now
we're really moving towards Web services, so that'll be a lot of
the things we'll talk about during our presentations today. I’ve
had the opportunity to represent my professional association, which
is the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission
Officers, AACRAO, and I am a past president of AACRAO so I've participated
at that level, as well.
PAT: And I think that's when
we first met you, Bill. It's back in those days, and you've seen
lots of transitions in all of these different systems through the
years.
BILL: I sure have, Pat.
PAT: And now it's a pretty
exciting time with the opportunities to create Web-based services.
So, are you ready to get started?
BILL: I sure am. Thanks, Pat,
and thanks to everyone who has logged on today for this presentation.
I want to start by getting a quick idea of who our participants
are. We've got your functional areas. I'd also like to do an informal
survey in the chat box, and find out what type of an institution
you're from, such as a large or small, public or private, and this
will also give you a change to try out the chat box and see how
that piece of the technology works. And, by the way, I want to encourage
you to comment in the chat box during the presentation as we go.
PAT: Might just take a minute
here for some responses to come in.
BILL: All right.
PAT: I recognize Gary Kleemann
from Arizona State University. So that is a large school.
SUE: Virginia Tech is also
a quite large public school.
PAT: Oregon State. University
of Kentucky.
BILL: This is great. I'm really
glad to see all of the different kind of institutions here that
are participating in the presentation today. Let's go ahead and
get started. And please continue to log on as we go.
Slide: Presentation Outline
BILL: I want to start with
an outline of the topics I'm going to present to you today. We're
going to be talking very briefly about services to learners and
the higher education environment today. And then I want to talk
about student information systems. And we're going to talk specifically
about the educational record, and FERPA, the privacy law, and then
again, bring it back to some of the new services that we think we'll
see in the future. I also want to make this session an interactive
one with you, and so that's why I encourage your comments in the
chat box, and we're going to bring you into the presentation with
polls and quizzes as we go throughout this presentation. So stay
awake and stay alert and look forward to this time together.
Slide: True or False?
BILL: All right, let's start
with some general statements. Let's see if these are true or false.
The first one is, “It's a great time to work in administrative systems.”
Well, that's kind of one of those general statements that you really
can't go wrong with. It's interesting time for sure and I think
it's really fun to be working with administrative systems now because
we're able to do so many interesting things with service delivery,
particularly electronically. And so I would say that it is a great
time.
“Today's students are looking first to the Web for service,” and
that is another true statement that we're finding that a lot of
students coming to us have a lot of experience using the Web already
and they're very comfortable looking online for services.
“Seventy-five percent of our attention should be focused on online
services.” Well, you may want to argue with the percentage, but
the point is sure true, that we want to be spending a lot of our
time and I think we are here at Colorado State University spending
a lot of our time on online services.
And finally, “Online services can match the campus service culture.”
And that's one of those challenges to all of us in terms of, can
we provide — in online services — the quality of service
we can in a face-to-face encounter. And that's what we're to do
and sometimes we can do it as well and maybe sometimes even better.
Slide: Services to Distance Learners
BILL: I know that many of
you are interested in this topic because you provide services to
distance learners, and I want to lay out quickly some ideas about
services to distance learners. First thing is that they need the
same services that are available to traditional students, but they
need to be accessible anytime and any place. And they need some
additional services that focus on online students' needs.
Slide: Services Needed by All Students
BILL: So these are the typical
campus services that are needed by all students: admissions, registration,
financial aid, advising, library, bookstore, career counseling,
personal counseling, services for students with disabilities. You
may be able to add some others to that list.
Slide: Services Needed by Distance Learners
BILL: And here are some that
might be considered special services that distance learners also
need. They may need technical support in order to facilitate their
use of any technology in their distance classes. They may need an
orientation to online learning environment and they may need opportunities
for connecting with faculty and other learners in the institution
that is a little more challenging if they're not on campus.
PAT: Of course, Bill, the
more we put services online, the more we're going to need to provide
technical support for all of our students and I understand that,
among online learners, that the percentage is about 70% now for
many campuses in their population of online learners, those people,
70% of them, are oftentimes living in dorms, on campus.
BILL: Well, and I think we're
seeing more and more instruction being delivered with online technology,
not just the distance courses, but even courses that are available
to students as an alternative to a classroom experience. So you're
right, Pat, not just distance learners, but online learners can
take advantage of these kinds of services as well.
Slide: Example
BILL: Since we're going to
be talking about using your student information system to provide
personalized services, let me start by giving you an example of
what you might be thinking about as we go through this presentation.
Let's take, for an example, a generic student service. It might
be your website that you provide for enrolled students. So a student
would go to your website, they would log on and they would click
a button to begin their registration process. That might be considered
a generic online service.
A personalized student service might be added on top of that generic
student service where, once the student logs on, perhaps the message
comes back, "Welcome, Pat. To change your schedule click on
the course you wish and add the course." So, you know, we're
starting to take the information that we've got in our student information
system and use it in the delivery of the service.
Take it one more step further and talk about customizing the student
service, perhaps the message will come back, "Welcome, Pat.
As a history major, you may interested in these courses next term."
And so this is just to lay out an idea for you that information
that's available in your student information system could be used
to really tailor the student service that we provide with our online
systems.
PAT: So we're getting closer
to Amazon.com in that last example there, Bill.
BILL: Well, we've got a lot
of good examples in the corporate world, actually, of how they are
using the information from their customer base.
PAT: I suspect that's what
most students today, the younger students expect.
BILL: I would not be surprised
because that's the experience they're having before and after they
arrive on campus.
Slide: Current Environment in Higher Education
BILL: Well, let's switch to
a general discussion of the current environment in higher education
and this is just for some context for everyone. This is also probably
no surprise to anyone, but budget constraints are pretty much something
we are all dealing with. The economy and the recession which good
news is we're out of the recession, the bad news is we haven't felt
that yet. I saw reports in the Chronicle this week of situations
in Wisconsin and Massachusetts that look like they're pretty severe
and I can tell you, in Colorado, we are also facing budget reductions
because of the situation with the state economy. So we're all facing
budget constraints.
At the same time, probably everyone would say that they have insufficient
technology resources to do all the things that they want to do,
or perhaps all the things that their campus expects them to do.
Because while we're in those kinds of resource constraints, we still
want to attract quality students, we still want to improve the academic
experience, we're still being asked to provide and we want to provide
increased services, and we want to meet the student or the parents'
expectations. As we said, they are coming to our institutions now
with a pretty high level of expectation for electronic services
and pretty responsive services.
PAT: I see we had a comment
in the chat box saying that they wish the administrations at various
institutions would operate as quickly as the corporate world does
in adopting some of this technology. But I think, Bill, one of the
problems that institutions have had in the past, at least, has been
retaining trained IT people. It seems that, as soon as institutions
will get people trained, they'd be off into the corporate world
where they can make more money. I mean, now that we've had sort
of this experience with the dot-com world, is that still happening,
or has it slowed down? Can institutions hold on to people a little
longer? What's happening?
BILL: Well, Pat, for a lot
of years, institutions were training grounds for technology staff
to get their basic training and then go out and, you know, find
better paying jobs in private industry. We have all experienced
that and for many years we had difficulty retaining staff and attracting
new staff into our vacant positions. I think in the last twelve
months, I know we've seen that here at Colorado State, we're not
seeing people leaving like they were leaving, and we're seeing much
better applicant pools for the positions that we do have available.
So it looks like it may have turned around. I don't know that that's
all that good news because it's because of the bad economy and yet,
we seem to be benefiting by that.
PAT: So a little bright spot
in the bad economy.
BILL: Perhaps.
PAT: Might help us catch up.
BILL: Exactly. Perhaps.
Slide: Institutional Culture
BILL: Well, here's some interesting
statistics I've found from a recent survey that was published and
75% of institutions who responded this survey said that they value
and leverage technology. 83% of them said that they are student-centered,
and 87% of prefer Web-based solutions. So that gives you a real
indication of where technology is fitting into this picture of delivering
student services. But caution is also in this survey: 38% of institutions
report that they adopt change easily. I'll be everyone out there
can identify with that. Change is really difficult to come by but
there's high desirability for change and delivering technology solutions.
PAT: And one of our attendees
points out that it often takes different skill sets to use technology
and that could be some of the reticence that institutional staff
have in adopting changes.
BILL: Exactly. There's a lot
of times that you have to take a change in the way you do your business,
when you start to make innovations in technology.
Slide: Colorado State University:
BILL: I thought I'd tell you
a little bit about what we're doing at Colorado State University.
We are experienced a continued enrollment growth. That's good news.
We continue to expand our student services and move towards providing
more electronic services for our students and we're pleased about
that. But, as I said before, we're also under budget constraints
and we have to make do with what we have available to us.
We are at the beginning stage of a project to replace our student
information systems, and so that plays into, you know, what goes
into my thinking and talking today because of the experience that
we're going through here. We're hoping that we will gain benefit
and additional functionality from an integrated student information
system. We're hoping that we'll be able to provide more self-service
to students through the Web and be able to do it with an interface
system. I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute,
but let's get to some basics here.
Slide: What is a Student Information System?
BILL: Let's talk about what
is a student information system. And perhaps this is basic, but
let me just use it as a starting point. Student information system
is a database or databases containing information about students.
We use that database to support the services we provide to students.
We use that database or databases to maintain a student's educational
record. I'll come back to educational record in just a moment.
Slide: Student Information Systems
BILL: But when you talk about
a student information system, these are the usual modules you'll
find. Perhaps you might consider these the essential modules of
a student information system: the marketing and the recruitment
module where the prospecting for students goes on and the recruitment
of students; the admissions module, where we're able to process
applications and admit students and track their status through an
admissions cycle; financial aid, of course, where we provide financial
assistance with federal, state and institutional financial aid;
records and registration, some would say this is the core of a student
information system. It certainly is a key part to it, because here's
where the transcript and the academic functions occur with registering
for courses and graduation and such; student billing is a is a key
part of a student information system, because you have to be able
to calculate your charges and present bills to students so that
they can pay their charges; academic advising is usually also on
this list to support the student in their educational program.
I would mention that extra and supplemental modules sometimes
within a student information system, sometimes they might be just
outside an information system, might be housing, loan management,
degree audit. You see them either in or outside of a student information
system.
Slide: Integrating or Interfacing
BILL: I talked a moment ago
about integrating or interfacing. And let me try to explain what
that is because it's an important concept for those of us who work
in information systems. Information is common to multiple parts
of the student system, such as an address, so, of course, the registrar
has to send information, has to have a student address. The accounts
receivable department has to have a student address so that they
can send bills. And financial aid has to have a student address
so they can send the award letters and etc. An integrated information
system means that a change in one place automatically updates information
in the other place. An interfaced system means that a program or
a person must update or re-enter the new data in another place.
Slide: Example
BILL: Now, let me show you
an example of what I mean. If a student provides a new address to
the registrar, the registrar will update the records database. Now,
of course, the student billing system needs that address as well.
If it's an integrated system, the system will pull the new address
from the records database and it only has to be recorded once. If
it's an interfaced system, then the system will have to update the
billing system from the records system and usually this is occurring
in a batch environment or overnight, so you oftentimes have a delay
of twenty-four hours or more in order to do that.
PAT: You know, Bill, I think
what happens with the distance students, oftentimes, is that their
records are kept in a separate database from the main campus student
information system. They might be off in continuing education or,
you know, some other unit on the campus. And they are not interfaced
or integrated, and it can cause some real problems. Oftentimes students
are having to register at both places, pay separate tuitions, get
separate student services. And I think when there were a small number
of students involved, it wasn't such a big deal, but now as campuses
are getting larger and larger online enrollment, and some of these
people are also people who are campus-based students, it gets very
confusing for the student.
BILL: Well, that's a real
good point, Pat, and that's one of the real reasons for the need
to interface, at least. And because a lot of continuing ed departments
or distance education providers are doing things that are quite
different from what the traditional delivery of courses and credits
takes place, they've had to create their own systems. Most of them
try to interface — I know we certainly do here at Colorado
State — try to interface with our main system because we want
the credits on the transcript and we want to be able to bill a student
from a central billing department. So you've got to take the unique
parts and integrate them with the main campus system. Sometimes,
you're absolutely right, it is not integrated nor interfaced, and
so it runs totally independent. Then you've got a lot of duplication
of functions, like duplication of billing and duplication of registration
and record-keeping and the whole possibility there.
PAT: It's very confusing.
But I think it's getting better. I understand that some of the newer
systems are taking into consideration the different kinds of information
that needs to be kept on distance students.
BILL: Well, that's right and,
as well, institutions are considering the needs of their distance
education or their continuing education departments as they design
their new systems. That's what we're doing at Colorado State. We've
got our continuing ed people on the project team helping us to determine
the functional specifications for our new system. So they're being
brought into it as we think about new systems.
PAT: That's great.
Slide: Student System Software Providers
BILL: Now that I'm talking
about new systems, let's talk about who some of the student system
software providers are. And here's a list of a few. These are the
ones that we typically run into in the marketplace. SCT has a product
called Banner. They have another product called PLUS. PeopleSoft
has the Student Administration System. There's Datatel, there's
CARS. And then, actually, you gotta consider that many student information
systems are homegrown on their own campus. They may even started
out as a proprietary software and then became modified over time
to become their own homegrown version.
Slide: Cost of a New Student Information
System
BILL: As we talk about a new
student information system we want to talk about what are some of
what are some of the considerations when you think about the cost
of a new student information system. I know this is something that,
you know, people talk about it at conferences and they talked about
on their campuses, and we hear and read about horror stories of
the cost of a student information system and we're usually talking
about large, large dollars.
There's a lot of considerations in the cost of a student information
system. Mostly it's based on the size of your institution, the number
of students that are enrolled there or the way your information
technology department is structured with the computers and the platforms,
etc. There's the direct cost of the software license, which is what
you pay to acquire the software.
There's the ongoing cost of annual maintenance, which is usually
a percentage of the software license, and this can be quite significant,
ongoing cost in a student information system budget. So much you
must consider the ongoing cost of maintenance, and you want that
maintenance, because that's what keeps your system current with
new regulations that come out, particularly in the financial aid
department, that every year the Department of Ed issues new regulations
and you don't want to be having to make those changes on your own
campus; you want that being done by your software provider.
You've got to also consider the cost of system implementation.
And this is a huge cost. Many times sometimes five times or more
the cost of the actual software itself because the implementation
is something that you can't take for granted. It's not something
that's plug-and-play. It takes a lot of effort both internally and
most people hire external consultants to assist with an implementation
and the training that takes place on campus with a new system. You
probably have a project team itself which you have to determine
the cost of that. Your own staff may be assigned to a project team
and, you know, I think, in an ideal situation, they're released
from current responsibilities, but they may be asked to do current
and project at the same time.
And then an implementation timeline is another factor: the longer
a project takes, the more it costs. So there are a lot of factors
that really go into play when you talk about the cost of a new student
information system.
Slide: Replace or Rebuild?
BILL: One more consideration,
and we talked about this at Colorado State, is do we replace or
do we rebuild our information system. And in that kind of a question
you have to consider your maintenance costs, what it costs you to
enhance the program, what it costs you to provide additional services,
whether you've got the staff to do it and the resources to do it.
And remember, we started talking about the limited resources and
the constraints that we have and most people say they don't have
sufficient technology resources to do everything they are expected
to do. I think this will be a factor, as you think about whether
you rebuild or replace.
A few years ago, there were additional factors, such as Y2K, was
a very critical factor for a lot of institutions that changed their
student information system, because their old system was not compliant
with Y2K and so they made the decision to convert prior to Y2K.
Other schools, like Colorado State, made their current system Y2K-compliant
and carried on for a few more years before facing the replace option.
Slide: Options for Web-based Services
BILL: Now that we're talking
about options, most of us want to provide services over the Web,
and there are a couple of options for providing Web-based services.
Certainly, Web-based services is are a functionality that's included
in most new systems. It's actually designed right into the system.
So that's one benefit of replacing a student information system
if your current system doesn't have it or support it. But there
are other ways to Web-enable your existing system. There's middleware
that some of it as simple as a screen scraper, that will present
what's on a database screen to the Web. It's not always an elegant
solution, but it does allow you to Web-enable.
Other more sophisticated middleware will let you actually form
a gateway to your database. And then you can actually write new
Web interfaces for your services. I don't really want to be too
technical here, and I can't get much more technical than this myself,
but, you know, this is where the conversation turns pretty technical,
when you start talking about Web-enabling your current system. Web
portals are becoming another method that interface with legacy systems
and provide a way to do this. So there are a few options, but, mostly
I think we want to go directly to our database and present information
from the database in our service models.
PAT: So it's good to know
that you don't have to replace your student information system with
something new in order to make Web-enable the services. You just
have to just have an interface to do that.
BILL: That's right, Pat. You
can find alternate solutions to replacing and we've been successful
with Colorado State. You know, I can tell you about Colorado State
because that's where I'm at and we've had some enhancements that
have allowed us to Web-enable a number of our services before we
replace our system.
PAT: That's great.
Question: What SIS does your institution
currently have?
BILL: Well, we want to bring
the audience back into this and find out something about your institution
and ask you what SIS — what student information system —
does your institution currently have? Now, it's okay if you don't
know, because we've got a button for you. And you may otherwise
know that you've got a homegrown system or that you're running PeopleSoft
or SCT Banner or SCT Plus, and if you don't know the difference,
just pick one of those, if you know that it's SCT but you don't
know which one it is, or Datatel or CARS, and we'll do a quick little
tally on that. So punch one of those and let's see what this starts
to look like.
PAT: Well while those results
are coming in, Bill, I mean, have most of these companies been around
for a long time or was there a time when most schools have to build
their own systems?
BILL: Well, that's right.
I'd say these are relatively young companies in terms of student
information systems. Through the '70s and into the '80s, there just
weren't any providers of software, student information systems.
Then as the '80s and '90s, then we see more and more companies who
saw this as a market for them for their products. SCT, for example,
has been providing student systems for twenty years now. And PeopleSoft
has been a company that's been around for many years. They've got
fewer years in higher education. They came in in about the mid '90s
with software student software for higher education. There's been
others who have come and gone. I mean, companies have started and
then there's been mergers and acquisitions. It's been an interesting
market to watch.
Results of Question
PAT: Okay, Sue, do we have
any results?
SUE: We do. And it's interesting.
I realize now we didn't have an "other" category because
Kevin Webb says they have Hobsons.
PAT: Oh, I see.
SUE: So we weren't inclusive
here, but look what we found. Mostly homegrown followed closely
by SCT Banner. Then Datatel.
PAT: Okay. Do we have a question
asking how many have Web-based student services that are integrated
with their SIS? We didn't ask that, did we?
SUE: No.
BILL: No. Well, that'll have
to be for next time.
PAT: Maybe we can ask a yes/no
question.
SUE: We could.
PAT: How many people who answered
the question on their SIS have a Web-enabled services that integrate
with their SIS systems? Answer yes or no. Give them just a couple
of minutes there.
BILL: Well, that's not surprising
that in particularly when you've got such a large percentage of
home grown I'd say that's probably where most of the difficulty
would be if you're going to be interfacing your Web services, because
homegrown systems are probably not very current.
PAT: I know we were working
with one institution recently that could not store an e-mail address,
for example. And so to create Web-based services it just was not
something in the cards.
SUE: But look at the results
so far. I mean, we've got, what? Four to one, at the moment, saying
yes.
PAT: That's great.
BILL: That is great, because
people are finding a way to provide interfaces. I saw one comment
go through here; they call it a veneer. That works for me.
PAT: Okay.
SUE: Please click on the green
"yes" button to say that you do have SIS-supported Web
services.
PAT: Okay.
Slide: What is an Educational Record?
BILL: All right. Well, I want
to turn the corner now in this presentation and we talked about
using our student information system for maintaining an educational
record. And that's a kind of a key to where we're going with the
topic in talking about what we can do with an educational record
in providing services. So let's go to “What is an educational record?”
And in one respect, it's everything that an institution keeps and
maintains concerning its student. Examples are going to be personal
information, academic information, financial information, disciplinary
information, like that.
Slide: What isn’t an Educational Record?
BILL: However, not everything
is an educational record, so what is not an educational record?
Information that's maintained by an individual, so this is different
from an institution, if an individual maintains a record, that's
not part of the educational record, like a faculty record, or a
class record, like that. There are other types of information maintained
by the institution that's not an educational record, like employment
and health records and police records and counseling records. Those
are not part of the educational record.
Slide: Quiz Time!
BILL: Okay, I hope you're
all with me. I'm going to ask you a quiz now. We're going to start
with a couple of quiz questions here. And the first quiz question
has to do with whether you can release information from a student's
record without their consent. So let's state the question. “A student's
written permission is required before information from their educational
record can be released.” And let's use the yes, no and question
mark for true, false and I don't know. So go ahead and give your
answers to this question. And as we see these things coming in.
I'm trying to answer myself. I'll keep up with the presentation
and give my own answers on here.
PAT: Then we can cheat, Bill,
because we see your answer.
SUE: That's right.
BILL: Oh, no. Well, I'm not
putting it in the chat room.
PAT: So we do have some people
are not sure.
BILL: All right. Well, listen,
let me tell you while you continue to mark true, false or I don't
know, the answer to this question is false. A student's written
permission is not required before information from their educational
record can be released. And that's because there are different types
of information that's in an educational record. All of this is governed
by a federal law concerning rights and privacy. It's called FERPA,
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974.
Slide: What is FERPA?
BILL: This Act, twenty-five
years old now, more than twenty-five years old, concerns educational
records and provides the students access to their own record and
protects the release of the record except as provided. And so that's
probably the key to the answer above, that some information can
be released without the student's permission. I'm going to tell
you about that, but I'm going to ask you another quiz question.
Slide: Quiz Time
BILL: So here's the next question.
“A student's directory information may be released in compliance
with FERPA without the student's consent.” So go ahead and say yes
for true, no for false, and question mark for I don't know. And
I'm not going to vote this time because I'm not understanding if
my answers are showing or not.
PAT: See what happens.
BILL: We'll see what happens.
And I'm not listening to the time lag between the audio and the
pictures here, but I know that I'm speaking before you're hearing
me, so there might be an issue with that, too. As you're marking
these in and it looks like people are saying true, and that's more
true than false, and that is correct. You may release a student's
directory information without their consent — because it's
considered directory, and I'm going to talk about that.
Slide: Directory Information
BILL: Directory information
is what we define by the institution — it's always defined,
and examples are name, address — I'm going to talk more about
that in just a minute. Directory information is deemed harmless
if released. That's the basic concept about it. You can release
it without the student's consent, but you do have to provide an
opportunity for the student to request that it be withheld, and
then, of course, you have to honor that request.
Slide: Directory Information Examples
BILL: The next slide we're
going to show you what directory information is. This is a typical
list of directory information: the student's name, address, telephone,
e-mail address, enrollment status, field of study, dates of attendance,
date and place of birth, photograph, degrees and awards. A lot of
schools are going to ID card systems that capture an electronic
image of the student, a digital image, and that may also be determined.
Now, just because it may be directory information, that's entirely
up to every institution to actually define whether it is or not,
and some schools say that e-mail is directory; other schools say
that e-mail is not directory. So every institution makes their own
decision about this.
Slide: Prohibited from Directory Information
BILL: There are a few things
that you may not call directory information, and that would include
the student's social security number or their ID number, race, ethnicity
and nationality, gender and grades may not be defined as directory
information. So the concept here is directory information you're
free to release that. You can disclose it without the student's
consent unless the student has said, “I don't want it disclosed.”
Slide: Personally Identifiable Information
BILL: The other kind of information
is called personally identifiable information. And that is basically
everything else that's not directory information. It's considered
a list of personal characteristics that would make the student's
identity traceable. It would include grades and courses and test
scores and other family members' information such as parents' address
and things like that. That's all considered personally identifiable
information and it may not be released without the consent of the
student.
Slide: What is a “Record?”
BILL: The other thing you
want to know is that it doesn't matter what form you keep it in,
if it is in computer media, or if it's handwritten or printed or
microfilm, the media does not matter; a record is a record.
Slide: What can be released?
BILL: So, to summarize, what
can you release? You can release directory information if the student
has not withheld it and you can release personally identifiable
information as long as you have prior consent to do so.
Slide: Quiz Time
BILL: And we're going to talk
about this prior consent a little bit more, but first, I'm going
to ask you to answer another question. And the question is “Parents
can obtain confidential information from their students' academic
record.” Is that true, false or you don't know? And, again, use
the yes, no and question mark buttons. “Parents can obtain confidential
information from their students' academic record.” So based on what
we just talked about, true, false or otherwise?
PAT: And lots of no's coming
in.
BILL: I'm watching the thing
come in and it's coming in predominantly no. And that is correct.
The answer here is false. And this is a source of frustration and
for parents and probably for most service providers in higher education.
How many of you have encountered the student or, the parent that
says, "What do you mean, I can't have access to my student's
record? I pay the bill." But when the law was written, all
of the rights of protection for the student's record belonged to
the student in a post-secondary educational institution, which is
higher education. Now, parents have ways of establishing that the
student is a dependent and they may establish a right to access
the record but, just on the basis of parental relationship, the
parents don't have automatic access to their record.
Slide: Exceptions to Prior Consent
BILL: When we talk about exceptions
to prior consent, there are a list of them. And starts with school
officials who have a legitimate educational interest. That would
be faculty, administrators, service providers, things of that nature;
federal, state, local authorities who might be involved in an audit
or an evaluation; it it's in connection with financial aid, such
as enrollment verification; none of these things require consent
from the student. A judicial order or a subpoena and here's where
the parents of the dependent students, if they can demonstrate that
the student is their dependent, based on IRS regulations, then they
can have access. And of course, to the student them self, you can
release information to the student and the student can release it
to whomever they wish.
So that's another way that we usually talk to parents and students
about gaining information is, parents, gain your information from
talking to your student, and students, please provide the information
to your parents. So we'd rather not be the middleman on this.
PAT: I'll bet there are some
allowance checks that might be withheld on occasion parents don't
get the information they need.
BILL: Well, that's good. That's
between the parent and the student.
PAT: That's right.
Slide: Quiz Time
BILL: Okay. One more quiz
for you. Let's talk about faculty. "Faculty have a right to
inspect education records of any student attending your college
without giving them a reason." I'm sorry, I didn't say that
very well. I'll restate it. "Faculty have a right to inspect
education records of any student attending your college without
giving a reason.” True, false or I don't know. And let's see how
these votes come in. Because we were talking about school officials
with a legitimate educational interest, and I said faculty would
be a school official with a legitimate educational interest, but
in direct response to this question, the answer is false. A faculty
must have a legitimate educational interest in order to inspect
an educational record.
Slide: Who are School Officials with Legitimate
Educational Interest?
BILL: If they are teaching
a course and the student's in the class, that's legitimate educational
interest. If they are an advisor and they're going to be advising
the student, that's also an educational interest. You've got to
define this in your policy, but it can include faculty, administrators
and service providers.
PAT: But, now, Bill, an advisor
can't see the records of students that are not his or her advisees,
is that correct?
BILL: Not according to FERPA.
And here's where some information systems will help you and some
are not able to. Because if you can restrict access to only the
students who are in a particular college or in a particular department
or on an advisor's list, then you can protect that. But otherwise,
a lot of times, when you give an advisor or a faculty person access
to your information system, you've given them access to everything,
so you have to employ other controls such as an acceptable use statement,
supervisory control and audits, in order to fully implement this
system. You know, the basic.
PAT: And that’s where these
authorization authentication programs come in and are so complex,
I guess.
BILL: They are pretty complex,
and they basically define what kind of student or which specific
students you can have access to. But, like I said, most information
systems do not have that level of access control. And so you have
to enforce this on some other level, such as, you know, requiring
that anyone that gets access to the information system signs a statement
that says, “I will only use this access in an authorized manner.”
PAT: I see.
BILL: When you get access
to an information system, you're not supposed to go fishing and
hunting for, you know, throughout the system; you're only supposed
to use it the way you're supposed to be used.
PAT: Though as more student
services get integrated into student information systems, that before
working on those services need to think about FERPA and how that
affects what they're doing.
BILL: That's correct.
Slide: FERPA and the Patriot Act
BILL: Well, there's one more
recent change to the laws here that I wanted to remind everyone
of and that's the USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law in
November, I believe, but last fall. And this new law adds a new
exception to FERPA. It basically expands the health and safety exception,
which is another condition that information can be disclosed without
the student's consent. In this case it allows for access to student
records under a “terrorism investigation” label and gives federal
and state authorities the ability to access records. It further
prohibits the disclosure of the request to the student and to others.
So, unlike a federal subpoena or unlike a court order for access
to a record where the rules permit us and, in fact, require us to
notify the student that someone has accessed their record, the new
USA Patriot Act prohibits the disclosure when it's specified like
that in the order.
So this is a new component and, you know, in some ways, it changes
the rules for access to records, and there is a fair amount of debate
going on about, you know, the wisdom of this, but, you know, I think
everyone understands the nature of the USA Patriot Act and this
is the impact of that act on our privacy laws. You may have other
questions about that, and if you do feel free to put them into the
chat room.
Slide: Online Services
BILL: Want to move towards
closure on this, and go back to what we started with, and that's
online services. We’ve talked that online services are really useful
for distance learners and we’ve said that they're also pretty beneficial
to campus learners, as well. There's lot of times when a trip to
campus is not feasible or actually when online service is more convenient.
Students like to do business at hours when we're not open. So it's
very convenient for them to be able to access the Web and conduct
registration or drop/add, or order a transcript, anything that's
available online when they are thinking about it. That's why online
services are handy even to campus learners.
Slide: Enhancements to Student Services with
an Integrated SIS
BILL: Here's some things that
I think we're going to see more of in the future and that's the
electronic signature and electronic authentication. Right now, students
still have to come in and sign their promissory note in order to
finish their financial aid or to get their loans, and we are seeing
a lot of movement towards electronic signature which will let the
student sign their promissory note electronically and therefore
we can transfer funds electronically to their bank account or however
else the system works for you. Electronic signature would let us
allow students to order transcripts electronically and really moves
us into another realm of service that we're still stuck on. Some
written form, right now.
We're going to see systems communications with what we call “push
messages” and “event triggers,” so that if a student drops below
a certain number of hours and that level is required for their financial
aid eligibility or for their athletic eligibility or whatever you
might define, you could send an electronic message to the student
saying "Notice," or "Alert, your enrollment level
is below the required for your financial aid," or whatever.
We could even see it happening that, if a student registers for
a class and the classroom location has changed or the time has changed,
where we could send a notice to the students who are enrolled in
the class to take note of the change.
PAT: And the system would
do that automatically, wouldn't it, Bill? I mean, it wouldn't require
human intervention at all to trigger the message. It would just
be something that would happen in the system that would trigger
that?
BILL: It would as you set
this up, right.
PAT: That's pretty exciting.
BILL: Oh, I think it's got
a lot of possibility and that's why it is an exciting time to be
working in administrative systems right now. “What-if scenarios,”
such as degree audit. If a student is a major in sociology and they're
thinking about changing to economics, you can do a what-if scenario
and tell a student what the impact would be on their graduation
date, or their courses needed. We're able to do a lot of that now
manually, but as we see our student information systems supporting
us, we're seeing more and more of that the student can do themselves.
Work flow and document flow let us communicate with each other
as service providers about what's taken place with a student for
their service. If the student has been in one department and talked
to a financial aid counsellor and then they go to the cashier and
the cashier can see that, you know, a commitment has been made or
a promise or a discussion took place, and things can really tie
together when you can use workflow and document flow in your student
information systems. So we anticipate to see more of that as we
go through some of our new system changes.
Slide: Lessons Learned
BILL: Well, Pat asked me to
tell you what lessons I've learned as I've had my experience with
student information systems and it's pretty simple. It always takes
more time than we thought; it always takes more money; and more
staff than we planned on. But in the end, when we see what we can
provide as services to students, it's worth it. So I hope that what
I've presented to you today has been useful and, if nothing else,
it gets you thinking about how to use a student information system
to personalize your student services and provide services online
to students.
Slide: Resources Used for this Presentation
BILL: A couple of resources
that I drew on are the Department of Education and its Family Policy
Compliance Office —which has to do with the Privacy Office.
They will issue interpretations and guidelines about privacy. AACRAO's
website is a great source of information to AACRAO members and non-members
alike, because you can find resources there, publications, and all
of the work they do in their federal compliance. So it's a great
resource, and I encourage you to go there.
Slide: Bill Haid, Executive Director of Enrollment
Services
Colorado State University
william.haid@colostate.edu
970-491-2117
BILL: If you are interested
in communicating with me or following up with me, here is a contact
slide that tells you my e-mail address and my phone number. So I
hope that it's been a useful presentation for you.
PAT: Bill, thank you very
much. On behalf WCET and all of its members, we really appreciate
your willingness to come and talk about this today. We started a
project to create Web-based student services about two and a half
years ago and at the time that we started, we really had no idea,
I think, how much the student information system was involved in
trying to create those services. And as we've continued to work
with other campuses on similar projects, the questions about FERPA
are always coming up. So, it's nice to have someone talk about that
very specifically so we have a better understanding of it.
Slide: Resources Used for this Presentation
BILL: Pat, it's been my pleasure
to do that. I just want to also mention that there are some very
good resources on FERPA if you haven't already encountered them.
AACRAO produces a very fine resource publication on FERPA and they
even have an online tutorial for their members, if you are a member
of AACRAO you can use an online tutorial and go through a FERPA
lesson. But, besides AACRAO there's even some others folks that
publish FERPA resources, so I promised that I would give that information
to you, Sue, and we'll put it on the WCET Web page.
SUE: Yes, definitely. I'd
like everybody to note a couple of things. This lecture has been
recorded and it'll be available in an archive format on our website.
I'm going to publish now our WCET website. Here you may access the
Power Point slides that Bill has shown today, and you’ll also have
access to all the previous webcasts and archives. So please go to
our website, and bookmark it, and check it out often.
Slide: This series is brought to you as part
of WCET’s work on its Learning Anywhere, Anytime Partnership Project
PAT: Well, thanks, Sue, for
your help today and for keeping our website up to date with all
of these great resources.
Slide: Next: April 13, 2002, Dan Volchok,
WebCT Manager of Student Relations
PAT: Our next webcast will
be on April 17th at noon, Mountain Time, and Dan Volchok, who I
think has been attending today, will be making a presentation on
Student Orientation, Providing An Online Component. Dan has done
a lot of work in this area, a lot of research in this area, so it
should be another great presentation and we're really looking forward
to it.
Question: Please evaluate this HorizonLive
Desktop Lecture
PAT: And now I'd like to ask
if you'd just take a couple of minutes to provide us with some feedback
about today's presentation. You should see an evaluation on your
screen and, then, as soon as you've finished that evaluation, if
you'd like to post some questions for Bill in the chat box, he said
he'd willing to stick around here for another ten or fifteen minutes.
So if you could just do the evaluation and then post your questions,
we'll try to answer them.
SUE: Well, Bill, I have a
question for you. Keyth, in the audience, asked about, “Well, aren't
most undergraduates students dependents?” We’re talking about distance
students who are probably older students, as well, right?
BILL: Well, in fact, some
institutions, and I have seen this more at the private schools than
the public schools, but some institutions define undergraduates
as dependent, so they automatically provide the access to parents.
They're in fact fostering that relationship with parents and define
the undergraduate students as dependent. And it depends on, you
know, your student population. If you're an institution that has
non-traditional students as undergraduates, you might not want to
go there, and the public institutions I've worked at, I think we've
chosen the more conservative direction on that question. And we've
also not gone there to make an automatic definition. But certainly,
you know, an eighteen-year-old, nineteen-year-old, twenty-year-old
is most likely still dependent on their parents. So, parents don't
have any difficulty establishing the access relationship.
SUE: But many of the distance
students now are changing the demographics of students as a group,
so probably many of the distance students who are older wouldn't
automatically have dependent status.
BILL: Right. I think you have
to be careful making that assumption.
SUE: Okay.
PAT: Well, Sue, do we have
any more questions here from the audience?
SUE: That was the main one
that I had noticed, watching the chat box. Although, Bill, you can
feel good — there's lots of people have said thank you.
PAT: There is a question here
from one individual. “If a student has requested directory information
be suppressed, can it still be released to individuals who have
a legitimate educational need?”
BILL: Yes, it may. Because
you're basically, at that point, releasing personal and identifiable
information, and that includes everything. So, if a person is getting
access on the basis of the legitimate educational need, then, you're
not restricting them from access to the directory information. But
let's say that, a campus department is going to send a message or
a mailing to students in its department and they want to promote
a department event. There's a big speaker coming or something like
that, and so they ask for the mailing address labels of all the
students in their department. For that particular request, we would
probably not give them the mailing address of a student who requested
directory information be withheld, because it's a directory information
request.
On the same hand, if that department said I need to contact all
of my students who are graduating this year so that we can send
them information about graduation, and a student on that list had
requested directory information to be withheld, we would put their
name on the list because it was for information about their graduation.
So there's some judgment that takes place, but, the straight answer
to the question is no.
PAT: Another question, Bill,
and maybe you already discussed this and I just don't remember,
I know you said that in your lessons learned, it always takes longer
to convert to a new student information system than you expect.
What's the typical length of time that it takes to do something
like that?
Slide: Thank you for joining us.
BILL: Well, it depends on
where you start counting, Pat. The implementation itself is typically
— or maybe ideally — would be about twenty-four months.
But if you consider how much time goes into planning and acquiring
before you start the implementation, it could be two years before
you start implementation. After you implement it, it could be another
two years until you finish the implementation. So, a project like
this could have a five- to six-year time frame again, depending
on what you count as the project.
PAT: I see. And that must
get very complex when you're trying to implement one that serves
multiple institutions, like at a system level or something like
that, I would think.
BILL: Well, that's just another
factor to consider, and if you're trying to implement a system for
a system, you've got to find the functional needs of all of the
users. One campus is pretty complicated in itself, but add two or
three other campuses in a system and you've multiplied the complexity.
PAT: Well, that would keep
you busy for a few years, it sounds like. Okay, let's see. We have
any more questions?
SUE: Keyth would like to know
if you have any job openings at Colorado State?
BILL: Well, the Governor in
Colorado signed an executive order a week ago putting a hiring freeze
for all public positions. But higher ed was exempted about a few
days into that because of some politicking that took place. So at
least we don't have a hiring freeze.
PAT: That's good, because
some states do.
BILL: Yes.
PAT: Okay, well, Bill, thank
you very much once again. This was a great presentation today and
I'm sure that people will be going back and listening to the archives
because you so clearly explained the role of this SIS system and
it'll be very helpful I think, to others, as they try to design
personalized Web-based student services. And we look forward to
seeing everyone on the next webcast.
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