Portal to the Rescue: First-Year Information

Portal to the Rescue: FirstYear Information

Copyright William P. Wilson 2005. This work is theintellectual property of the author. Permission is grantedfor this material to be shared for non-commercial,educational purposes, provided that this copyrightstatement appears on the reproduced materials and noticeis given that the copying is by permission of the author. Todisseminate otherwise or to republish requires writtenpermission from the author.

William P. Wilson, PhD

Director of Web Technology

S. Mark Sikes

Director, Student Activities & First-YearPrograms

Gettysburg College

Context of Problem

Gettysburg College mails 11-12 formsto matriculated students end of May

Receive those forms throughout thesummer

Distribute copies or excel reports ofthose paper forms to departmentsneeding the information (e.g.,registrar, housing, Music, StudentSenate, College Bookstore)

Issues with Existing Process

Keeping track of form submission;some duplicates crept in

Getting information in timely manner

Reading information on forms

Rekeying of information by summeremployees for use in other offices

Required students to write name,address, phone, etc on all 11 forms –data we already knew about them

IT Suggested Improvements

Replace paper process with electronicforms and pre-populating forms withdata we already know

Provide tools to administrators forthem to see their own data, edit it ifneeded

Provide real-time reports

Integrate into our portal to allow forproper personalization

Office of First Year ProgramsActions

Accept recommendations of IT, butreplicate the paper forms and paperwill also be sent to students

Student employees convert all papersubmissions to electronic form soother improvements (e.g., reporting)will be available.

Required fields check, support creditcard and check payment options

Goals

60-70% electronic returns

Show intelligent use of College datato students and their families

Provide data to offices in a moretimely, cleaner manner

Get new students used to interactingwith the campus portal, campus email

Reduce training time once on campus

Timeline

Started consulting with offices inFebruary

Coding began in March

Iterations in April

Testing in May

Launched end of May

Report writing throughout summer

Design Considerations

Incremental saving of form information

Upon final submission, forms locked andavailable in read-only format

Replicate paper form as much as possiblebut eliminate fields we already have datafor

Personal information that is different fromwhat we have is flagged and reported tooffice responsible for that data

Easily accessible technical help and FAQs

Integrate two other systems seamlessly

Sample Forms

Sample Forms

Outcomes

97% electronic submission

Improved business process with the on-demand reports

More participation in programs in the forms(volunteer day, optional trips, t-shirtpurchase, subscriptions)

Impress families with support when needed

Provided a mechanism to use our dataintelligently – Advising an example

Integrate Data in New Ways

Where we go from here …

Go fully electronic, paper forms onrequest

Take advantage of electronic formatand improve design

Additional reporting requirements

Better integration with our ERPsystems

Conclusions

Good collaboration

More confidence in technologysolutions in this area

All goals met or exceeded

Training reduced

CNAV use increased

Students/parents impressed with service

Offices pleased with results