Putting Principles Into
Practice: Promoting Effective Support Services
For Students In Distance
Learning Programs
By
Peter J. Dirr, Ph.D.
(Final report of a study funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education; conducted for the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications. October 1998.)
Contents
EVALUATOR’S
PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS
BACKGROUND
FINDINGS OF THE
SURVEY
FOLLOW-UP
INTERVIEWS
HELP AND TRAINING
WORKSHOPS
BENEFITING FROM
RECENT LITERATURE
(Author’s
Notes: Ordinarily, I would prepare a report such as this by starting
with the Background section, then moving to a description of the
findings of the survey and follow-up interviews, then to a review of
the project’s training activities, then to a review of recent
literature, and finally to my personal observations. However,
because I believe that my personal observations might be of greatest
interest to most readers, I am placing them at the beginning of the
report even though they derive from all that follows.
EVALUATOR’S PERSONAL
OBSERVATIONS
1. The Importance Of Efforts Such As “Putting
Principles Into Practice”
There is a growing recognition throughout the
higher education community in the United States of the need to improve
the quality and accessibility of student support services. This
is equally true of services for on-campus students and distance
learners. There is also frank admission on the
part of many involved in providing those services that they need to be
made much more “user friendly” than they are now. Finally,
institutions that have begun to explore ways that they might improve
their non-academic services to students find little guidance as they
embark on their projects. There are few higher
education institutions that have exemplary comprehensive programs of
student support services.
While the definition of student support
services varies from institution to institution, for the purpose of
this study, the project has chosen a definition that includes those
services that many institutions include in their definition:
pre-enrollment, academic advising, registration, orientation, career
counseling, library, bookstore, financial aid advising, (personal)
counseling, social support, technical assistance, program planning,
degree and graduation audit, and transcript evaluation.
In articulating the need to reform student
support services, two speakers at a recent conference provided great
insight. The first, the head of an online
degree program at a major state university, admonished the participants
to “design (their student support services) for access, so as not to
disenfranchise the very students you intend to serve through distance
education.” The second, a representative from a
commercial company that provides turnkey student support services, put
it this way: “All the student services that are available on your
campuses should also be available to your distant students online.”
Looking backwards with the advantage of 20/20
hindsight, we can see now that it was perhaps slightly naïve and overly
ambitious of the Western Cooperative to think that they might reform the
whole area of student support services in distance education within a
three-year period. It is clear from the project
work that has already been done that very few “models” of comprehensive
programs exist. (One of the assumptions of the
project design was that the survey of institutions would uncover model
programs which could be shared with other institutions looking to
improve their student support services.) It is
also clear from the work that has been done that reform in this area is
going to involve major cultural shifts in most institutions – shifts in
the way that student support services are conceptualized, structured,
administered and implemented. Current staff
will have to be re-oriented and re-trained to view student support
services as “customer service,” with an emphasis on “one-stop shopping.” This change in the institutional culture can be
expected to take between three and five years at most institutions,
and will require the support of top administration and the cooperation
of each of the units or departments involved (e.g., registrar,
financial aid, advising, bookstore, library, etc.).
The importance of “Putting Principles Into
Practice” rests on several foundations: first, it has documented the
current status of student support services in approximately one-third
of all the institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the U.S., and the
deep need for reform of student support services; second, it has
articulated a vision of what student support services for distance
learners might become in an integrated environment; third, it has begun
to help groups of colleges and universities “envision” how they might
each reform student support services on their own campuses; fourth, it
has begun to bring some WCET member institutions together with
commercial companies that are developing integrated approaches to
student support services.
2. An Evolving Vision Of Student Support Services
Those who are at the forefront of reform in
student support services for distance learners seem to take a lesson
from today’s business world: to be successful, you must emphasize
“customer service.” Those businesses that are
most successful treat each customer as though s/he were the source of
their livelihood. Some have gotten outstanding
reputations for their success in this regard, such as Nordstrom
department stores and LL Bean mail order house. To
achieve those reputations, they have had to restructure the way they do
business and implement comprehensive and on-going staff training
programs.
Following the lessons learned by those
businesses, IHEs might consider the following themes as foundation
blocks for their student support services:
· Know your customers
· Know what they expect
· Set customer service and satisfaction as your
highest goals
· Allow the customer the option to
“self-service” where that is more convenient but always allow access to
a person as well
· Establish a “one-stop shopping” approach,
where the first employee with whom the customer comes in contact should
be able to fulfill the customer’s needs
Some IHEs have begun to implement integrated
student support services for their on-campus students. (A
few of these institutions are identified in the section on Recent
Literature.) Distance education programs can
benefit from what has been learned by those institutions, recognizing
that modifications might have to be made to fit the unique
characteristics and needs of the distance learners. For
example, the on-campus programs consistently seem to integrate a wide
range of student services, including matriculation, registration,
advising, financial aid, billing, transcript review, degree audit. The integration typically includes development of a
comprehensive student information system (which eliminates duplication
of work among the offices involved) and consolidating the services in a
common area. It also involves cross-functional
training of staff. Extending that to distance
learners might include the same changes, but would also involve
developing ways to make those services available at a distance (e.g.,
through the Web and/or by phone and FAX).
In helping institutions develop a “vision” of
how they might want to reform their student support services, WCET
project staff must walk a fine line. Some
institutions can be expected to understand and embrace the major themes
right from the start. Some might even be able
to establish clear and precise goals early on. (For
example, one IHE has set the goal of automating most of the standard
student support transactions so that they can be self-directed by the
student (e.g., getting an unofficial transcript, determining financial
aid eligibility) to the point where 90% are automated, 8% are done by
staff generalists, and 2% require specialist
intervention.)
In suggestion such reform to the IHEs with
which it works, WCET must walk a fine line. One
challenge will be to help those institutions envision a new approach to
providing student support service for distance learners without implying
that everything they are currently doing is wrong. Another
challenge will be to paint an exciting vision of what their student
support services might become so as to attract the enthusiastic
participation of staff, without over-promising results.
In crafting an approach to framing the
vision, WCET might focus on the following themes:
· Student-centered customer service
· Staff role as navigator and problem solver
for the customer
· Cross-functional approach to student support
services
· Cross-functional training for staff
· Integration of data systems
· Use of technologies as enablers of routine
transactions and information exchange
· Direct access to information for students and
faculty
This will not be an easy job, as others have
learned. There are many barriers to overcome at
most institutions besides the lack of shared vision and leadership. These include: strong allegiances to the existing
departmental structure; lack of a sense of responsibility and
accountability; a pervasive mentality of job entitlement; distrust among
departments and between departments and the administration; and,
segregated processes and systems (especially information systems).
It will take more than the remaining year of
the project for WCET to successfully launch these reforms in many
colleges and universities. However, the
consortial and group workshops planned by WCET hold the promise of
providing a solid foundation for future success by those institutions
involved.
3. The Relationship of Student Support Services
To The Academic Program
Because this project focuses on student
support services, it might be viewed in isolation from the academic
program that is made available to distance learners. That
would be a mistake. The academic program and
the student support services are part of one and the same cloth.
One paradigm for distance education programs
is to think of the learning process as a series of interactions or
conversations that the learner has, “the four conversations of
learning.” These are:
A quality distance education program must
give the learner access to opportunities for each of these
conversations at times and places that are convenient to the learner
(“anyplace, anytime learning”). The
proportionality of the conversations might change for distance learners
(e.g., conversations with the professors might take on a different form
and proportionality, with instructional materials assuming some of the
role of the lecture instead of real time lectures).
The challenge in developing student services
to support the academic program is to make the services equally
accessible and valuable as the academic program. The
student support services should pose no barriers to the student’s
successful progress with the academic program but rather should support
and promote that progress.
4. The Role Of Evaluation
Institutions will be investing heavily
(out-of-pocket and human capital investments) to change the ways they
provide student support services. They will owe
it to themselves – their faculty and students – to evaluate the impact
of the changes. Even as they contemplate reform
of student support services, institutions should make sure that they are
collecting baseline data and that they continue to collect it with some
set periodicity so as to gather longitudinal data through a series of
repetitive snapshots.
Evaluation should be guided by key questions
that will help frame the methodology and instrumentation. Those
key questions should be articulated in the early days of the project. Initially, they might be as broad as:
By having a set of guiding questions, the
institution can decide the best way(s) to answer those questions. That will help with the development of strategies
and specific methodologies over the years.
5. Future Considerations For The Project
The following are random thoughts for the
future of the “Putting Principles Into Practice” project.
BACKGROUND
In
the brief span of a decade, distance education has become a staple of
most colleges and universities. While the term
means different things to different institutions, there is hardly an
institution of higher education (IHE) today that does not offer some
courses at a distance. Most IHEs that offer
distance education courses recognize the difficulty that distance
learners have attending campus for instruction and arrange alternate
means for delivering instruction. Some have
invested heavily in communications technologies to distribute the
course materials. However, most do not apply
that same thinking to support services such as registration, financial
aid, academic and personal counseling, and library services. They still require the student to come to the
campus for those services or not to take advantage of them at all. That has led some to refer to those services as
“orphan services” where distance learning is concerned.
With
support from the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education
(FIPSE) of the U.S. Department of Education, the Western Cooperative
for Educational Telecommunications (WCET) set out to help colleges and
universities improve the availability and quality of support services
they provide to students enrolled in distance education courses. A secondary goal was to support the Western
Governors University as it worked to set up local centers for student
services. The underlying idea behind the
project was to identify those colleges and universities that had
particularly strong distance education student support services, find
out what made those student support service programs strong, and match
those institutions with institutions that requested help in improving
their services to students. One assumption made
was that most student support services were initially designed to serve
on-campus students and that at most IHEs little has been done to adapt
those services to the unique needs and circumstances of distance
learners.
In
its description of “student support services,” the project included the
following:
· Pre-enrollment services
· Academic advising
· Registration
· Orientation services
· Career counseling
· Library services
· Bookstore services
· Financial aid advising
· Counseling services
· Social support services
· Technical assistance
· Program planning
· Degree and graduation audit
· Transcript evaluation
The
project planned four lines of activities: (a) identify promising
approaches to distance education student support services in a variety
of settings; (b) disseminate information about those promising
approaches to a wide range of IHEs; (c) provide technical assistance to
20 sites to improve the availability and quality of distance education
student support services at those sites; and, (d) help the institutions
receiving assistance to institutionalize the new practices. The design of the project assumed that some
institutions would emerge as having “model” student support service
programs and that their approach to providing those services would
transfer to other institutions.
As a first step, the project conducted a
survey of 1,028 institutions of higher education that fall: (a) within
the fourteen state area served by the Western Interstate Commission for
Higher Education (WICHE), and, (b) in additional states served by the
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCACS).. The purpose of the survey was twofold: first, to
document the extent to which IHEs offered distance education courses
and the student support services they provided for those courses; and,
second, to identify IHEs that might have exemplary student support
programs and those that could use help with their support services. Because the survey included only institutions in
the states served by WICHE, even though those states contain about
one-third of all IHEs in the United States, the results of the survey
cannot necessarily be projected to all IHEs in the country.
FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY
The
surveys were sent to five groups of IHEs: those in the North Centeral
Association of Colleges and Schools (NCACS – 498); Northwest
Association of Schools and Colleges (NWASC – 152); Western Association
of Schools and Colleges, 2-year institutions (WASC2yr – 137); Western
Association of Schools and Colleges, 4-year institutions (WASC4yr –
124); and, Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications
members (WCET – 117). A total of 407 responses
were received, for a 40 percent response rate (Table 1). Response
was highest from institutions in NWASC and lowest from WCET member
institutions.
Table 1 -- Response
Rate
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No. Surveys
mailed |
1028 |
498 |
152 |
137 |
124 |
117 |
|
No. Returned |
407 |
189 |
70 |
54 |
52 |
43 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Response
Rate |
40% |
38% |
46% |
39% |
42% |
37% |
To
determine whether the responses were representative of all colleges and
universities in the country (or at least the 60 percent of those
surveyed who did not respond), project staff selected a sample of 20
non-respondents and, through telephone interviews, administered the
essential survey elements. That follow-up
exercise found that there were virtually no differences between the
responses of the original survey respondents and those surveyed by
phone, thereby demonstrating that the survey responses do, indeed,
represent all the institutions in the group surveyed.
Of
the 407 responses, 321 (79%) reported that they offer distance
education courses, and 132 (32%) reported that they offer complete
degree programs at a distance (Table 2). These
are important findings for this project. They
document the fact that eight out of ten colleges and universities
in the WICHE region offer some distance education courses, and that one
out of three institutions offer a full degree program for students who
do not travel to the campus on a regular basis (if at all).
Table 2 – Distance
Education Course And Degree Offerings
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Offer
distance education courses |
79% |
96% |
71% |
59% |
38% |
88% |
|
Offer
complete degree programs at a distance |
32% |
|
|
|
|
|
Institutional motivations for offering
distance education courses vary. Student demand
for such an option leads the list for most institutions (Table 3). Response was roughly equal across categories of
IHEs with the exceptions that competition with other institutions was
less important for NWASC and WCET institutions, and the motivation to
reduce the cost of access was less important for NWASC and WASC 2-year
institutions. It is also interesting to note
that marketing to business and industry was not a strong motivation for
WASC 2-year institutions in providing distance education.
Table 3 – Primary
Motivation For Offering Distance Education Courses
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To respond
to student demand |
75% |
76% |
72% |
75% |
70% |
81% |
|
To reduce
costs for increasing access |
13% |
13% |
8% |
19% |
10% |
13% |
|
To compete
with other institutions |
13% |
15% |
8% |
19% |
15% |
5% |
|
To market
to business and industry |
12% |
13% |
10% |
3% |
15% |
13% |
|
Other |
22% |
22% |
20% |
28% |
20% |
18% |
Almost
6 out of 10 distance education students come from within the state
where they register for courses for all IHEs except WASC 2-year
colleges, where the proportion rises to 91 percent (Table 4).
Table 4 – Origins
Of Distance Learners
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In state |
59% |
56% |
54% |
91% |
60% |
50% |
|
In and out
of state, domestic |
39% |
42% |
44% |
6% |
40% |
45% |
|
Out of
state, domestic |
0% |
0% |
2% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
|
International |
2% |
2% |
0% |
3% |
0% |
3% |
Almost
two-thirds of all IHEs deliver distance education courses to the home
(94 percent of all WASC 2-year institutions), and almost half deliver
them to the work place (Table 5). About half of
all four-year institutions (but not NWASC 2-year institutions) also
deliver courses to branch campuses and other IHEs.
Table 5 – Location
Of Distance Education Sites
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Homes |
65% |
59% |
72% |
94% |
55% |
71% |
|
Work sites |
48% |
45% |
56% |
38% |
50% |
58% |
|
Public
libraries/public schools |
43% |
50% |
40% |
16% |
30% |
47% |
|
State or
other government agencies |
19% |
19% |
22% |
3% |
25% |
29% |
|
Branch
campuses of the institution |
49% |
49% |
50% |
25% |
50% |
68% |
|
Other
higher education institutions |
49% |
57% |
44% |
6% |
45% |
58% |
|
Other
community sites |
33% |
36% |
34% |
16% |
30% |
37% |
One
in five WASC 2-year and NCACS institutions still require students to
register in person. Most institutions prove an
option for in-person registration but do not require it (Table 6). Mail, phone, and FAX registration are the most
popular alternatives to in-person registration.
Table 6 – Methods
For Registration In Distance Education Courses
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In person
only |
16% |
19% |
10% |
22% |
5% |
8% |
|
In person
option but not required |
77% |
77% |
88% |
75% |
70% |
68% |
|
By mail |
74% |
76% |
76% |
53% |
70% |
82% |
|
By phone to
a person |
54% |
62% |
54% |
16% |
35% |
58% |
|
By FAX |
42% |
44% |
46% |
6% |
50% |
61% |
|
On-line |
20% |
17% |
24% |
9% |
30% |
34% |
|
By
touch-phone |
43% |
36% |
42% |
66% |
45% |
55% |
Most
IHEs provide a wide range of advisement services to distance learners
(Table 7). However, most of those services are
provided in person (89%), while fewer than half of all IHEs provide
them by mail or e-mail, phone, or FAX (not shown in a Table).
Table 7 –
Advisement Services Provided To Distance Learners
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orientation
Sessions |
60% |
60% |
64% |
66% |
60% |
55% |
|
Course
Selection |
77% |
78% |
74% |
75% |
85% |
74% |
|
Semester
Planning |
53% |
56% |
44% |
63% |
45% |
47% |
|
Degree
Planning |
69% |
72% |
62% |
63% |
70% |
68% |
|
Articulation/Transfer
Assistance |
67% |
66% |
68% |
69% |
70% |
68% |
Most
IHEs that offer distance education courses are making some effort to
provide remote access for distance learners to library and bookstore
services and research materials (Table 8). More
than half provide on-line access to catalogs, periodical indexes, and
bibliographic databases (58%), and phone access to interlibrary loans
(52%). Four out of ten make special
arrangements with local public or community college libraries (not
shown in a Table).
Table 8 – Distance
Learner Access To Library And Bookstore Services And Research Materials
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No special
library/bookstore services |
31% |
30% |
36% |
66% |
5% |
13% |
|
No special
training in use of electronic access to research materials |
40% |
57% |
60% |
59% |
40% |
55% |
IHEs
apparently are developing new ways to deliver course advising services
to distance learners (Table 9). Eight out of 10
(84%) encourage students to call faculty during regular office hours. Seven of 10 (73%) accept e-mail inquiries. Six of 10 (63%) continue to make in-person advising
during office hours an option.
Table 9 – Means
Used For Course Advising
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Regular
audio conferences |
9% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
By phone
using regularly scheduled phone calls |
33% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Phone calls
from student to faculty during office hours |
84% |
83% |
86% |
81% |
89% |
87% |
|
FAX |
46% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
E-mail |
73% |
67% |
76% |
59% |
100% |
92% |
|
On-line
listserves |
19% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
On-line
chat groups |
18% |
16% |
22% |
16% |
25% |
21% |
|
In person
during office hours |
63% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other |
17% |
|
|
|
|
|
Fewer
than one in four IHEs (23%) have established mechanisms for distance
learners to have social contact with one another (Table 10). WASC 2-year institutions trail the others in
developing this service. On the other hand,
WASC 2-year institutions lead the others in developing intervention
strategies for distance learners who experience academic difficulties. Tutorial services (in person or on-line), peer
mentoring, and developmental studies courses are the most prevalent
remedial services (not shown in a Table). While
half (52%) of all IHEs claim to make personal counseling services
available for distance learners, those services are not well defined. When they are available, they are usually provided
over the phone through a toll-free number (21%) or some other
(unspecified) means (17%) (not shown in a Table).
Table 10 –
Counseling And Social Support Services Provided
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No social
support for distance learners |
73% |
77% |
66% |
88% |
65% |
58% |
|
No
intervention for learners experiencing academic difficulties |
32% |
30% |
34% |
22% |
35% |
40% |
|
No
counseling services available at a distance |
48% |
45% |
64% |
47% |
50% |
40% |
Institutions
are attempting to identify for distance learners the skills, hardware,
and software they will need for distance education courses. Six of ten institutions (62%) identify that
information in publications (Table 11). However,
institutions do not follow up with any special measures to ensure that
students have the needed skills. Only one in
four institutions take any such measures. About
six in ten IHEs have non-teaching staff who are responsible for
providing technical support services to students. WASC
2-year institutions lead the other groups in this regard.
Table 11 –
Technical Support Provided
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Identify in
publications skills/hardware/software needed for distance courses |
62% |
60% |
66% |
50% |
83% |
66% |
|
Take
special measures to ensure that students have needed skills |
xx% |
29% |
18% |
28% |
20% |
34% |
|
Teaching
faculty are responsible for providing technical support to students |
36% |
38% |
46% |
19% |
45% |
24% |
The
financial aid office on campus (as opposed to local site coordinators
or extended studies or continuing education staff) usually bears
responsibility for determining financial aid eligibility for distance
education students (Table 12). About one-third
of all IHEs (32%) provide financial aid information on-line (not shown
in a Table). Essentially the same financial aid
is available to distance learners as to on-campus students.
Table 12 –
Financial Aid
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
On-campus
office determines eligibility |
89% |
90% |
90% |
94% |
80% |
92% |
|
Office
equally available to on-campus and distance learners |
84% |
84% |
80% |
91% |
80% |
82% |
Almost
2 of 3 IHEs (64%) provide courses or programs to employees at their
work sites (Table 13). WASC 2-year and NWASC
institutions trail the others in this regard.
Table 13 – Provide
Courses At Work Sites
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Provide
courses at work sites |
64% |
69% |
56% |
53% |
60% |
63% |
Participating
institutions were asked to rate the effectiveness of their approaches
to providing specific support services for distance learners. They were asked to rate each service on a scale of
1 (Low) to 10 (High) (Table 14: 1-3=Low; 4-7=Medium; 8-10=High). Most gave moderate ratings to their services. No group of institutions thought they had
outstanding support services across the board. There
were few areas where even a majority of institutions rated themselves
high on individual services. The exceptions are
the following services, that half or more of the institutions rated as
High:
· Registration Services were rated strong by
most categories of IHEs, as were Transcript Evaluation Services
· WASC 4-year institutions rated their Academic
Advising and Technical Assistance Services high
· WCET members rated their Bookstore Services
high
· WASC 2-year institutions rated Orientation
Services and Degree and Graduation Audit Services high
Counseling and Social Support Services tended
to get lower ratings than some of the other services for distance
learners. Half or more of the institutions in
any given group felt that their services were weak (i.e., a Low rating)
in the following areas:
· NWASC institutions rated their Career
Counseling Services, Personal Counseling Services, and Social Support
Services low
· NCACS institutions rated their Social Support
Services low
Table 14 – Quality
Of Institution’s Student Services
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Pre-enrollment
Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
10 |
11 |
5 |
19 |
15 |
|
Medium |
|
51 |
50 |
60 |
56 |
41 |
|
High |
|
40 |
39 |
35 |
25 |
44 |
|
Academic
Advising |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
10 |
18 |
11 |
6 |
9 |
|
Medium |
|
53 |
47 |
67 |
41 |
52 |
|
High |
|
37 |
34 |
22 |
53 |
46 |
|
Registration |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
1 |
8 |
5 |
6 |
3 |
|
Medium |
|
29 |
45 |
32 |
24 |
31 |
|
High |
|
70 |
48 |
63 |
71 |
66 |
|
Orientation
Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
17 |
22 |
15 |
6 |
10 |
|
Medium |
|
50 |
54 |
30 |
63 |
62 |
|
High |
|
33 |
24 |
55 |
38 |
28 |
|
Career
Counseling |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
28 |
50 |
25 |
33 |
22 |
|
Medium |
|
55 |
38 |
56 |
42 |
59 |
|
High |
|
17 |
12 |
19 |
25 |
19 |
|
Library
Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
11 |
14 |
16 |
12 |
9 |
|
Medium |
|
49 |
63 |
53 |
59 |
52 |
|
High |
|
40 |
23 |
32 |
30 |
39 |
|
Bookstore
Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
6 |
7 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
|
Medium |
|
45 |
53 |
69 |
65 |
40 |
|
High |
|
49 |
40 |
26 |
30 |
54 |
|
Financial
Aid Advising |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
15 |
14 |
13 |
0 |
19 |
|
Medium |
|
51 |
54 |
63 |
60 |
44 |
|
High |
|
34 |
32 |
25 |
40 |
38 |
|
Counseling
Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
26 |
52 |
17 |
29 |
19 |
|
Medium |
|
50 |
37 |
39 |
36 |
50 |
|
High |
|
24 |
11 |
44 |
36 |
31 |
|
Social
Support Services |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
51 |
55 |
36 |
30 |
45 |
|
Medium |
|
41 |
35 |
55 |
50 |
39 |
|
High |
|
8 |
10 |
9 |
20 |
17 |
|
Technical
Assistance |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
13 |
21 |
0 |
6 |
7 |
|
Medium |
|
48 |
49 |
73 |
41 |
48 |
|
High |
|
39 |
31 |
27 |
53 |
45 |
|
Program
Planning |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
8 |
17 |
14 |
0 |
9 |
|
Medium |
|
49 |
51 |
57 |
53 |
47 |
|
High |
|
43 |
32 |
29 |
47 |
44 |
|
Degree/Graduation
Audit |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
5 |
19 |
7 |
0 |
4 |
|
Medium |
|
29 |
36 |
40 |
36 |
41 |
|
High |
|
67 |
45 |
53 |
64 |
56 |
|
Transcript
Evaluation |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Low |
|
4 |
9 |
6 |
0 |
3 |
|
Medium |
|
29 |
49 |
35 |
27 |
41 |
|
High |
|
67 |
43 |
59 |
73 |
56 |
Most
IHEs (80%) that offer distance education courses continue to organize
their support services for those courses by separate functional areas
such as admissions, registrar, financial aid, and advising (Table 15). Only one in five organizes cross-functionally,
thereby permitting the student to deal with only one person or office
(i.e., “one-stop shopping”).
Table 15 –
Structure Of Distance Education Support Services
|
|
TOTAL |
NCACS |
NWASC |
WASC2yr |
WASC4yr |
WCET |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Organized
by functional areas (e.g., admissions, registrar, financial aid) |
80% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Organized
cross-functionally (i.e., for “one-stop shopping”) |
20% |
|
|
|
|
|
FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS
One
purpose served by the survey was to identify a pool of institutions
that are particularly strong in offering student support services, with
an eye to helping them become mentors for institutions that need help
with their services. As can be seen from the
previous data, no one group of institutions stood out from the others. Few individual institutions stood out from the
cloud. However, project staff did identify ten
institutions that rated themselves high on at least seven criteria. Structured interview follow-up phone calls were
conducted with those institutions to learn more about the support
services they provided. It was the project
staff’s expectation that some of those institutions would have developed
an integrated “suite” of support services and that those suites might
become models for other institutions to emulate.
What
the staff found instead confirmed the findings of the surveys in many
ways. The interviews confirmed that most
institutions were experiencing moderate success with most of the
support services they provide to distance learners. Some
of the institutions that had rated themselves high on selected
services, when further queried in the interviews, were found to be not
so exemplary as the survey data might have suggested. On
the other hand, the interviews uncovered a few practices that merited
further sharing with other institutions.
HELP AND TRAINING WORKSHOPS
Based
on the findings of the surveys and the follow-up interviews, and not
having found a pool of institutions that could be considered exemplary
in all the student support services they provide to distance learners,
staff found itself in a dilemma. It could not
very well match exemplary institutions with those looking for help in
improving their student support services. And
since so many institutions needed help, not only in implementing new
services but also in conceptualizing a new approach to student support
services for distance learners, staff was faced with re-designing the
intervention activities it had proposed for this project.
After
further reflection and discussions with some of the “receiving”
institutions, staff determined that: (a) the pool of “receiving”
institutions was greater than originally anticipated; (b) intervention
activities needed to include “visioning” exercises to help the
institutions conceptualize a new comprehensive approach to providing
student support services for distance learners; (c) effective services
could be provided to receiving institutions in groups rather than
individually, and, (d) because a comprehensive approach to re-inventing
student services requires changing the culture of at least part of the
institutions, successful implementation of the strategies would take a
lot longer than originally anticipated.
Consequently,
staff revised its plans for intervention to focus on (a) presentations
at regional and statewide conferences, sharing the findings of the
project to date and laying the groundwork for institutions to begin to
envision new paradigms for student support services, and, (b) workshops
for groups of institutions such as the two year college group in the
state of Washington and the Native American tribal colleges.
BENEFITING FROM RECENT
LITERATURE
While
this project, “Putting Principles Into Practice,” focuses on the
student support services provided to students studying at a distance,
distance education is not alone in its efforts to improve the quality
of student support services. That challenge is
one that faces most colleges and universities in the United States
today, for their on-campus as well as distance learners. Some
have embraced the challenge and are taking steps to revise their
approaches to student services. The problem has
also been recognized by IBM, which has sponsored a multi-year project,
“Innovation in Student Services.” The IBM
Higher Education Solutions group has sponsored two forums to help
participating institutions (including WCET/WICHE institutions) envision
the future for student services. Leading
professionals have been brought together to describe the challenges
they face, as well as the progress they are making to improve student
services.
The
American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers
(AACRAO) has published articles on the topic written by AACRAO members,
some of whom were also participants in the IBM project.
A
large part of the thinking on this topic seems to have been stimulated
by a book, “Transforming Higher Education,” written by Michael G.
Dolence and Donald M. Norris and published by the Society for College
and University Planning in Ann Arbor, Michigan (1995).
In
“Cutting Through the Red Tape,” Darlene J. Burnett and Martha A. Beede
describe various efforts underway to reform the way student services
are provided. They describe “student services”
as “the non-academic interactions that the student has with a college
or university.” They define “student services”
to include advising, recruiting, admissions, active student process,
financial planning and management (a term they believe ought to replace
the more restrictive term, financial aid), and point to many ways that
those services are being changed on campuses all over the United States.
What
emerges is a sense that a wide variety of types of IHEs have recognized
the need to revise substantially the way they approach and offer
student services. Some have made significant
progress toward changing their vision of how such services are
organized and delivered. Common themes that
emerge from more than a dozen such institutions (including Babson
College, Ball State University, Boston College, Brigham Young
University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Metropolitan Community
Colleges, Miami-Dade Community College, the University of California at
Berkeley, the University of Delaware, the University of Minnesota, the
University of Pennsylvania, and others) are:
· a vision for change
· student-centered customer service
· integration of services (a “cross-functional”
approach)
· data system integration
· centralized student service buildings
· cross-functional staff training
· staff as knowledge navigators and problem
solvers
· direct access to information for student and
faculty
· use of technology as an enabler of routine
transactions
Institutions that have embarked on programs
to improve student services (primarily with on-campus students in mind)
have found that they have many barriers to overcome, especially:
· strong allegiances to existing departmental
structures
· lack of a sense of responsibility and
accountability
· a mentality of job entitlement
· distrust among departments and the
administration
· lack of a shared vision, direction and
leadership
· segregated processes and systems.
Those who have
persevered, in their efforts report that the process of reform is
costing them more than they had planned and is taking longer than
originally thought. The few who have emerged on
the other side of the reform efforts also report that the improvement in
quality of services was worth the effort. Most
also report that they have reduced the cost of providing the improved
services. Although developed primarily for
on-campus students, many of the lessons learned from these projects
apply equally to distance learners.
One student service reform project that has a
clear vision and well-articulated goals is Babson College’s
“Engineering Student Administrative Services.” It
serves as a good example of one approach for implementing the major
themes of the reform efforts as articulated above. Parallel
with actions to better meet the academic requirements of its students,
Babson set out to improve the delivery of student-related business
services. The effort addressed “the core
administrative processes that affect all students,” meaning admissions,
student billing, student loan administration, academic planning and
advising, academic records and registration, and career services. The project had two specific goals: (a) to increase
customer satisfaction, and, (b) to reduce operating costs by 30-40
percent.
Babson decided to adopt a customer service
model that combined a new way of thinking about the students (i.e., as
customers) and a determination to make as many student transactions as
possible “self-directed online services.” The
model they had in mind would have 90 percent of all business
transactions automated using technology. Another
8 percent would be handled by staff generalists (their version of
“one-stop shopping,” something others call “one and done” or, “the
first person should be able to solve the problem”). The
final 2 percent would be handled by specialists. Most
of the information a student would need to answer any questions or to
take routine actions would be available at a kiosk on campus or online,
from an integrated student information system. The
information would be self-correcting, permitting the student to handle
most transactions without the help of a staff member. The
staff generalists would deliver academic advising (supplementing the
role of the faculty advisors), personal support, and general
administrative assistance, integrating many functions that previously
had been delivered by various offices. The
staff specialists would handle student financial services and academic
records and registration. All staff would work
in teams.
TheUniversity
of Minnesota has embarked on a similar project with similar themes. Their goal is to help students make their own
“informed judgments,” with the ability to self-inform and self-correct. They seek to provide services electronically rather
than in a paper mode, and to help professional staff become generalists
who serve as facilitators and navigators in the same information-rich
environment that is available to the student. Most
of the transactions would be initiated by the student (the “client”)
via the World Wide Web. Fully 75-90 percent of
all transactions that were previously done manually and on paper would
be done electronically and without the intervention of an
administrator, including the client’s ability to self-certify for
benefits, admissions, and graduation.
Another
early leader in the field of improving student support services,
although its entire effort was focused on services to on-campus
students, was the University of Delaware, which started in 1988
to develop a comprehensive program of student services, including
admissions, financial aid, registration, billing, housing services, and
automated degree audits. The program was
perhaps the first to articulate the themes of “service oriented,”
“one-stop shopping,” and “cross-training of staff.” Unlike
some other programs, the University of Delaware effort thought it
important to co-locate staff in a single building in order to bring
about the seamless service vision. Consequently,
the university built a “student services building” to integrate the
many offices that were needed to implement the new vision.
While the University of Delaware’s student
support services are aimed at on-campus students, the idea of
integrating the functions of many offices that provide student support
services into one area might be realized for distance learners through
a “Virtual Student Service Center.” One
institution that is moving in that direction is Weber State
University. Through its home page for Weber
State University OnLine (http://wsuonline.weber.edu), the
University uses the metaphor of a campus to provide distance learners
electronic access to most of the services that on-campus students would
enjoy, including the library (for help finding information needed for
online courses), the bookstore (where students can order books without
standing in line), the lecture hall (where courses are taken), a
student union (for online discussions and other activities), and a
student services center (for academic advising, online tutoring,
registration, and services for women students). In
the near future, Weber State plans to add another virtual building for
financial aid.
Weber State currently offers 50 to 60 courses
online each semester and enrolls over 1,000 students. This
increase from 20 courses with 200 students just one year ago is typical
of the growth that universities such as Weber State are experiencing,
especially if they provide convenient and effective student support
services along with anyplace, anytime course delivery.
The
list of institutions attempting to improve student support services for
both on- campus and distance learners goes on, but the themes vary
little. The “Electronic Student Services
Study,” done by the American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC)
Institute of Education Practices, identified several characteristics
that are shared by many institutions that are recognized as
implementing best practices in student support services. They include:
· substantial progress in providing electronic
self-help tools for students
· a careful examination of the institution’s
business process itself, not just the automation of existing functions
· organizational and cultural changes that
break down “departmental silos”
· training employees across functional
boundaries
· greater customer focus (i.e.,
student-centered) in order to remain competitive
· a primary emphasis on improved service, with
cost savings as only a secondary focus