Electronic
College Optimum Advisor & Career Helper, ECOACH
Texas Tech University
Texas
Tech University and the College of Engineering have seen a paradigm
shift with the development of innovative web-based tools to aid
students and advisors. The creative concept is known as E-Coach.
E-Coach contains three main components: ED DOCTOR for education
and professional development, QUICK Advisor for quick, quality,
efficient, academically smart advising, scheduling, and registration,
and QUALITY Assessment for assessment of the educational processes.
The work is ongoing primarily through software engineering class
projects. The project work has provided students with an opportunity
for service learning and has resulted in better advising. The
development was supplemented in 2002 through student summer interns
and a graduate student, all funded by an external grant from the
Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
The
QUICK Scheduler and ED DOCTOR components have served students
and advisors since fall 1999 and spring 2000 respectively. The
integration of these and other components into one tool, E-Coach
occurred in summer 2002.
To
date, the tools have provided assessment and information that
makes the advising process more objective and more efficient.
While an opportunity exists for a student to reduce personal contact
with an advisor, the process also empowers the student to be responsible
for his or her own academic plan. The process has helped shift
the focus of advising time from class scheduling to dealing with
personal issues.
Virtual
Advising Link Program
Indiana Wesleyan University
Nominated by: Jerry
Pattengale
The Virtual Advising
Link program (VAL) is only one of more than a dozen special
student success initiatives launched at IWU since the fall
of 1998, it is helping the university to reach its student
success goals in the key area of advising. More students are
persisting at IWU than before the initiatives began, and a
higher percentage of the full-time first-time freshmen are
graduating. IWU jumped 7% this year in retention and the same
in graduation rates over two years.
VAL links various
support systems and allows approved personnel to send student
referrals via the web to other offices. The entire process
is password protected, with several features that have end
user availability for limited information access. Faculty can
also find student information via a Windows format, at a savings
of thousands of pages of paper. Most importantly, the intervention
and prevention process becomes more efficient while saving
faculty hours of work. The names of advisors, dorm resident
assistants, students' email and mailing addresses, phone extensions,
class schedules, pictorial directories of classes, group absence
forms, etc., can all be gleaned from a three-button process.
The students' pictures
appear on the VAL virtual card. Faculty consult VAL to print
pictorial directories of their classes. Another VAL option
is immediate access to helps, such as study tips, time management,
note taking, "how to read a textbook." Our faculty
wrote this material which frees us from copyright laws and allows
us to print helps for students or send them to their dorm via
email.
The entire program
is user-friendly. Everything is in the Windows format, and
the configurations include common software and hardware components. For
the first time, assessment of advising becomes automatic by
a three-way tracking system built-in to this multi-faceted
system. Confirmation of reporting, appraisal of action taken,
and tracking of quantities of forms are coded for access by
assessment personnel. An option for receiving electronic delivery
of various student surveys is available.
EDMS-The
Student/Advisor Tool of the Future
Michigan State University
Nominated by: Thomas
Wolff
The Engineering
Degree Monitoring System (EDMS) is a unique web-based program
to aid students in their progress toward a degree. The system
was designed internally and is accessible to over 4000 students
and staff within the College of Engineering. Students use the
program for a variety of reasons. They can access current gpa,
both cumulative and technical; courses completed; courses needed
for graduation; and how the courses taken can apply to another
engineering degree.
Faculty and staff
also use the system for a variety of reasons including scheduling
academic advising appointment; and accessing student waivers,
course lists, group email aliases, transcripts and graduation
certification information. The system is extremely user friendly
and is secured by user ID and password.
EDMS was created
internally by a programmer and can easily be modified to meet
the information needs at other institutions. The paradigms
of the database can be modified to fit the data available to
other academic units and colleges. The system is continuously
being evaluated, and new modules are being created as needs
arise.
Interactive Video Advising
Pima Community College
Traditional methods
of advising can be enhanced with the innovative technology
of the internet and video conferencing. In order
to better serve our broad-base student population, Pima Community
College has developed a Interactive Video Advising (IVA) system.
Our IVA system provides:
- Basic information about the five Pima College Campuses,
- Student services information through Pima-Info-Web,
- Advising information through Pima's Academic Advising web
page and
- Desktop video conferencing. This fourth feature is an alternative
method of providing traditional academic advising.
Pima Community College's IVA system
brings the student and advisor together "face-to-face" without physically being in the same location.
By using a two-way, one-on-one desktop video conferencing system,
students can obtain individual academic advising without having
to come to a college campus. The IVA system is also used by
Pima's disabled students utilizing sign language to "meet" with
their advisors. The IVA system has the potential of multiple
uses, such as individual remote tutoring, teacher-student conferences
and video conference meetings for faculty and staff.
Pima Community
College's IVA system bridges the gap between distance and inaccessibility. IVA
is a time-saving, efficient and convenient way for students
to become better informed, and thus enabling them to achieve
greater success in college.
Hawaii Interactive Television System (HITS)
Academic Advising
University of Hawaii Manoa
The Hawaii Interactive
Television System (HITS) Academic Advising program was developed
as a means of providing accurate, timely, and responsive academic
advising to students planning to transfer to the University
of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) from other colleges throughout the
statewide University of Hawaii (UH) system.
Initiated during the summer of 1994, the HITS advising program
takes advantage of a satellite television system originally designed
to allow live broadcasts of academic courses statewide.
Students gather at the various satellite studios (Kauai, Maui,
the island of Hawaii, and two sites on 0ahu), and watch and listen
to a UHM advisor explain transfer policies, Manoa core requirements,
and other academic realities for transfer students. Following
the presentation, students are encouraged to ask specific questions
about their own records, particular Manoa policies or programs,
or other transfer student issues. Each studio is able to
receive broadcast images from the other studios so the person
asking the question and the advisor are always on screen, conversing
in real time. The program is offered mid-summer (before
new student orientation at UHM), and several times in the fall
and spring, always in anticipation of application deadlines.
Some broadcasts are to specific schools, others are to several
schools at once. Up to seven campuses can simultaneously
participate in the program.
The Virtual Advising Center
Weber State University
Submitted by: Susan Smith
Advisors can "talk" to students and gather information for students
by means of a network of academic advisors around the world--ACADV,
the World Wide Web, fax, e-mail, video conferencing, and the telephone.
All of these components combine to make the "Virtual Advising
Center" (VAC). Students and faculty can reach the VAC more
conveniently, and can develop better working relationships with
the services offered by the AAC.
Continuing Education
University of Massachusetts
Lowell
Nominated by: Susan Desmond
In an era of new
technologies, Continuing Education is incorporating new methods
of accommodating our student's needs for the year 2000. One
of our methods to meet the demands of the future is to use
technology, specifically on-line advising.
Many of our Continuing
Education students are struggling to balance their professional,
personal and academic lives and on-line advising gives students
the opportunity to ask their questions anytime, day or night.
On-line advising allows students to get their questions answered
from work or home instead of making an extra trip to campus.
Students can access
our advising e-mail by visiting our web site (Continuing_Education@uml.edu), we call "Contact Us." We
have been averaging 5-10 inquiries, daily for the past year.
We also have a direct connection on our web site to our coordinators
e-mail for prompt responses.
This year we introduced "Live Advising Chat Night." This provided
another convenient opportunity for our students to obtain answers
to their questions in a fast and efficient manner, with the assistance
of technology! On January 14, 1998, from 5-7:00 p.m., we were
staffed with five advisors and our Assistant Director of Distance
Learning for our first "Live Advising Chat Night."
Using E-mail in Advising: the Advising and
Mentoring Program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire
Nominated by: Deborah Gough
In 1991 the University
of Wisconsin-Eau Claire embarked on a large scale effort to
use technology to improve advising, and thus retention on the
campus. With the aid of a federal Title III grant, UW-Eau Claire,
over a four-year period, provided 110 faculty with computers.
The computers were used in two ways:
- Faculty were given access to and training on the Student
and Curricular Data Base. In addition to receiving up-to-date
information on students, they were also trained in the develomental
needs of students, particularly freshmen, and the academic
policies and requirements of the University.
- These faculty also agreed to use the then new medium of
e-mail to increase contact with their advisees. Freshmen,
who were recruited during orientation, met with their advisers
prior to the start of classes, were trained on the use of
e-mail, and then could expect to receive messages from their
advisers every two weeks.
The results have been impressive.
Students, who had often not met their advisors until registration,
felt connected to the university immediately; they knew that someone
was there to answer questions. Faculty came to know their advisees
much better. They also felt better informed and more capable of
giving good advice. E-mail allowed advisors to give students quick,
timely information in an enjoyable format.
E-mail contact
never replaced face-to-face contact; in fact, by connecting
faculty and freshmen prior to classes, the program increased
such meetings between advisers and advisees.
Interactive Video Advising
Pima Community College
Nominated by: Remy Sotto
Traditional methods
of advising can be enhanced with the innovative technology
of the internet and video conferencing. In order to better
serve our broad-base student population, Pima Community College
has developed a Interactive Video Advising (IVA) system. Our
IVA stystem provides:
- Basic Information about the five Pima College Campuses,
- Student services information through Pima-Info-Web,
- Advising Information through Pima's Academic Advising web
page and,
- Desktop video conferencing.
This fourth feature is an alternative
method of providing traditional academic advising.
Pima Community
College's IVA stystem brings the student and advisor together
'face-to-face' without physically being in the same location.
By using a two-way, one-on-one desktop video conferencing system,
students can obtain individual academic advising without having
to come to a college campus. The IVA system is also used by
Pima's disabled students utilizing sign language to "meet" with
their advisors. The IVA system has the potential of multiple
uses, such as individual remote tutoring, teacher-student conferences
and video conference meetings for faculty and staff.
Pima Community
College's IVA system bridges the gap between distance and inaccessibility.
IVA is a time-saving, efficient and convenient way for students
to become better informed, and thus enabling them to achieve
greater success in college.
Central Advising Service and Transfer
Center
University of Kentucky
Submitted by: Ken Freedman and Cathy Hunt
The Central Advising Service and Transfer Center at the University
of Kentucky provides advising for undeclared students and facilitates
the transfer of students from the community colleges and other
institutions. In fulfilling its mission, CASTC has made creative
use of state-of-the-art technology to provide services to its
clientele. Two such initiatives are the development of the Central
Advising System and the implementation of advising teleconferences.
The Central Advising System moved advising and record-keeping
from a cumbersome paper-based system to an electronic one. Data
in the Student Information System (SIS) is accessed and presented,
along with CASTC dat, on custom-designed screens. Anotes field,
a record of courses recommended for each semester and a checklist
of general education course work completed are part of each student
record. Use of the Central Advising System eliminated the improved
follow-up student scontact, and simplified statistical reporting
for advisors and the department.
Teleconferences were initiated to improve communication and advising
between the Lexington campus and the University's 14 community
colleges. Three teleconferences have been broadcast thus far.
As a result, faculty advisors at the community colleges are better
informed of UK's academic programs, feel more confident in referring
students to specific individuals (liaisons) in Lexington, and
are sending their students to the Lexington campus to visit. The
teleconferences, along with the liaison program, have provided
a bridge for transfer students from the community colleges to
the University of Kentucky.
