Teaming With Campus Partners

1. Teaming With Campus Partners To Transform Educational Technology Services Catherine Kelley, Sandra Selick, and Manish Wadhwa Fairleigh Dickinson University

2. The Challenge: Our Distance Learning Initiative • Fall 2001: All undergraduate students required to take one distance learning class per every 32 credits of study • Office of Educational Technology has a major part in supporting this ambitious initiative: • Faculty Development • Some student support • Policy development • Start of term class rollout • Assessment

3. Tremendous Growth in Classes Supported

4. Increase in Demand, Flat Funding • Support needs have increased dramatically with rise in number of blended and fully online classes • Our funding has stayed flat during this time period, and wasn’t that high to start • But we have met the demand, and increased services • How?

5. Four Keys to Success • Evaluate • Identify redundancies and inefficiencies • Problem Solve • Adding services may reduce your workload • Removing others may help you a lot, and not have a dramatic impact on users • Partner • Share workload with other units on campus • Assess • Good assessment always leads to process improvement

6. This is Not Rocket Science! • Evaluating services and looking for inefficiencies seems pretty obvious - but it is amazing what will you find if you actually do it • Sometimes the inefficiencies are outside your unit • Partnering with other units is the hard part of this process – they are also over-worked • Good communication is a key principle

7. Ideally the process is:

8. In reality looks more like: Everything is inter-connected

9. Partnering • You must convince the other units that your project is in their best interests • Also good for faculty, staff, and students of the University • It takes time and patience, and understanding their needs and priorities (and working within them) • Over time, other units now happy to work with us

10. Some examples • Maximizing use of our CMS system (Blackboard - partnering with our MIS department) • Changing methods to get student e-mail accounts and other information (partnering with student services units) • Streamlining scheduling of blended classes in labs and technology-enabled classrooms (partnering with Enrollment Services) • Deployment of ceiling-mounted projectors (partnering with Instructional Media, Enrollment Services, OIRT, and the Provost’s Offices)

11. The “Sticky Meeting” • During the summer of 2001, we mapped out the entire experience for our beginning DL students • What do they need? • How do we get it to them? • How can we make things work better? • Some of the processes reported here are a direct result of that single meeting • Use “sticky notes” to map out every step of every process required

12. Blackboard Enterprise features • The first example is the simplest • In Fall 2001 students were still hand-enrolled in our CMS – that stopped immediately! • Needed to work with MIS department to develop a snapshot enrollment process

13. Blackboard (continued) • Stage 1: All classes that used Blackboard were “flagged” in our Datatel system • Required us to find out who wanted a shell • Faculty waited to notify us until the last minute • Somebody in MIS had to enter this data • This took a lot of work

14. Blackboard (continued) • Stage 2 – Shell was made for ALL classes • Faculty no longer need to fill out course requests (and we don’t have to chase after them to fill out the forms!) • Courses don’t need to be flagged • A new (and very popular) service has resulted in reduction in workload for our office and for MIS • MIS happy to help as it reduced their work

15. Blackboard (continued) • Stage 3 and beyond • We also want to “flag” certain multi-section courses so that course copy becomes unnecessary (nearly ready for this) • Continuously learning more about the product and how it will reduce our workload

16. Got Webmail? • The Blackboard changes were very successful, but caused other issues to emerge • A change in one process affects other processes! • In order for our Datatel snapshot process to work, students need an FDU e-mail account • They need to manually create their accounts • At first, students were unaware that they need an FDU account

17. Webmail (continued) • How to get students to sign up for Webmail? • We sent paper to their houses, went to their classes, even chased down individual students • Personnel intensive!

18. Webmail (continued) • Our first step: • Work with Freshman Orientation program • For the first two years, we could barely get on the schedule • But when students complained that they didn’t know what to do in their DL classes, we were given a bigger role • Now we work very closely with the orientation programs and have a great relationship with them

19. Webmail (continued) • We also have streamlined our internal processes • All webmail & other account information is now burned to a CD • Cheaper than paper, easier to distribute, looks impressive • PR campaign – “Got Webmail?” posters and flyers • We’ve found academic departments “borrowing” this idea on a wide scale • Better service, and less work for everybody

20. Classroom scheduling • In Fall 2001, only two face-to-face meetings at start of term for Global Challenge (Freshman flagship course) • But students were having more trouble than anticipated and needed hands-on orientation to course • Arranged for two additional face-to-face meetings in teaching labs • Now “Global Challenge” gets priority for labs in first two weeks of term – but then switched over to other classes

21. Classroom Scheduling • Once again a change in one area causes changes in other areas • Faculty in the classes that were “booted” from the labs were confused and angry about this • Worked with Enrollment Services, the Core program (academic unit), and Computing Services to improve scheduling, communication, and support • Now that a system has been established, we have now handed scheduling entirely over to the Core program

22. Classroom Technologies • As the DL initiative progressed, it developed into a program of primarily “blended” classes rather than purely online • Great idea, and more faculty became involved • But blended classes use data projectors to a larger extent than regular face to face classes • Never enough projectors to go around • Not a budget item in the initial plan, which was for fully online classes

23. Classroom Technologies • Additional headaches: Thefts or projector units, loss of remote controls • Thefts especially of portables • Some concern that projectors were not being deployed effectively (i.e., permanent ones not going in the right classrooms)

24. Classroom Technologies • Determined scope of problems • Worked with instructional media to determine where portables are being delivered, and tracked usage • Worked with Enrollment Services to determine best classrooms for deployment of permanent-mount projectors • Conducted surveys of faculty to determine extent of unmet need

25. Classroom Technologies • Tried to cope first with the access problems • Met with campus provosts to discuss needs • Used our data to motivate request for more money in our budget (wasn’t granted) • In the meantime, streamlined scheduling of classrooms • Developed a prioritization system for installing projectors in high-use classrooms • Developed classroom sharing project for blended classes

26. Classroom Technologies • Theft problems • Met with Campus Security, Provosts, and Risk Management manager to discuss theft • Installed Pixie controllers to cope with theft of remote controls – joint project with Information Resources • Installed central alarm system for all installed projectors – new campus standard(we’ve never lost a projector alarmed this way)

27. Classroom Technologies • Where we are now • Independently of this, Instructional Media stopped delivering projectors because of thefts • Faculty were extremely unhappy • Campus provost was already aware of our headaches • He funded the purchase of sufficient new projectors to totally equip one of our campuses with projectors in every classroom • Now, we need to get the same deal for the other campus!

28. “Partnering” with our own staff • Understanding the needs and priorities of external units is important, but your own staff needs are equally important • Overworked staff members often have great ideas for reducing workload – listen to them! • They want to reduce drudgery, and increase the amount of “fun” work that they do

29. “Partnering” with our own staff • Improved communication with other constituencies is a key to success • Several new internal projects are about better communication • Perceived as a new service from our office, but it actually saves time for us – e.g., newsletter

30. Assess your efforts • This is really the start of the loop again • Never stop evaluating your processes • Never stop looking for opportunities to streamline your work • Never assume that a new project inevitably means that all of you are going to kill yourselves with over-work – think about how to do it so that you end up with less work (or more interesting work!)

31. Take-Home Messages • Partnering requires you to understand what other service units need – work within their constraints • Get publicity for your efforts if you can. If it looks like a new service, advertise it as such. Don’t be afraid to be a hero! • Make sure your partner units are also heroes. Give them a lot of the glory – they’ll love it. • Give lots of public credit to your staff.They deserve it. You are nothing without them.