Beyond Brochureware: Making an Online Class Schedule Work for Students

1. Beyond Brochureware:Making an Online Class Schedule Work for Students Jim Gaston, South Orange County Community College District

2. Blog Please visit my blog at: digitaledu.blogspot.com

3. Presentation Overview • Definition • Background • SmartSchedule Project • Demonstration

4. Brochureware • Definition: Web sites or pages that are produced by taking an organization's printed brochure and translating it directly to the Web without regard to the medium's broader interactive possibilities. • Often occurs when an organization needs to “get it on the web” – quickly. • Byproduct of skewed priorities. • The goal is not to put the class schedule on the web. • The goal is to provide service to students.

5. Background • South Orange County CCD • Two college district – Irvine Valley and Saddleback • 35,000 students (headcount) • 21,000 FTES • Strong commitment in District IT to provide direct student service through an architectural approach • Implemented an in-house developed portal in Aug 2000 • Heavily used by all stakeholders in the institution • Over 140,000 users by March 2006 • Online Class Schedule • Originally went online in early 1995 • Major revision in 1997 • It was time for a complete makeover…

6. SmartSchedule Project • Goal: • Create the very best online schedule possible • Timeline: • Began in February 2002 • Design Team formed in March • Numerous focus groups reviewed prototype • Went online in July 2002 in time for Fall registration • Shopping Cart added in Fall 2004 • Next major enhancement: • Integrated Educational Plan

7. Statistics • Estimated visits to date: 6.5 million • Search engine used over 650,000 times • Over 1,400 comments received from feedback • 12,646 students accessed the shopping cart in the first semester • (approximately 1/3 of student population) • More than 20,000 students carts in Spring 06 • (More than half of student population)

8. Feedback Examples • Excellent site. Good Job! • Very easy to use and read, Thanks! • The new schedule layout is great, a definite improvement over the old style. It presents all the information you need in a clear, easy to read format. • Nice design of the class schedule. It is very easy to read and follow. Thanks! • I thought the website was outstanding! It was extremely easy to navigate and I was able to find out EVERYTHING I needed to know about a class. I like that there is a link to the teacher's e-mail and the number of seats available is very helpful. I cannot say enough about all of the helpful, easy to use features. Thanks! • I'm impressed! Everything I wanted to know about the classes was right there. The "Topics Covered," Learning Objectives," and "Methods of Evaluating" answered all my questions. Thank you. • I had to look up unfettered praise before I chose it, but now I know I mean it... Great work with the schedule, Guys and Gals. Navigation seems easy and the information I'm seeking is readily available so that I can plan around my next semester of school.

9. Recommendations • View the online schedule as a strategic application, not a static document • Stay focused on what is important – service to students • Use a design team with a good mix of technical and functional expertise • Get lots of feedback during the design, but don’t “design by committee” • Continue to get feedback directly from students with an online collection mechanism

10. Demonstration • You can view SmartSchedule by clicking on “Class Schedule” at either of our colleges: www.ivc.edu www.saddleback.edu

11. Questions? • Feel free to contact me: Jim Gaston Interim Director of Information Technology South Orange County CCD jgaston@socccd.org Blog: digitaledu.blogspot.com