The “Green Room”: Setting up a Completely Web-based Evidence Room for Your Audit

1. The “Green Room”:Setting up a Completely Web-based Evidence Room for Your Audit Amanda Benedict-Chambers and Beth Grzelak AACTE Annual Conference, San Diego CA February 25, 2011

2. Outline of Talk • Context and timeline • What was involved in building the site • Key takeaways from our audit visit • Tour of our Evidence Room

3. Setting a context • Our electronic records system was designed exclusively for the audit visit • Other methods of sharing information with reviewers were failing • Variety of information utilized in the Inquiry Brief was in hard copy translated to electronic charts, graphs, tables • Idea started with Inquiry Brief itself, and our attempt to replicate an electronic version we had seen another institution use

4. Development Timeline • Audit visit was November 2-5, 2010 • Aug. 2010: Site created – headers only, no content • Oct. 6-13: Central purpose was translating Brief to HTML • Oct. 14: Translating Brief to HTML is abandoned. Decide to create bookmarked PDF instead • Oct. 13-27: Determining best way to grant access to TEAC reviewers and getting that access granted • Beginning Oct. 14: Uploaded supporting documents to site as they become available • Oct. 21: Missing document status report • Audit week: On-going editing and “live” uploads • Nov. 10th: Finalize upload of post-audit visit documents

5. How easy was it? • Set-up done by two key people: • Webmaster • High-level administrative support • During audit visit requires a minimum of three people: • Webmaster • High-level administrative support • TEAC IB co-author

6. How easy was it? • Did not require special software: • Used university-supported “content management system” (CMS). Non-site specific examples are Drupal, Joolma, Expression Engine, Wordpress. • If done again, our webmaster suggested use of Wordpress • CMS administrator created site and set templates, and trained non-tech personnel • Biggest decision was how to provide protected access (not public/open)

7. Who was involved? Before the audit visit • Inquiry Brief co-authors: • Set vision for what site should include and suggested format • Webmaster/CMS administrator: • Created site and set templates, and trained non-tech personnel • Invested about 8-10 hours of time, including experimentation time • Felt it was a good use of time and appropriate for the role

8. Who was involved? Before the audit visit • Administrative support staff member: • Created sections/organized site based on IB authors’ vision • Loaded and linked documents • Tracked “to-dos” related to site and documents • Troubleshot problems with site or documents • Worked 10-15 hours per week in three weeks prior to and during visit

9. Who was involved? During the audit visit • IB co-authors and staff member: • Worked on and off during audit visit to prepare and/or find documents and upload them • Edited “live” documents on the site

10. 3 Key Takeaways • Learned from our trial and error: Emailing documents, CD-Rom, preloaded laptop, jump drives all ruled out • None allowed for editing or “in the moment” work • With right support, can be done relatively quickly • Would utilize non-university based system, such as Wordpress, in future, to avoid having to navigate university security/permission issues

11. What auditors said about site • Easy to use • Sections and files well-labeled • Everything worked! • Electronic docs allowed for auditor cutting and pasting to create new documents • Some files could have had more detailed dropdown menus describing program, year, etc. • Huge PRO to have electronic “room” available • Facilitated auditor work • Provided admirable flexibility

12. Take a tour of our “Evidence Room” • http://sitemaker.umich.edu/teac_2010

13. Contact Information • Amanda Benedict-Chambers • Graduate Research Assistant for TEAC • Inquiry Brief co-author • mbenedi@umich.edu • Beth Grzelak • Teacher Education Program Director • Inquiry Brief co-author • bgrzelak@umich.edu

14. QUESTIONS/Comments?