Michael Mattmiller
Developer ,Web Services
Student and Academic Support Services
The George Washington University
mikematt@gwu.edu

Posted: July 26, 2003     Student Affairs Online, vol. 4 no. 3 - Summer 2003

It's the start of a new academic year, and you've pledged to be more efficient, reach out to a broader base of students, expend your programmatic initiatives and somehow make it happen with a smaller staff and larger student body at your institution. As you frantically search through journals, conference handouts and websites for the perfect solution to make all of your plans a reality it hits you: what you need is a database. It will automate all of your work flow, cross reference your information, and keep your staff up to speed. It's even going to be web-accessible so that students can directly interact with it. In a burst of inspiration, you open Microsoft Excel and start pasting in information from every file on your hard drive. Hours later, you've got a great looking document which you promptly email off to your staff and bask in your accomplishment. The next day your email is clogged with 20 different updated versions of your spreadsheet, a dozen phone messages from staff members who can't open the file, and you're left with a shattered version of your technological nirvana.

Technology has forever changed the way we approach our work. Instead of developing brochures and mailers to promote upcoming programs to students, we can develop a website or send a mass email message. Providing good customer service no longer means having staff members waiting to take a student's bill payment, it's providing a website where a student or their parent can make a payment at any hour of the day. Even the tried and true solutions like help hot lines are integrating new technologies by answering questions over instant messenger applications.

These changes are not taking place because they are quick and easy to implement, rather students have come to expect these services. At my institution, 96% of undergraduate students have their own personal computer and practically all of our students started using a computer before they were sixteen. These students can't remember life before email or Amazon.Com and are used to living in a "24/7" environment. Without the limits of business hours or physical proximity, students are used to sending messages to friends, buying a CD, even registering for the SAT. Imagine the horror of the student who calls the university registrars office asking what website he should visit to update his address only to be told he must come into office in person to fill out a form.

Administrators also have growing expectations of technology. At GW our administrators are aware of the paper trail students must follow to complete administrative tasks like requesting housing to registering an event and are constantly looking for ways to reduce the work involved. They're also taking notice of examples from the business world where e-commerce systems are allowing companies to serve a larger customer base while reducing the cost of transactions.

As our administrators have become more comfortable with technology they're able to recognize cases where a database or information system could benefit their department. However the same staff members perceive that their lack of a technical background means that they are not qualified to create or suggest a new database for their department. While the average administrator might not be able to sit down and write a database for their department from scratch, they have the unique insight of understanding their departments' procedures and more importantly the shortcomings in the procedures. It's this kind of knowledge and analytic insight that drives the systems development process, not the knowledge of a particular technology. Even if a university has an accomplished systems development group, chances are they have a limited understanding of the day-to-day activities of a Campus Life or a Dean of Students office. Any technology group will be just as reliant on your knowledge as you will be on their technical expertise.

Finding technology resources

Unfortunately there aren't as many commercial solutions available to student affairs divisions. Try to think of two software companies that provide student and course management software. Easy enough, right? Now try to name two companies who provide judicial affairs management software, or how about student organization event planning software. It's not quite as easy. Solutions to meet the needs of student affairs departments aren't going to have the lucrative margins that an installation of a campus information system like Banner would have, nor is a university likely to walk away from their installation of PeopleSoft because it can't manage their growing number of student organizations.

Without commercially available products, student affairs departments can turn to their institution's internal systems development group for assistance in developing the perfect solution for their department. This too can be a challenging process: Although the IT staff understands how developing and supporting on-line class selection will save the university time and money, it's less clear how developing a judicial affairs management system would be a good use of their time. If you are able to convince the team to work on your project (or if you're at an institution like GW that's fortunate enough to have a technology group dedicated to working with student affairs), there is probably a disconnect between what your department does and what the systems developers understand your needs to be. Recently, GW undertook the process of making housing selection available on line. At an initial project meeting with the development team, the process seemed simple: A student logs in, sees a list of available housing, and selects the room they would like. As the project progressed and the two departments collaborated, the simple process turned into a 55-page document of policies and procedures. The developers were surprised that so many rules governed what they understood to be a simple process and the housing staff, having never seen all of the selection procedures written out, was able to spot inefficiencies and streamline their process.

Proposing a systems development project

To guarantee your idea for a new database, information system, or on-line process gets the attention it deserves, start to develop a basic proposal. This document can be used to help senior level administrators, systems groups, and even outside vendors understand the needs of your department. A convincing proposal doesn't need to be written by a technology expert or even include technical jargon, it should provide a clear picture of how your department operates and what efficiencies you hope to gain by developing a new system. As you create your proposal don't worry about the specific technologies that will be used to create and deploy your solution, it's likely that administrators will not care about these details anyways.

When drafting your proposal, here are some important questions to answer:

• What system is currently in place?
  If your office is looking to automate existing processes, describe the process and any policies and procedures affecting the processes in depth. The goal is to give the reader a comprehensive idea of how your department operates and all of the intricacies involved in its operations. This section will often be used to determine the scope of a project, so it is important to include as much detail as possible.

• What are the problems with the existing system?
  This is one of the most exciting parts of the planning process: It provides an opportunity to solicit staff and student feedback on the way a department operates. It can also be one of the scariest, as many people may come up with their own ideas of how to restructure the existing system. Try to stick to problems that can be overcome in this section. For example if you are looking to automate a paper-based process, a problem with the existing process may be that hand entering forms into the computer is time intensive. One problem that is affecting many departments across student affairs today is scalability, or the idea that the same number of staff members is expected to meet the needs of a growing student body.

• What solution are you proposing to address the problems with the existing system?
  In this section give an overview of how you envision the new system overcoming the problems identified in the existing system. If possible, refer back to your description of the existing system and point out specifically how processes would be affected.

• How will the new system improve upon the current system and further the mission of the department and the institution?
  Having a new technology solution for your department to use is exciting but unless it helps to bring your department closer to its mission, the new system will be of limited value. Be sure to consider all stakeholders when looking for benefits of a new system. An information system that manages judicial work flow may not directly improve the lives of students, but it would allow judicial affairs officers to spend more time working with students and less time on administrative matters.

• What are other institutions doing in this area?
  There is a good chance that a similar department at another school had experienced similar shortcoming in their system at one point or another. It may be worthwhile to point out successes and failures these schools have had in trying to implement new systems in your area.

• Is there a potential for cost savings with a new system?
  Without knowing all of the technologies and work it will take to develop the new system, it's not possible to determine how much your department can expect to save (or lose) over time. It is possible however to determine how much your existing system costs which can be helpful when looking at the cost of a new system.

• What is the timeline for developing a new system?
  Once again it's too early to tell how long it will take to develop a new system, but it is possible to determine when a new system would need to be in place if it is to be successful. In the case of a once-a-year process like housing selection, a new system should be in place in advance of the planned selection season or for an ongoing process like a judicial affairs management system a new system should be in place in advance of the fall semester. Regardless what purpose the system is going to serve, be sure to pick dates well in advance to when a system will need to be used so there is time to educate staff and students of any changes.

What happens next

With a solid proposal and support from your senior administrators, it's time to contact your systems development group. After hearing your proposal it is possible that they may not be able to develop a system to meet your needs. In this case, ask if the group might be able to develop part of the proposed system or if they could suggest an alternative solution that would be less demanding of the group's time. If the the group is still unable to meet your needs, there are still other ways to make your proposal happen. Try contacting other departments that may be interested in developing a similar system; by pooling resources it may be feasible to hire a contractor to develop the system. If funds are scare, try approaching academic departments that deal with Computer Science or Information Systems and ask if they would be willing to have students design your system for academic credit.

Once you have secured a person or team to build your system, it's time to collaboratively develop a comprehensive project plan that will outline all of the requirements for your system. Developers may take different approaches to creating a project plan and it's likely that the plan will go through several revisions, but you should make sure that your plan includes the following points:

• Requirements for the finished system
  This will most likely be a list of statements that start like "The system will be able to..." Make sure that everything you require the system to do is included in this list, as it will be much harder and potentially more expensive to go back and add features later.

• Cost of developing the new system and any ongoing maintenance costs
  If your department is paying for the development of your new system, look for a detailed breakdown of labor, hardware, and software costs involved. Make sure that there is some discussion of how cost overruns will be handled and if there will be a fee for ongoing support.

• Detailed timeline
  Make sure the developer has planned enough time for you to give feedback and thoroughly test the system.

• Implementation strategy
  This part of the plan will outline how your department will transition to the new system. If part of your existing system involves a database with information you will need in the future, make sure the implementation strategy deals with how information will be transferred to the new system.

• Communications plan
  A description of how your office will interact with the development team; how often you will communicate throughout the project.

• Fallback plan
  If for some reason it turns out that your system is not feasible or cannot be completed on time, have a "Plan B" ready to go. This may be continuing to use the existing system, scaling back the planned system, or something completely different.

• Support procedure
  Work out who will be responsible for providing technical support for the system and how it will be administered. Also make sure there is a plan for how the system will be maintained after it goes live.

• Evaluation methods Before development begins on a project, make sure you have some way to gage the system's success. One method of evaluation might be to examine the new system's usage statistics after its first month of operation or looking for changes in the volume of a department's walk-in traffic.

After your developer has started work on the project, it is important to be an active participant in the development process. It's important to provide requested documentation and answer developer's questions in a timely fashion, as one missing piece of information could hold up the entire development process. If your department is thinking of changing a policy or procedure that might affect the new system, check with your developer to make sure the new system will still be able to meet your needs.

Implementing the New System

While the system developers will probably be handling the installation of the technology driven portion of your new system, it is equally important to manage the new system's human aspects. As early in the development process as is possible, start to develop a list of end users and stakeholders who will need to be educated about the new system.

When introducing a new system it is important to gain support from end users, as your system will be of little good if staff members decide not to use it. Hopefully during the proposal development process staff members were able to give feedback on the existing system and are excited to see improvements. Building on that enthusiasm, keep staff members involved in the development process by keeping them up to date on system developments and showing them prototypes of the new system as they become available. Also develop a training schedule that will allow staff members plenty of time to use the system before it goes live; the time users have to practice with the system the more likely it is that technical and procedural bugs can be worked out before the system goes live.

If students will be interacting with the new system, whether they are working directly with the technology or having to adjust to new procedures, it is imperative to help students understand how they will benefit from the new system. In GW's transition to on-line housing selection, the housing staff members regularly met with the Residence Hall Association and held open forums to explain the new system to students and solicit their feedback while the system was still in development. This approach won over the support of student leaders who were able help others understand the new system. By the time housing selection marketing materials like posters, newspaper advertisements, and websites appeared students already knew the selection process would be changing and where they could find out more information about new procedures.

Finally be sure to have a solid plan of how the actual transition will take place. Despite your best planned efforts, when the system does go live staff and students will probably still have questions or run into problems. Make sure that when the system goes live there are plenty of staff members available who can provide technical assistance or who can contact the developers in case of problems. It's also a good idea to review the fallback plan with the staff to ensure that if there is a problem that requires the new system to be taken offline that your department can continue operating until the problem can be corrected.

Ongoing Maintenance and Evaluation

The hardest part is now over: You have a new information system that has been integrated into your department's operations, the bugs have been worked out and the excitement around the office is beginning to die down. It is important however to regularly touch base with your systems group to review how the system is working out for your department. It's also important to perform the evaluations outlined in the project plan to ensure that your department is reaping all of the benefits the new system was supposed to make possible. If evaluations show that the system isn't living up to expectations, it may be possible for developers to tweak some parts of the system to better meet your needs.

Conclusion

Identifying situations where the implementation of technology-based solutions can befit student affairs departments is a process that all staff and administrators can undertake. Like any new experience, there is a learning curve involved and you are bound to encounter challenges, but partnering with an experienced systems development group will allow you to focus on planning a system that will best meet the needs of your staff while letting someone else worry about the technology needed to make it happen.


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Reprint from Student Affairs Online: http://www.studentaffairs.com/ejournal