Evaluation Results & Feedback
for the 2007 VCS Competition

1. What month would be best for holding the competition?
   Feb.      47.2%
   Oct.       24.4%
   Mar.      11.8%
   Nov.      10.2%
   Apr.       6.3%
   
   
2. How helpful was the Virtual Case Study section on the StudentAffairs.com Web site in providing information about the competition:
   5      14.4% (Very Helpful)
   4      47.2%
   3      31.2%
   2      5.6%
   1      1.6% (Not Helpful)
   
   
3. How would you rate the presentation of Virtual Case Study pages of the StudentAffairs.com Web site?
   5      9% (Very High)
   4      45.1%
   3      38.5%
   2      5.7%
   1      1.6% (Low)
   
   
4. How would you rate the instructions for putting together your presentation?
   5      7.9% (Very Good)
   4      38.1%
   3      38.1%
   2      9.5%
   1      6.3% (Poor)
   
   
5. Did you feel you had enough guidance as to what you needed to accomplish
   Yes:     54.8%
   Almost, but not quite:     34.1%
   No:      11.1%
   
   
6. How difficult was the case study?
   5      5.5% (Very Difficult)
   4      39.4%
   3      45.7%
   2      8.7%
   1      0.8% (Very Easy)
   
   
7. How would you rate the advertising of the Virtual Case Study to Masters programs?
   5      4.7% (Very Good)
   4      29.9%
   3      40.2%
   2      18.9%
   1      6.3% (Poor)
   
   
8. Did you feel you and your teammates had enough time to put together your Proposal?
   Yes:     74%
   No:     26%
   
   
9. How would you rate the usefulness of the information you gathered for the case study competition?
   5      25.2% (Very Useful)
   4      48%
   3      17.3%
   2      8.7%
   1      0.8% (Not Very Useful)
   
   
10. At what level would you rate that your expectations for the case study competition were met?
    5      9.4% (Met - high)
    4      46.5%
    3      29.9%
    2      11.8%
    1      2.4% (Not Met - low)
    
    
11. How much time do you think your team spent on the case study?
    4-6 hrs:     9.4%
    6-8 hrs:     16.5%
    8-10 hrs:     31.5%
    10+ hrs:     42.5%
    
    
12. Overall, how worthwhile was the case study competition?
    5      20.5% (Met - high)
    4      45.7%
    3      24.4%
    2      7.1%
    1      2.4% (Not Met - low)
    
    
13. What would be your overall rating for the Virtual Case Study Competition?
    5      7.1% (Met - high)
    4      54.3%
    3      33.1%
    2      2.4%
    1      3.1% (Not Met - low)
    

• It allowed a team to work together and brainstorm about ideas that will or may be affecting student affairs.
• The sense of teamwork and leadership. In addition, the application of coursework to practice.
• team work assessing goal and achieving through designated deadline
• Got to learn about new and exciting topics in students afairs dealing with technology. And got work with some of my favorite people in my graduate program.
• Providing the first two topics were very helpful because it served as a guide for what types of topics should be considered.
• I enjoyed the opportunity to come together with my peers and share our knowledge of student affairs with each other. It was a terrific group work experience, as well, it encouraged us to learn more about technology and the ways in which it impacts student affairs.
• I think the most positive aspect of the case study competition was working with my friends to complete it. This semester has been very busy, and we have not had alot of time to spend together.
• The opportunity to research a relevant topic in student affairs and relate it to our own specific concentrations and interests (counseling, campus communicity, residence life, career counseling, etc).
• Good experience outside the realm of what we typically do in our student affairs courses.
• got to work with diverse group of people
• The opportuity to learn about different aspects of technology that affect student affairs professionals. It was very insightful to learn more about institutional spama and blogs.
• I was able to become more in tuned with current technological factors in higher education because of our research.
• Research different areas/componets of Student Affairs work.
• I really enjoyed that it got us thinking about things that are relevant, but we might not think about in our classes. I also really enjoyed the topic this year, and felt it was more applicable to a wider population base than last year's topic. I particularly enjoyed learning about wikis :)
• We learned a great deal - thanks for this opportunity!
• It was definitely a pertinent issue. I think as young professionals who are more tech savy, we often forget that other generations may not be aware of the impact that certain media is or could potentially have on higher education.
• Allowed me to work with other graduate students outside of class.
• It's good practice for my future profession in student affairs. It made us address issues that we might not normally expect to face, and we thought about something we use all the time (computers, internt) from a different perspective.
• research project outside of homework gave me time to spend with my friends that we may not have taken otherwise opportunity to study something we might not have talked about in class
• The ease of the online format
• . It was a new and interesting topic that has been receiving increasing attention in higher education. It was a good opportunity for some "out of the classroom" work.
• The subjects that were given to us and we were allowed to choose can be used on our campuses in the future. We will be able to present this infomation to people on our won campus.
• The case study allowed myself and teamates to come together to discuss issues studied in class and to go deeper with the information.
• I learned a bit more about technology in higher education and student affairs.
• Team work and room for creativity
• Good professional development experience.
• Current topic related to student affairs that will assist me in my job search and future studies.
• Learning how to do case studies.
• Ability to use my experience.
• Working within a group, for an outside source...very exciting!
• The information given was pretty helpful. Instructions were clear
• The teams were allowed to be large enough to encompass enough thought but not too large where you felt like you couldn't get anything accomplished.
• It was a great way to get together with my classmates and address a critical issue in Student Affairs outside of our classwork.
• Working with my team. - Learning about new topics in technology. - Increased knowledge and understanding of Student Affairs theories.
• I liked working on a team to pull our resources together to try to come up with the best possible solution. It was also important to take on vantage point, you had to always remember that you were creating this presentation for a group that is out of touch with technology.
• I learned something new.
• It was easy to split up between team members
• Breadth of topic Good amount of time Good time of year
• Collaboration and developing further understanding of student affairs and the use of technological advances to make gains in higher education.
• It was challenging. It forced us to think outside the box and try and figure out a way to stand out from the other groups.
• good teamwork. was a topic not often covered in grad. classes, so that was helpful for outside of the classroom information/knowledge.
• None.
• It was fun. It was good preparation for the competition at naspa.
• It made me think critically about an important issue in higher education. I had the chance to collaborate with people from my Master's program. It made me enage in reseasrch.
• It gave me a sense of something I might have to do once I am a full time administrator.
• Relevant topic.
• Being able to look into a topic that relates to what we do on a daily basis. Working on a team. Finding new research venues.
• The topic was very interesting and allowed me the opportunity to think about technology issues aside from facebook for a change
• I believe I will reuse the information and I will deal with the issues discussed.
• Relevant topics
• Learning the material and creating a working relationship with my team members.
• Very relevant question o It was helpful having the results and work of previous groups to see what had been done in the past
• Time to work on project outside of a classroom experience but with classmates who shared similar interests.
• It forces us to look at some of the hot topics in Student Affairs right now.
• Participating in the case study allowed me to learn SO much about the topic. It wasn't a topic that I had a lot of knowledge on from an administration perspective. Great applicable to real college life/real college issues.
• The timeline was perfect. Having a long weekend at the end of the case meant that we had time to work on final touches and adjustments, without having to worry about homework at the same time.
• The case study was an opportunity to gather information that was practical to issues facing higher education. It was good practice to then present this e-mail in a way that had practical applications.
• It allowed for autonomy in subject matter.
• working with team members to discuss ideas for competition 2. viewing other presentations from previous competitions 3. receiving a case study question to formulate your presentation on
• It's fun and a good change of pace to apply theory during our graduate program.
• I like the fact that it is virtual. It is another option to the usual quick case studies.
• Not too time-consuming (in that there is no conference to travel to, nothing to personally present, etc.) Lots of leeway in what we are doing, how we do it Negative: You cannot convey an appropriate amount of information via slides (well, you can, but it defeats the purpose of power point; it should be used as a presentation aid, not as the sole presentation medium).
• a unique application of litereature and practice; it stretched my mind in the sense that it asked me to deal with issues that i normally will not deal with
• Getting together and putting a presentation that deals with higher education issues/future challenges.
• the fact that it is done using powerpoimt
• The topics were relevant and challenging. I appreciated that the team had to choose three additional topics to present on. I feel this not only challenged the students but also look into a administrative perspective to see how a campus and specific departments could be affected by these "hot topics".
• It put our team in contact with emerging technology, and based on how well we are evaluated, it might create some valuable resume experience
• The topic is relevant to our work in student affairs; it always helps to learn about trends in technology. It a great way to apply theories we've been discussing in class.
• working with classmates, thinking about new issues & determining what issues are important
• the need to work in a team; the utilization of relevant theory and research
• I learned a great deal about some topics that I will continue to utilize as a professional.
• The opportunity to work with others to work through a current issues facing student affairs and higher education.
• Great opportunity to work with classmates and to learn about current issues in student affairs
• . I like the fact that I had to present information on something that was new to me.

• The topic this year required to much on a broad spectrum. Having five technological aspects to talk about was very difficult to organize; however it was accomplished by my team. We could have easily done 15+ slides a piece on each of the topics, so maybe in the future if a case study question like this is used, there should be more specific directions on how to approach it.
• The StudentAffairs.com website on case study information should be updated. There needs to be more active publicity about the competition.Also, the judging criteria should specify if meeting the time deadline is considered on scoring the presentation.
• the time frame of only a week was a challenge, especially for my group b/c we are all full-time graduate students. i do understand that perhaps that is part of the case study is to see how well your group functions under a specific time frame.
• THIS TOPIC WAS EXTREMELY HARD. I am anxious to hear how this is going to be evaluated as the only way I see this being done is subjectively. 5 topics as opposed to 1 was very extreme. I do not understand why this route was chosen. Can you PLEASE limit this to 1? I'd rather do a good job with 1 topic then a bad job with 5!
• More narrow topic
• I believe if the case study were offered in January it would be better. During the spring semester many conferences are held for student affairs professionals and graduate students. The majority of these conferences begin in Feb, therefore perhaps one month earlier would be a little better. Other than that, I believe the competition is great.
• I think that the case study should be less of a research project, and more of a problem or situation to solve.
• Perhaps offer it in January or April -- this specific case study fell during 'midterm' week at our university on the quarter system -- January or April would be the beginning of a quarter, making it easier to focus on the study.
• Make the topic a little more specific. It was too broad this year, and was difficult to fit all of the information being requested into 1.5 MB of space. Also, define the role of the advisor on the website as several schools seemed to have confusion as to what the advisors role should be. Needs to be consistent for everyone.
• assign groups instead of eople working with friends
• I think allowing one more week would be helpful.
• I didn't feel that the subject matter was a true case study. It seemed to be more in line with a research problem.
• More direction Extention on time Move to March
• Perhaps more guidelines as to whether you want all the information in the power point (as if the presentation is a "guided lesson"), or if you want it as if we would be presenting it. Because I think that makes a difference.
• Would love to see a topic that allowed the teams to showcase their talents in putting together student programming in addition to knowledge of current topics.
• I felt like it was a bit too vague and too generalized. I wish a function of the study related to technologies use in higher education specifically and its impact on the future.
• More communication. I did not know that the case study competition was delayed. I did not receive an email nor was the website helpful. The most emails I received was about this survey
• Different Month
• I felt the topic was very broad this time, as opposed to last year. Some people might enjoy that...but I felt like it was too broad and found it more challenging.
• Specify which version of software should be used for the case study. Example; MS Office 03 vs MS Office 07
• it felt more like a research project than an actual case study. i was anticipating being given a situation or actual project that needed doing, as opposed to an information hunt. also, a thought.. make a requirement that if a school has more than one team, each advisor can only work with one team.
• I was expecting a real case study. This seems like a proposal memo for administrators and not a case study. There are so many great issues in higher education and this technology question did not strike me as a case study, especially when our graduate program is based on understanding, evaluating and writing case studies.
• Provide reasonably, sensical directions. You had a clear vision for a final product that not all of us might wanted to produce. And how the hell do you "embrace" institutional spam?
• Hold the competition during a different time of year. February is an extremely busy mont -- preparing for upcoming events/activities with organizations, many departmental commitments, many academic commitments, preparing for attendance at professional conferences, etc.
• The amount of material that would need to be covered to do each subject justice whould be far to much to fit into the file size we were given. It is not feasible to have a single presentation on any five topic for the group of people we were told we were presenting to. The amount of information would have been overwhelming to a group of people who bearly know how to access email.
• I would have more explicit directions on the website prior to the competition. Also perhaps examples of past case study questions to give teams an idea of what they were getting into. I also feel that the size limit for the powerpoint was very limiting especially for a technology driven presentation. Many of our creative ideas were simply not feasable because of the limit to the size of the powerpoint file.
• Our team noticed that last year's case study was more of a "case", with more background info, name of a case university, and with more detail about what was to be created. This year, the case seemed to be thrown together at the last minute without any forethought. I would like to see an actual case with details and then have to come up with a solution.
• More time/better timing of the study
• It was difficult because here in Ohio, we had a snow storm that shut down the campus and most cities for 2 days, making getting together nearly impossible. We had to put together our presentation completely through email communication. It wasn't the best thing.
• More interesting topic? It was misleading if the "Deans Council" was academic or student affairs, although it might have been intentionally vague. Larger file size for powerpoint. If you want to add a few images, it adds up qickly.
• more guidance in what a powerpoint looks like that isnt being presented. An idea of how many slides are appropriate
• better advertising to the masters programs
• Allow teams to submit supporting information in the notes section of the PowerPoint. The way it is right now, the slides get waaay too cluttered.
• This was my first one, so I must say that I was pleased with it!
• Focus more on how technology is misued on campus, using a case study. Instead of how to use technology.
• A better understanding of how a team can present their data with limited knowledge of powerpoint.
• - Perhaps give more time for groups to complete their presentations, as my group had a hard time scheduling meeting times amidst our busy schedules (we all work and study at the same time). - This suggestion may be already in place but, since I don't know what happens on March 5th (it's my first time participating in this competition), I thought I'd mention it anyway. I would appreciate receiving feedback on my group's presentation (whether we won or not), as to what we could have done better.
• The only thing I didn't like was institutional spam as a mandatory choice. I think that made it challenging but it was such a bland topic.
• I think I was expecting to have to solve a problem. I'm not sure if that should be a change, but it's an observation.
• It wasn't really a case study. It was a presentation on technology.
• More clarity in directions, make things more explicit
• More guidance. But that is something that was a good challenge in the competition as well.
• Don't be as vague about the question. I'm sure that was part of the challenge was having to narrow down the infinite amount of technology affecting higher education to three topics, but it was almost too vague. For example, podcasting and mp3's are similar... do they count as separate topics or can they be the same?
• a little more time to prepare. i didn't find that blogs are that current of a topic, so that made it difficult to view it as a new technology.
• The case study would be difficult regards of what month it takes place in because it conflicts with schoolwork. The summer months would be the best. Two weeks is not enough time when you are working 30 hrs/wk, going to class, and doing schoolwork. The case study was extremely poorly written. It did not identify a target audience or even say who we, the case study group, were supposed to be. The fact that e-mail and spam were identified as "hot topic" in technology is insulting. The case study provided little to no room for creativity. From my experiences participating in other case study competitions and looking at the case studies from previous years, this was the worse case study I have read.
• I would prefer to make a brochure or full report or tape a live real presentation. Powerpoints are old.
• More explicit in expectations and rules/regulations. I was unsure as far as what was meant by, self-contained...does this mean, no links? It was challenging and somewhat ambiguous.
• I think the question was a little vague. My team members and I had a hard time understanding what exactly was meant by "institutional blogs." Also, 5 topics in technology is a lot to cover. I think it would be better to cover one/two topic(s) in-depth, rather than skim the surface of 5 topics.
• I think, for me at least, it would have been better to do towards the beginning of my masters degree to know what I needed to work on in the future.
• More directions would be helpful. Additionally, picking "5 Hot Topics" was too much to cover in depth in a power point presentation.
• February is a very tough month for us; this semester is overloaded at our assitanships. We were very busy with work and school so it was difficult to dedicate the appropriate amount of time to make it worthwhile.
• This question seemed too broad. I think it had great intentions but maybe 3 instead of 5 topics would have been better
• It could be a little less intense. My group felt very overwhelmed after we began gathering information and putting the presentation together.
• Clearer directions, outlined very specifically. The topic was very broad and hard to determine what exactly was wanted.
• More advertisement
• Receiving feedback on how our case study was preceived (however this is my first time participating, so this may already occur)
• n/a
• Needs to be better advertised. We heard about it by luck honestly. One of the team members stumbled on the opportunity. Perhaps add in an estimated number of hours spent on the case study in previous years. This will help ground the group in what they will be undertaking. We spent more than 20 hours on the project between research, putting the presentation together and editing it.
• My team was a bit thrown off by the format of the case, because it did not follow a traditional case study format, which would have included a series of issues developing on a campus, involving key students and staff members, and a set of problems that must be addressed. Perhaps following a format used at other competitions would be helpful.
• I feel that the use of PowerPoint is a difficult presentation medium through which to work. In my experience, PowerPoint is used as a presentation tool to compliment information being given verbally, and is not usually independantly exhaustive in its content. It was a challenge to make the PowerPoint an independent project without any other means of expressing ideas (in, say, a paper or hand-out).
• We found difficulty in researching five separate topics in the period of time and constraints of presentation (file size). We felt that we could have done a full presentation on any one of the five topics we chose. Focusing on three or less would have allowed us to leave the competition with a stronger cohesive understanding.
• I would recommend using an actual case study instead the "presentation" situation that was given.
• Allow more time (at least 3 weeks) to work on presentation! Be more specific with case study guidelines (i.e. research articles must be no more than 5 years old)
• The question was WAY too broad this year. It wasn't a "case" study becuase there was no actual "case." There needs to be something more than just "pick 5 things to present." This was an unrealistic situation and thus was not directly applicable to my development as a student development student.
• Come up with a more interesting topic. I felt like the topic was just restating basic information that most people already know and even if the case study required the restating of basic knowledge at least make the end result of the case study something like a tutorial or training workshop for the Dean's Council other than just explaining email or spam. I believe more thought and innovation could have gone into this competition!
• I would like to see a competition that utilized written solutions to the case study with a supplemental powerpoint. Also, in viewing last years winners and those who did not even place, I would also like to see a more comprehensive "how we judge" section; I disagree strongly with some of the presentations that placed over those which did not.
• February is usually a busy month. I think that it would be better to have it in March.
• one extra week would be helpful
• I think limiting the time to a week would be great. However this is the "season" when all student affairs programs have "outreach" programs to recruit students into master level programs. If the competition would continue in this month then 2 weeks is needed, if it was moved to an earlier month then 1 week would be appropriate.
• Remove the flie size limitation and the "self-contained" limitation on the ppt file
• The timing is never good; February just does not seem to work well. The topic seemed to be more open which provided for some creativity, but it was difficult coming up with ideas for technology trends. Also, I felt there could have been more direction on what criteria the judges would be using. It would have been difficult for me to know what to do had I not participated in the virtual case study last year.
• The instructions were sometimes confusing. For example, we were to include details of the benefits of our campus embracing a topic. We wanted to cover some things that were less topics/technologies to embrace and more issues about which the campus should be aware.
• i would like to see more of a focus on some original research...i know it's a short time period, but that would be interesting...also, some more specific directions would have been helpful
• Some of the information was very vague. For example, Dean's Council could have been explained in more detail, because the needs of the council would be different if it was a council composed of faculty or administrators.
• Clarify how you would like sources displayed in the powerpoint (full APA citation at the end of the slide it's on, in text citations followed by a slide devoted to citations, etc.) and how important proper APA citations are to the evaluation
• Longer time to complete the case study More detailed directions
• Different case studies that focus on problems of the new generation of students.