Critical issue 2: Student experience, prospects through alumni

How technology can support the experience for prospects, students, alumni, donors, and supporters in interacting with the campus.

A tabular presentation of this information is available in PDF form: Student experience — prospects through alumni.

Student experience 1: Service demands and expectations of students are outpacing the current service delivery models.

Description

The needs of (a) students who are considering a Berkeley education, (b) current students in various stages of their educational career, and (c) alumni, need to be fully integrated into the mechanisms that determine project prioritization, funding needs, and funding allocations.

Historically, student systems focused on enabling staff who provided service to students. A self-service model requires addressing the needs and expectations of many unique student audiences that change frequently.

Examples of this issue

  1. There is a lack of quality information to under-served communities on UC admissions and eligibility.
  2. There is no prospect management system for undergraduate admissions; there are many prospect referrals but there is no way to follow up effectively (and personally) with students.
  3. The current processes are cumbersome, involving too many different disparate system interactions.
  4. Customers often have to go through a unit to get information that would be nice to have readily available.
  5. The current funding model is based on a 1970 model of student services.

Goals for this issue

  1. The number of qualified and admissible applicants from under-served communities increases.
  2. The quality and diversity of the student body increases.
  3. The retention rates increase and "time to degree" lengths decrease.
  4. The students are more aware of campus resources and opportunities, resulting in a greater sense of community, stronger leadership skills, and, ultimately, more success in a diverse, global society.
  5. The students engage in technology assisted self-service, increasing the amount of time staff spend on value-added interpersonal connections.
  6. The student service models and funding mechanisms remain current with student demands and expectations.

Current actions taking place to meet goals

  1. GLOW (Grad-Link on the Web).
  2. uPortal pilot.
  3. myBerkeleyApp (for new undergrads).
  4. DarWIN.

Future actions needed to meet goals

  1. Annual survey of incoming students (including graduate students) that assesses their student service expectations.

Student experience 2: The importance of revenue generated from students, parents, and alumni has changed considerably.

Description

As the reliance on student fees and alumni gifts increase, we need to keep our customers happy.

Students are willing to support fee referenda for campus-based fees when the fees pay for benefits that they directly receive.

New projects are easy to identify but hard to execute and fund.

Examples of this issue

  1. Alumni giving at Berkeley is among the lowest of our peer public institutions.
  2. The interface between student and alumni systems is inefficient.
  3. Alumni data is often more accurate in decentralized databases.
  4. IT support for parents of current students is minimal.
  5. The majority of our peer institutions have IT fees dedicated to funding student services.

Goals for this issue

  1. The level of parent and alumni giving increases.
  2. Student support for new fee referendums increases.
  3. The students routinely network with active alumni volunteers.

Current actions taking place to meet goals

  1. Enhanced undergraduate parent information collection.

Future actions needed to meet goals

Student experience 3: Students are best served by staff and faculty who have access to student information that is seamlessly integrated and used throughout the campus.

Description

The current infrastructure is unable to effectively support new initiatives, including new faculty teaching and learning programs.

The individuals making up the student body change each year as classes graduate and matriculate.

There are many different profiles of students with unique needs.

Many different systems are required to gain a full picture of how to best provide service.

Critical data are not available and critical processes are either not automated or are incompletely automated.

Core data and systems do not follow standardized structures resulting in an inability to report, access data, and build integrated systems to support customer needs.

Student data and logic do not flow across multiple systems so students, faculty, and administrators can make reasonable decisions.

Examples of this issue

  1. Current systems provide minimal information for decision support.
  2. Accessing and interpreting data related to students is difficult.
  3. We are not collecting and coding all relevant data.
  4. There is no single data identifier for reporting, tracking, and services on financial aid, payroll, admissions, and academic preparation (outreach) systems.
  5. Data is inconsistent among academic preparation (outreach) programs.
  6. Systems are not designed at the outset to be scalable beyond the immediate function or customer group.
  7. Redundant shadow systems are attractive or the only viable option for decentralized departments.
  8. Supporting student data in SAMS (financial aid database) is not "real-time".
  9. There is no integrated system on academic preparation (outreach) programs and no efficient way to match to OUA prospects.
  10. Training is needed on the use of features in new and improved systems.

Goals for this issue

  1. The student data warehouse is widely used to help with key administrators' decision making.
  2. Learning management systems seamlessly integrate with core student data.
  3. Central and decentralized systems share a common data architecture/infrastructure thus eliminating the need for redundant or batch-updated shadow systems.
  4. Service counter staff provide quick and efficient service using an integrated student system with minimal lookups to assist students.

Current actions taking place to meet goals

  1. Pilot student data warehouse

Future actions needed to meet goals

  1. Rearchitect the campus data warehouse infrastructure to support data from a wider variety of systems, especially student and alumni systems. Permanent integration of student and alumni data should be prioritized at the highest level in this project.

Student experience 4: Students are best served when the University can officially account for all students with the State, and demonstrate its compliance with the growing range of regulations and policy changes in many areas including student enrollment, financial aid, athletic eligibility, homeland security, and others.

Description

UC Berkeley student systems have pockets of aging applications and underlying technology. System inflexibility prevents meeting faculty and student needs. The situation is worsened by a mix of legacy, nonscalable systems and multiple technology platforms.

The workload required to demonstrate legal compliance is largely manual and undermines the staff resources that would otherwise be engaged in enhancing student services.

Shadow systems are necessary to compensate for the lack of a centrally supported reporting system.

Legal and policy changes occur rapidly with little time for staff to implement changes. Simple tasks such as changing fee levels are laborious due to hard-coded data architecture.

Examples of this issue

  1. Term-specific student services are not integrated with F&S.
  2. Summer Sessions is not integrated into the registration system.
  3. Maintenance of 30-year-old systems is consuming 40 percent of staff time, therefore little R&D can get done.
  4. There are currently 300+ items on OR's change list for SIS.
  5. Maintenance costs are increased due to the age of the technology.
  6. Flat-file, hard-coded, transcript and fee assessments systems.
  7. Systems are weak from a modern architecture and security standpoint.
  8. Multiple technology platforms require too many skill sets.
  9. There is no leave of absences and readmissions tracking system.
  10. There is no data and reporting on cross-listed courses and secondary sections for faculty workload reports to the State.
  11. The information is not available in a timely way. There is often a long cycle time.
  12. There is no central roles or identity management system for applications.

Goals for this issue

  1. Replace 30-year-old legacy applications with applications that address current needs and are regularly updated to address future needs.
  2. Timely compliance with externally mandated polices.
  3. Most resources are expended on the development of new functionality instead of on legacy maintenance.
  4. Student data privacy is protected as student data usage expands.
  5. Census of students using campus resources is accurate and real-time.

Current actions taking place to meet goals

  1. Census workgroup.
  2. Sevis / FSA implementation.
  3. FERPA training.
  4. NCAA compliance.
  5. DSAS.
  6. Online withdrawals.

Future actions needed to meet goals

  1. Roadmap for the replacement of legacy systems.