LAAP...Our beginnings

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Assumptions

A critical base assumption in developing these products was that they would benefit all students, not just distance learning students. From the understanding that we were building online resources for students (not resources for online students) we made critical decisions in product development and service delivery. Another important factor was to create a real-time service which was integrated into and took advantage of our current systems.

Shifting Student Services Model

Traditional Model

New Model

Functional silos

Segregated departments and processes

Lack of communication across departments

Lines and multiple offices

Limited access (8/5)

Bureaucratic, paper-driven processes

Sometimes-inconsistent information

Cross-functional teams

Integrated systems, organization, and processes

Cross-trained teams

“One or None” philosophy

Anytime and anyplace (24/7)

One source of data, electronic

Consistent information, integrated, and common interfaces
Martha Beede & Darlene Burnett, The Compelling Case for Change, Planning for Student Services: Best Practices for the 21st Century, p. 9. Society for College and University Planning, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1999.

Background Information

Video clip by Ellen Waterman The Beginning: Our Challeges

Video clip by Ellen Waterman
 The Beginning: Our Challenges

This project was really about using information to improve student access to and being prepared for academic advising. Of particular challenge in this process was creating a single system powerful enough to achieve the desired end and yet flexible enough to accommodate the diversity of administrative needs across campus. Regis University consists of three colleges. The two non-traditional colleges participated in this process. The system required accomodation of multiple academic calendars, different admission requirements, and different stages for advising needs.

An additional challenge was increasing system resources to support universal online access logins for all applicants. This meant building an IT infrastructure to support ALL applicants and students instead of the partial current student participation. Thus a critical consideration at all steps was to create a system which allowed for a planned growth of the system capacity.

An item identified of particular neglect was informing new students of the library and its services and getting passwords for those resources. Internal communication of new students to the librarians was nonexistent. Students were not being informed of the process for applying for a library card, or being told about it but not following through on it.

Feel free to review the website for the first three years of the project.


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