Portal to the Rescue: First Year Information Copyright William P. Wilson This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

Portal to the Rescue: First- Year Information William P. Wilson, PhD Director of Web Technology S. Mark Sikes Director, Student Activities & First-Year Programs Gettysburg College

Context of Problem  Gettysburg College mails forms to matriculated students end of May  Receive those forms throughout the summer  Distribute copies or excel reports of those paper forms to departments needing the information (e.g., registrar, housing, Music, Student Senate, College Bookstore)

Issues with Existing Process  Keeping track of form submission; some duplicates crept in  Getting information in timely manner  Reading information on forms  Rekeying of information by summer employees for use in other offices  Required students to write name, address, phone, etc on all 11 forms – data we already knew about them

IT Suggested Improvements  Replace paper process with electronic forms and pre-populating forms with data we already know  Provide tools to administrators for them to see their own data, edit it if needed  Provide real-time reports  Integrate into our portal to allow for proper personalization

Office of First Year Programs Actions  Accept recommendations of IT, but replicate the paper forms and paper will also be sent to students  Student employees convert all paper submissions to electronic form so other improvements (e.g., reporting) will be available.  Required fields check, support credit card and check payment options

Goals  60-70% electronic returns  Show intelligent use of College data to students and their families  Provide data to offices in a more timely, cleaner manner  Get new students used to interacting with the campus portal, campus  Reduce training time once on campus

Timeline  Started consulting with offices in February  Coding began in March  Iterations in April  Testing in May  Launched end of May  Report writing throughout summer

Design Considerations  Incremental saving of form information  Upon final submission, forms locked and available in read-only format  Replicate paper form as much as possible but eliminate fields we already have data for  Personal information that is different from what we have is flagged and reported to office responsible for that data  Easily accessible technical help and FAQs  Integrate two other systems seamlessly

Sample Forms

Outcomes  97% electronic submission  Improved business process with the on- demand reports  More participation in programs in the forms (volunteer day, optional trips, t-shirt purchase, subscriptions)  Impress families with support when needed  Provided a mechanism to use our data intelligently – Advising an example

Integrate Data in New Ways

Where we go from here …  Go fully electronic, paper forms on request  Take advantage of electronic format and improve design  Additional reporting requirements  Better integration with our ERP systems

Conclusions  Good collaboration  More confidence in technology solutions in this area  All goals met or exceeded Training reduced CNAV use increased Students/parents impressed with service Offices pleased with results