2006 Campus Technology Innovators: Student Information Systems
TECHNOLOGY AREA: STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Innovator: University of North Texas Health Science Center
ALEXANDER: UNTHSC’s SIS is
keeping
medical students ahead of the curve.
Challenge Met
As at most medical schools, the large class
sizes and lecture environment at the University
of North Texas Health Science Center
meant little faculty-student interaction.
Individual students at extreme ends of the
performance curve easily attracted faculty
and administrators’ attention, but the
majority of students floated from matriculation
to graduation anonymously.
Yet, at the Texas College of Osteopathic
Medicine (a component school of UNTHSC),
administrators wanted a better way to track
students, and protect them from academic—
and financial—pitfalls. “The average indebtedness
of a medical graduate is more than
$110,000,” says Jerry Alexander, director of
academic information services at UNTHSC.
“When a student is assisted through a
proactive approach and is able to successfully
graduate, the large investment of the
student, as well as the state of Texas, is protected.
Our goal is ‘no medical student left
behind.’”
Alexander and the Academic Information
Services team stepped up to the plate to
design and implement a comprehensive
online student tracking system.They focused
on bringing all reports into real-time, electronic
delivery: As soon as a student exam is
graded, that information is immediately
available online, integrated into his complete
academic record, with full drill-down capability—
from pre-admission data through the
most recent test grade. So much data now is
available that a full counseling report for a
fourth-year student can run over 15 pages.
To cut data interpretation time, visuals are
a prominent report element. Scores are colorcoded
to reflect deviations from the class or
national mean, and deviations are presented
in bar charts, using the same colors. “If I see
a lot of yellow on the report, I know I have a
student in jeopardy,” says Bruce Dubin, associate
dean for medical education,“and if I see
a lot of green, I’m dealing with an excellent
student.” In addition, says Alexander, the color
coding aids in developing and applying academic
policies. “A student with two yellow
bands on a grade report for a semester will
automatically be referred for academic assistance—
thus at the first sign of difficulty, students
are being directed to our academic
counselors for guidance.”
How They Did It
At the inception of the project, Alexander
and his team looked for technologies that
met five key criteria: 1) internet-based; 2) a
strong underlying database; 3) integrated
graphics capability; 4) a robust middleware
component allowing native connections to
multiple data sources; and 5) strong business
intelligence features, including data
visualization and rule-based color coding.
“Information Builders’ WebFocus met all of our
requirements,” says Alexander.
A major design driver was navigability, says
Alexander—a program so intuitive, the entire
user manual could be written on the back of
a postage stamp. Also key: Color and graphics
would complement or replace text wherever
possible.
Next Steps
The Academic Information Services team
continues to fine-tune the tracking system,
looking for ways to create a more complete
picture of each student. “We plan to expand
the project’s scope to include more ‘soft’ qualitative
information about students (such as
their extracurricular activities, interests, and
career goals) to complement the ‘hard’ quantitative
information,” says Alexander.
Advice
“Have a broad vision of what you want to
accomplish, but start small and then
expand,” says Alexander. “For example,
begin by migrating paper-based, in-process
grade rosters to an electronic format. Then
identify new audiences for data that was
previously needed but not accessible.”
He also points out that there can be a second,
unanticipated audience for such a project:
students themselves.“We were surprised
at the level of support and enthusiasm for the
project among students. As administrators
began using the report, news of the project
spread among students and they began to
come in and request a counseling session.”