Annual Report AY 2016 - 2017 - University of Houston · Annual Report 2016 - 2017 Page 4 of 13...

Annual Report

AY 2016 - 2017

Student Contact

•Orientation

•Welcome Center

•Phone Center

Curriculum Development

•Academic Catalogs

•PeopleSoft Updates

Scheduling

•Class Schedule

•Classrooms

•Events

Residency Determination

Enrollment Processes

Enrollment Certifications

•Student/Personal

•Athletics/NCAA Eligibility

•Veterans' Benefits

Transcripts

Degree Conferral

•Decisions

•Diplomas

Annual Report 2016 - 2017

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1 Overview:

The Office of the University Registrar (OUR) is responsible for maintaining, securing and insuring the integrity of student academic records. OUR provides essential student record, enrollment, and curricular services to current, former, and prospective students, faculty, and staff. These services include but are not limited to class schedule development, classroom scheduling, enrollment, verification of enrollment, transcript production, creation and maintenance of academic calendars and final exam schedules, certification of veterans for educational benefits, athletic academic certification, residency determination, degree conferral, diploma production, verification of degrees, student academic standing, FERPA compliance, catalog and curriculum management, etc. In addition, OUR identifies, reviews, procures, and implements technological enhancements to provide the best possible service experience to the people we serve.

2 Mission statement:

The Office of the University Registrar supports student access and success and institutional excellence by maintaining the integrity of academic policies and student educational records, insuring compliance with university policies and state and federal rules and regulations.

3 Departmental FY17 Goals

Identify and implement technology that will enhance the transcript order and fulfillment process by providing an online mechanism for former students to place orders. The technology must include mandatory payment at the time of order with multiple delivery options including but not limited to electronic PDF, XML, and SPEEDE as well hardcopy overnight and first class mail. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2e, 6e

Status: TranscriptsPlus and RoboRegistrar was acquired, tested through Fall

2016 and implemented January 12, 2017. UH students may request official

transcripts via a link in UH Webpage (for students who do not remember their ACCESS log in)

or via a link in their Student Self Service.

Manual - UH Staff

TranscriptsPlus/RoboRegistrar

Note: service able to continue during University closing

Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug HARVEY

8/25-9/5

Student Requests

Completed 2522 2288 2526 3033 2456 3188 3232 3226 5627 4424 3957 3868 534

# of transcripts 2871 2585 2852 3459 2805 3657 3614 3558 6186 4881 4423 4289 590

Favored by global employers, UH students may request a secured PDF version of their official transcript, to ensure an immediate availability of their academic credentials. An interesting side-bar note to this reporting period, is recent Harvey Hurricane events, that prevented staff and students from accessing campus resources, did not stop the ordering or delivery of official transcripts.

Implement certified PDF diploma option. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2e, 6e

Status: On waiting list with Paradigm, our diploma printer.

Work with the Faculty Senate’s Graduation and Professional Studies Committee (GPSC) and Undergraduate Committee (UC) to modify business practices, processes, procedures in order to publish academic catalogs prior to the opening of early enrollment for the academic year in which the catalog will be effective. DSAES Strategic Initiative 6a


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Status: In Progress. The UC and the GPSC with OUR guidance and direction, are refining

business processes in an effort to meet the university-wide goal to publish academic catalogs

prior to the beginning of Summer/Fall enrollment each April.

Undergraduate Academic Affairs alongside the UC, the GPSC,

Institutional Research, and OUR are participating on the Provost’s

Academic Programs Planning Committee to collaborate on process

streamlining and timeline establishment to acquire the necessary

adoption of Curriculog at the Provost level. Further review and modification of business

processes and practices will continue until the publishing goal is met.

Implement electronic workflows and automated processes to perform procedures related to students' academic information. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2b, 6e

Status: In Progress. Major change approval workflow under development. This initiative had

reached a preliminary testing phase but was put on hold as a result of the UHD implementation

hiatus on all UHS modifications.

Develop and implement an NCAA Tracking page in myUH to improve accuracy and speed in athletic academic certification processes. DSAES Strategic Initiative 6f

Benefit: NCAA Tracking is impactful because the Athletic advisors and the OUR Athletic

Academic Certification Specialists must spend hours on student athletes’ academic records in

order to certify for NCAA participation. This process usually takes the

OUR department an average of 30 minutes per student. With the new

process the OUR department will be able to cut that process time in

half. This new process will be used in many different departments on

campus to help certify Athletic certification. The new tool consolidates

academic information needed for certification from nine different

PeopleSoft pages to a single page. Eliminating this excessive navigation reduces processing

time by a minimum of 15 minutes per student.

Status: Development completed. Testing was completed by Fall of 2016. Training of UH

Athletic Administrators and Athletic Counselors was completed successfully in Spring 2017.

Deployed Summer 2017.

Additional edits to the NCAA Tracking were identified during training; edits were tested and

implemented during Summer 2017 to ensure audit trails and Athletic Counselor access was

working as required. This custom component is being used full-time to certify 468 UH

Athletes prior to every game in which each athlete is expected to participate. If an athlete

participates in ten games, he/she will be certified ten times. An additional requirement,

announced by NCAA during the recent 2017 national conference, requires certification of all

“walk on” aka “red shirt” student applicants not yet admitted but who may be eligible to play.

The time saving gained by the use of this tool to more accurately certify and record (audit

trails) on certification in a timely manner is being used to ensure that this cohort is also

certified. These applicants do not have UH records and certification must be completed on a

case by case bases via data made available through the National Student Clearinghouse

records.


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Identify and implement an enhanced class schedule building tool for students and advisors to minimize the time required to find classes that fit into a student’s schedule and meet the requirements of their degree plan. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2e

Status: College Scheduler’s Schedule Planner was acquired, tested and implemented March 20,

2017 for the Summer 2017 and Fall 2017 enrollment cycles.

UH College Schedule Planner Activity: Su17 Fa17

Logged into UH College Schedule Planner 11593 …

*Sent choices to Enrollment Cart 490 3532

*Enrolled from Enrollment Cart 317 3111

*Did not send choices to Enrollment Cart 11103 8033

OUR team members attended New Student and Transfer Student Orientations to promote the

Schedule Planner tool, in addition to web demonstrations that were made available to

Academic Advisors, Administrators and UH Students via UH web page links. About one third

of the enrollment populations have taken advantage of this tool to date. We hope to increase

these numbers with greater promotion efforts by our Academic Affairs partners. Fourty-five

UH Academic Affairs Administrators have requested access to take advantage of data analysis

tools showing student use of the tool. The data available includes most popular and least

popular sections, and provides administrators the ability to promote sections in the student

search for strategic enrollment outcomes.

3.6.2.1 Long term: It is our goal to better inform Curriculum decisions with data analysis tools of

this nature. Establish baseline to evaluate success of class schedule building technology

enhancements. DSAES Strategic Initiative 4b and c

4 Utilizations Reports

Please see data tables.

5 Assessment Projects

Establish baseline to evaluate success of technology and/or business process enhancements. DSAES Strategic Initiative 4b

Action Steps: Compile and analyze data per term for years prior to and post-revision of degree

certification process change.

Status: Data proves that greater efficiency is a result of process change.

Support student success through implementation of electronic workflows, automated processes, and business process evaluation/redesign to perform procedures related to students' academic information.

Status: Please refer to section 3.4 in this document.

Implement the NCAA certification tool. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2b, 2e, 4b


Implement College Scheduler. DSAES Strategic Initiative 2b, 2e, 4b


https://share.uh.edu/rar/Shared%20Documents/OUR_DSAES_Annual_Reports/AY16-17_Data.xlsx


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6 Areas for Continuous Improvement

Organization and Leadership

Growth and opportunities

6.1.1.1 Vision

6.1.1.1.1 The vision of current leadership is beginning to come to fruition, having created

efficiencies and allowed for processes to be restructured.

Critical Challenges

6.1.2.1 Reorganization

6.1.2.1.1 The organization of the department needs to respond to the efficiencies by

restructuring so that new and improved goals can be established.

6.1.2.1.2 The planned reorganization was put on hold due to the state hiring freeze.

Human Resources


6.2.1.1 Position reclassifications

6.2.1.1.1 Entry-level positions have been upgraded to more accurately reflect the skills and

experience required for the positions. The goal is to minimize attrition due to steep

learning curve and volume processing by offering higher wages and attracting more

qualified staff.

6.2.1.1.2 Job Analysis Questionnaires for five staff were submitted to HR.

Critical Challenges

6.2.2.1 Vacancies

6.2.2.1.1 Vacant positions must be filled faster in order to maintain morale because all

positions have a high-volume productivity requirement and when positions are

vacant it creates excessive burden/stress on remaining team members.

6.2.2.2 Professional Development

6.2.2.2.1 Staff would like more opportunity to collaborate with other areas of Enrollment

Services and DSAES as a whole by attending trainings offered on campus. The

demands of the workload currently do not permit this.

Technology


6.3.1.1 Curriculum Maintenance

6.3.1.1.1 OUR serves an integral role in the access to, maintenance and

integrity of student records, to which the maintenance of

curriculum is connected, and now has knowledgeable leadership

that are able to assist in creating greater efficiencies by increasing

responsibilities for SIS maintenance. With adequate support,

OUR can streamline the updating of curriculum within

PeopleSoft so all processes that depend upon this information can transact more

timely and accurately.

Critical Challenges

6.3.2.1 Campus Solutions Support / Developer availability


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6.3.2.1.1 Process improvement depends on the entire team to be available. Resources that we

depend on that are only available at the system level must be expanded so there is

no loss of progress because of another system institution’s priority. This is the

difference between surviving and thriving.

6.3.2.2 Services for Veterans

6.3.2.2.1 The posting of tuition and fees at an earlier date must happen in

order for veterans to secure their benefits prior to the start of the

term.

6.3.2.2.2 Degree Progress Reports must be accurate and updated sooner in

order for more efficient processing of VA certifications.

6.3.2.3 Degree conferral process

6.3.2.3.1 While considerable efficiency has been created by improving the internal process

for reviewing graduation applications, there is still more that can be done to

decrease the amount of time to review a students application. Changes in how the

updates to curriculum foundations are made, as well as individual exceptions,

within the SIS will prove to dramatically reduce the decision making process time

requirement for OUR as well as the colleges.

Partnerships


6.4.1.1 Automated Processing

6.4.1.1.1 Creating forms and workflows that keep data within the SIS and automatically

update records when decisions are made is criticial to the

student experience and satisfaction. The UAC has requested an

automated “one tool for all” to reduce lost paperwork and

eliminate the need to have students walk all over campus. Faster

delivery of these tools/forms is critical to the continuance of our

partnerships with academic affairs.

Critical Challenges

6.4.2.1 Responsiveness

6.4.2.1.1 OUR must respond more quickly to critical needs of academic affairs partners in

order to maintain transparent relationships (eForms)

6.4.2.1.2 OUR must include Academic Affairs partners, as key stakeholders, in the decision-

making process for process developments, rather than informing them of the

changes after implemented.

6.4.2.2 Support

6.4.2.2.1 OUR needs support from Provost and other leadership in order to enforce policies

(scheduling, curriculum development deadlines, catalog publishing deadlines) so

that services to students can be delivered as expected.

7 Budget/Fundraising/Grants

Credentials Solutions TranscriptsPlus Implementation

TranscriptsPlus went live January 12, 2017. Added value includes the ability for students and

alum to


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7.1.1.1 have their transcript delivered as a secure PDF via email to anyone with a valid email

address

7.1.1.2 request special services such as overnight delivery and notarized transcripts for

apostilles.

National Student Clearinghouse 3rd-Party Student Credential Verification Surcharge

The National Student Clearinghouse collects a surcharge from third-party entities verifiy

credentials that is in turn paid to OUR. In Spring 2016, that surcharge was increased from $6

each to $10 each. This generated an additional $60,000 in revenue. This helped lessen the

impact of the recent budgets cuts.

National Student Clearinghouse Verifications

Degree verifications 15,978

Current Enrollment transactions 24,034

Dates of Attendance 1793

Total Verifications 41,805

8 Marketing Highlights

Schedule Planner

Partnered with DSAES Marketing and Communications team to announce the Schedule

Planner to faculty, staff and students through print material, facebook posts and tweets.

Partnered with DSAESIT to host first live webinar for division using supported tools

(Lync/Skype) in order to train faculty/staff and students on how to use Schedule Planner.

9 Staff Highlights—See Appendix A

10 Collaborations/Partnerships (in support of DSAES Strategic Initiative 6)—See Appendix B

11 Department Points of Excellence

OUR launched a class schedule planning tool to help students quickly identify and enroll in class sections that work with their personal needs and helps schedule administrators identify course demand in order to respond timely with resources.

Credentials Solutions’ TranscriptsPlus was selected to provide on-demand, web-based access to submit transcript requests to every current and former student regardless of the location of the student data. The system is available 24/7/365 and transcripts can be delivered even when the university of closed. Delivery methods include secure, tamper-evident PDF as well as traditional methods, thereby decreasing delivery time so that students have a competitive edge in the job market.

Checklist use has been expanded, allowing students to upload supporting documentation, such as Bacterial Meningitis compliance records, Residency documentation, VA documents, and Grad student-initiated drops, without having to come to campus.

12 Department FY18 Goals

See OUR strategic plan

Work with the Faculty Senate’s Graduation and Professional Studies Committee (GPSC) and Undergraduate Committee (UC) to modify business practices, processes, procedures in order to publish academic catalogs prior to the opening of early enrollment for the academic year in which the catalog will be effective. DSAES Value 3, 5, 6

https://share.uh.edu/dsa/SA_AssessPlan/Shared%20Documents/Strategic%20Plan%20Mapping/OUR%20Strategic%20Plan%20Mapping%20Report%20FY17.docx


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Implement electronic workflows and automated processes to perform procedures related to students' academic information. DSAES Value 3, 5

In support of Academic Affairs administration partner with the UH academic advisement community to assume the responsibilities of oversight of Academic Advisement Security, daily maintenance of the degree progress report component, setup tables, and all related processes. DSAES Value 3, 5, 6


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Appendix A

Staff Highlights

Personnel Updates

Promoted

Jean Palmquist, Records Associate 1

Miranda Lindsey, Records Associate 1

Iqbal Haider, Program Manager

Angelia Irving, Records Analyst

New

Sunitha Tanga, Application Developer 4

Karina Acuña, Program Manager

Ashley Brown, Records Associate 1

William Swanson, Records Associate 2

Presentations, Involvement/Oversight and/or Awards and Recognition

National

12.3.1.1 American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO)

12.3.1.1.1 Member: Debbie Henry, Cassandra Heavrin, Truman Glenn, Amy Ramirez, Jay

Hills, Corey Hampton,

12.3.1.2 Higher Education User Group/Alliance (HEUG)

12.3.1.2.1 Member: All Staff

Regional

12.3.2.1 Southern Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, Member

(SACRAO)

12.3.2.1.1 Member: Debbie Henry, Cassandra Heavrin, Truman Glenn, Amy Ramirez, Jay

Hills

12.3.2.2 South Central Higher Education Regional User Group (SCHRUG)

12.3.2.2.1 Annual User Conference, Conference Chair: Amy Ramirez, Tracie Briscoe

12.3.2.2.2 Annual User Conference, Conference Committee Member: Corey Hampton

12.3.2.2.3 Presenter: Student Self Service Initiated Term Withdrawal with Work Flow”, Jay

Hills, Angelie Irving,

12.3.2.2.4 Presenter: Tracie Briscoe

12.3.2.2.5 Moderator: “Student Records BOF”, Cassandra Heavrin,

12.3.2.2.6 Moderator: “Student Panel”, Tracie Briscoe, Amy Ramirez

12.3.2.2.7 SCHRUG Conference Volunteer: Debbie Henry, Truman Glenn, Iqbal Haider,

Annie Aguanno, Karina Acuña

12.3.2.3 Gulf Coast Consortia Institutions

12.3.2.3.1 Registrar’s Work Group: Debbie Henry

12.3.2.3.2 University Registrar’s Representative: Corey Hampton, Jemal Moore

State

12.3.3.1 Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (TACRAO)


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12.3.3.1.1 Member and Mentor: Debbie Henry

12.3.3.1.2 Member: Cassandra Heavrin, Truman Glenn, Amy Ramirez, Jay Hills, Curtis

Wallace, Corey Hampton,, Jemal Moore, Kristoopher Butler

12.3.3.2 Texas Common Course Numbering System (TCCNS)

12.3.3.2.1 Board Member: Debbie Henry

Institutional

12.3.4.1 Faculty Senate’s Undergraduate Advisors Committee (UAC)

12.3.4.1.1 Provide information to committee to make informed decisions; solicit feedback on

processes and events and create improvements based on articulated needs

12.3.4.1.2 Administrative Advisory Member: Debbie Henry and Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.2 Faculty Senate’s Undergraduate Committee (UC)

12.3.4.2.1 Proactively review curriculum proposals sent to committee and provide

information to committee to make informed decisions.

12.3.4.2.2 Ex Officio Member: Debbie Henry and Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.3 Faculty Senate’s Graduate and Professional Studies Committee (GPSC)

12.3.4.3.1 Proactively review curriculum proposals sent to committee and provide

information to committee to make informed decisions.

12.3.4.3.2 Ex Officio Member: Debbie Henry and Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.4 UH Calendar Committee

12.3.4.4.1 Draft institution academic calendars for review by committee.

12.3.4.4.2 Voting member: Debbie Henry, Truman Glenn, Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.5 UHS Student Affairs and Enrollment Services Leadership Conference

12.3.4.5.1 Presenter: Student Self Service Initiated Term Withdrawal with Work Flow”, Jay

Hills

12.3.4.6 UH Summer Assessment Symposium

12.3.4.6.1 Presenter: “Business Process Mapping: Primer”, Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.7 DSAES External Review Committee

12.3.4.7.1 Children’s Learning Center ERC - Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.8 DSAES Committees

12.3.4.8.1 Professional Development Committee Member: Amy Ramirez, Annie Aguanno

12.3.4.8.2 Assessment Committee Member: Curtis Wallace

12.3.4.9 Other Division Staff Engagement

12.3.4.9.1 Enrollment Services “The Voice of ESCC” contest - department winner - Amy

Ramirez

12.3.4.9.2 DSAES holiday event “Ugly Sweater” contest winner - Amy Ramirez

12.3.4.9.3 DSAES “Holiday Bakeoff” winner - Amy Ramirez

Intentional Staff engagement with students outside of job duties

Cougar Move-In

12.4.1.1 Tracie Briscoe

Cougar First Impressions

12.4.2.1 Tracie Briscoe, Annie Aguanno, Iqbal Haider, Amy Ramirez, Miranda Lindsey


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UH CFSL - Fraternal Excellence Program

12.4.3.1 Amy Ramirez

12.4.3.1.1 Character Interviewer

RSO Advisor -

12.4.4.1 Amy Ramirez

12.4.4.1.1 The Point/Cougars for Christ

12.4.4.1.2 Canterbury Ministries

12.4.4.1.3 Alpha Kappa Delta Phi

Frontier Fiesta Cookoff

12.4.5.1 Debbie Henry—Chili, Fajitas, Beans, Chicken, Ribs, Brisket Judge


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Appendix B

Collaborations/Partnerships

(in support of DSAES Strategic Initiative 6)

Internal to the Division of Student Affairs

Partnered with DSAES Marketing and Communications team to

12.5.1.1 announce the Schedule Planner to faculty, staff and students through print material,

facebook posts and tweets

12.5.1.2 create information flyers for the new transcript process.

Partnered with DSAESIT to host first live webinar for division using supported tools

(Lync/Skype) in order to train faculty/staff and students on how to use Schedule Planner.

Collaborated with Dean of Students office, Career Services, and Commuter Student Services in

order to host a pop up event during which we educated students on the process and dates for

applying to graduate while also informing them of different university services offered after

graduation.

Worked with Campus Solutions Services (CSS) to

12.5.4.1 establish checklist items

12.5.4.1.1 Residency Affidavit

12.5.4.1.2 VA CH31

12.5.4.1.3 Student Initiated drop

12.5.4.2 Transition Student Records (SR) security role

Created training and feedback opportunities for Student Financial Aid, Admissions, Student

Business Services, and the Cashier’s office on the implementation of the new transcript

process.

External to the Division of Student Affairs

Consulted with the Graduate School to create and train all graudate advisors on the Student

Initiated Drop Form Checklist Item

Partnered with the Provost Office to allow OUR to assume responsibility for Military

Withdrawal determinations.

Worked with Barnes and Nobles to establish a streamlined process for veterans receiving

Chapter 31 benefits for books and supplies.

OUR Catalog and Curriculum Management team maintains relationships with every program

director, department chair, associate dean, faculty senate curriculum committee, and

administrative advising committee at both the graduate and undergraduate careers, as well as

the Provost’s Office, which amounts to at least 134 active partnerships with academic affairs

leaders. The result is an increased understanding of complete curriculum development by the

curriculum decision makers and an influence for the change to the timeline of curriculum

decisions.

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