The Evolution of Technology
and Student Affairs
Lindsay Blair, Jane Duffy, Stefanie
Landsman, Colleen Ruppert
University of Connecticut
“In order to foster student development,
information technology must encourage and
foster the development of social connections
between and among individuals and groups.
Rather than replace the college campuses,
information technology must be designed to
strengthen and expand on the college learning
community.”
-Treue & Belote, 1997, p. 22
Program Overview
•
•
Introduction
Technology and its Impact on Student Affairs:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
•
Marketing
Customer Service
Community Building
Interactive Multimedia
Assessment and Evaluation
Closing Thoughts
Computer Technology Timeline
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1984: Apple introduces the Macintosh computer
1985: Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released
1987: Email link established between Germany and China
1990: Toshiba announces the SPARC LT, the first SPARC laptop computer
1990: First Microsoft Windows of PowerPoint created
1991: World Wide Web launched to the public
1992: Jean Armour Polly coins the term “surfing the Internet”
1994: Yahoo! created
1995: DVDs invented
1996: More email is sent than postal mail in the US; Google created
1997: America Online Instant Messenger (AIM) launched
1998: Internet weblogs (blogs) begin to appear
1999: Napster created
2001: iPod introduced by Apple
2004: Facebook.com created
2007: Microsoft SharePoint Server created
Introduction
Today’s Students
• The use of technology is a key characteristic of the millennial generation,
students born between 1980 and 2000 (Raines, 2002).
• Today, traditionally-aged college students often have technology seamlessly
woven into their daily lives and take it for granted.
The Numbers
• In a 2007 study conducted by the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research
(ECAR), 98% of the 27,846 college student respondents reported owning at
least two technological devices, most typically a cell phone and computer
(Caruso & Salaway, 2007).
• In respect to using these forms of technology, students reported a mean of
18 hours per week and median of 14 hours per week.
• Approximately 6% spend more than 40 hours per week engaging in some
type of online activity (Caruso & Salaway, 2007).
Professional Considerations
• For student affairs professionals today, this creates both challenges and
opportunities for engaging students and enhancing current programs and
services.
Reaching Students
Marketing
Purpose:
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketing is
“the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing,
promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create
exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.”
Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that the
organization continues to meet the needs of customers and benefits
from the relationship with the customer.
Marketing is usually focused on one product or service. Thus, a
marketing plan for one product might be very different than that for
another product.
Each student service is a product whose value is determined by the
marketplace, college students who frequently question the purpose of
these services and other administrators who wonder how to measure
their effectiveness (Culp, 1987).
Marketing
Past
• In the past materials promoting student services included brochures and
flyers, reaching students and parents through direct mailings and postings.
• However, printing is expensive and wastes both human and environmental
resources. Posting flyers is not an effective way to reach students, and this
static form of marketing may not be accessible to the entire student
population.
Present
• The interactivity of websites allow for bi-directional communication between
students and student affairs professionals. Now, a larger number of students
can have access to the information provided by a department website.
• Customers know where to go and expect to find information about services
on designated sites.
• College networked sites give access to multiple services in one location.
• Emails, list-serv information, online college events calendars, and
advertisements on student-run television and radio stations are effective
marketing methods of increasing student awareness about available programs
and services.
Using Web Sites for Marketing
• Today, the internet is the
first place people look to
find information about a
college.
• Mission statements,
services, locations, and
professionals can all be
located on a college
website (Greenfield,
2007).
Successful Student-First Websites
• Developing a successful website to promote student services requires three
distinctly different skill sets: (1) Excellent technology (2) Superb graphics (3)
Meaningful content.
• Typically one individual would not possess all of these. For example, an IT
specialist, graphic designer, marketing specialist, and Director of Student
Activities all contribute specific knowledge.
• Creating a cross-functional web-management leadership team with a variety
of skill sets enables a college to incorporate various skills and talents in order
to provide students am effective centralized location for receiving
information.
• For example, creating a common user-friendly website where each student can
personalize the information they wish to receive. In addition, designing one
format for all websites at the college would create a streamlined visual
experience for users.
• However, “the challenge is to make it easy to do business with the
organization in any way they want, at any time, through any channel, in any
language or currency and to make [students] feel that they are dealing with a
single unified organization that recognizes them at any touch point” (Pirani
and Salaway, 2005, p 9).
From Static to…?
Why do I have to print
this form? Why can’t I
fill it out on the
website and email it to
you?
Four stages of website
development on a college
campus:
Stage One  Websites include the
conversion of static brochures and
program information to electronic
formats. This is also known as oneway publishing. Anything in paper
format can be posted online. Many
departments create separate sites
with little coordination between
other departments and services
(Kleeman, 2005).
Where Many Colleges Are Today
Stage Two  Websites become more
interactive and transactional. The ability to
conduct business, such as filling out forms,
ordering and receiving services, and paying
fees are incorporated. Information is still
organized based on departments and not
personalized for each user.
Stage Three  Websites are experienced
differently by each student. Personalized
and customized websites allow the user to
receive information based on their needs
and wants. This begins to establish a more
personal relationship between the student
and the institution.
This is fine, but I
just want to talk to
someone online right
now!
Customizable Websites and Beyond
Fourth Stage  Websites are highly customized. The
use of interactive formats such as e-portfolios, video
demonstrations, and instant messaging with student
affairs professionals allow for the development of
relationships and an enhanced community
(Kleeman, 2005).
This is great! The
website lets me access the
information I need and
chat with a career
consultant.
Serving our Students
Customer Service
Customer Service: assistance and other resources that a company
provides to the people who buy or use its products or services.
Role in Student Affairs:
• Personal interaction has been the main means of providing student
services.
• This is a crucial feature; however, technology offers many
opportunities to complement and streamline some aspects of student
affairs work, which would result in more quality time to interact with
students (Moreno, 2007).
• This enables customer access at the student’s convenience. This is
particularly important with the millennial generation.
• With increasingly more online course offerings, providing adequate
student services through technology is necessary.
Customer Service and Technology
Past:
• Many services were provided by paper and pencil, such as record
keeping, copying, database management, and registration forms.
• These have been moved to digital platforms. While the process
has not changed, the use of technology has increased efficiency
of these processes (Barrett, 2001).
“Systems and services need to appear seamless... Students need
to be able to access their personal information on-line through
some self-service technology… students can have access to their
personal records and information 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
This reengineering of service processes gives the student access
to the right information quickly and efficiently.”
- Aoki & Pogroszewski, 1998, p. 5
Student Affairs Examples
•
Career Services: Alumni network
– Create an alumni network for career opportunities, internships and job postings for alumni
and current students.
•
Counseling and Mental Health: Virtual counseling center
– Provide students, faculty, and staff with an increasingly important resource for efficiently
delivering content and services.
•
Student Activities: Club and organization information
– Provide online resources for student organizations and advisors.
Student Activities: Scheduling events
– Provide direct access to students to post events on a campus-wide activities calendar.
•
Student Affairs: Student involvement transcripts
– Create an application to track student involvement with clubs and organizations.
– Utilize online portfolios.
•
Student Affairs Information Technology: Customized homepage
– Create website based on an individual’s interest: For example, a psychology major can have
the department news and updates on the side of his or her homepage.
•
Student Health Services: Appointment scheduling
– For example, provide direct access to students to schedule appointments with student health
services.
•
Student Union: Online room booking
– Provide direct access to students to book rooms.
– This increases student involvement and empowerment.
Customer Service and Technology
Additional benefit:
• In addition to increasing efficiency, many offices have saved paper products and
money on mailings because information and services have been moved online (Barratt,
2001).
Potential challenges:
• Student affairs professionals may not be adequately trained to incorporate technology
into their work to the degree of expertise that students expect.
• Need for improved speed, reliability, and support of services provided online.
• Increase awareness about how students differ in their technological ability and
ensuring that resources are accessible to all students (Caruso & Salaway, 2007).
• Often there is limited communication and coordination between offices, with some
offices lacking strength in providing customer-service.
• Typically academic and service units are organized into vertical functional silos, but
students are best served across horizontal functional silos (Kleeman, 2005).
“If that experience is convenient, efficient, and student-centered, they have a positive
reaction. If it provides a virtual runaround and inaccurate or outdated information,
they have a negative one.” - Shea, 2005, p. 15
Building the Campus Community
Community Building
“Community is no longer defined as a physical place, but as a set of
relationships where people interact socially for mutual benefit”
- Andrews, 2002, p. 64
Purpose:
• Community building happens in the context of interactions between
student affairs professionals and students on a campus. It is important
in the higher education realm to improve student engagement and
retention as well as information sharing between professionals.
• “Key reasons people participated [in community activities – in person
or online] were to fulfill personal needs, to learn, and to advance the
common good” (Ludford et. al, 2004, p. 632).
• “Cohesive web-based services and community-building tools are no
longer a convenience; they are a necessity that is critical to student
achievement” (Blackboard, 2007, n.p.).
Evolution of Community Building
Past:
• Social networking was limited to primarily your own physical
community prior to the wave of technology and computer access.
• According to Mitrano (2006), initial forms of social networking
technologies included programs such as: online multiplayer games,
bulletin boards, news groups, and mailing lists.
Present:
• These initial technologies are nearly outdated, but provide a relevant
backdrop to newer websites such as MySpace, Friendster, and
Facebook.
• As technology advances, people continue to have the opportunity to
make connections around the world.
• Online communities have become a social norm among students.
Student Affairs Examples
•
Blackboard/Vista
– Online training for judicial affairs and resident assistance courses.
•
Facebook, MySpace, Friendster
– Student organizations can advertise events on Facebook.
– Many new student orientation programs discuss the ethical components of online social
networking.
•
Customized Websites
– Resident assistants can create their own webpage to advertise events, send updates, and
collect feedback from residents.
•
iStudentAffairs.com, LinkedIn
– Student affairs professionals at different institutions can share resources and discuss hot
topics.
•
Departmental Software: Judicial Action, The Housing Director, etc.
– These programs are used within a department to share information regarding students’
housing or judicial standings.
•
Microsoft SharePoint
– A new tool used across institutions that enables file sharing, online committee work, group
discussions, and blogs.
•
Second Life
– An online 3D virtual community that allows students to simulate interactions with others
through personal avatars (virtual personas).
A Closer Look
“Facebook is nonetheless the most significant [social networking technology] to higher
education because of its original focus on the college or university market.”
- Tracy Mitrano, 2006, p. 22
Facebook:
• Prior to online social networking, students came to college and had a bound “face book” for all
first-year students including name, photo, area(s) of interest, and hometown.
• Today students typically set-up an account on Facebook before they even arrive on campus for
first-year move-in.
Areas of Interest for Student Affairs Professionals:
• Online social networking raises questions about personal safety, content moderation, and the
relationship between institutional missions and the millennial generation’s expectations of privacy.
• Institutions are receiving many roommate change requests before students arrive on campus
based on Facebook impression of the assigned roommate, resulting in some institutions “placing
a moratorium on roommate change requests…until a required period of time spent living
together” has been met (Mitrano, 2006).
• Colleges need to be clear about how these social networking sites may impact their student
employee hiring process.
• Administrators need to be upfront with the consequences of online computer policy violations
for both students as well as faculty and staff.
• Student engagement can be enhanced by utilizing social networking technologies such as
Facebook because of students’ reliance on technology.
The Wired Campus
“The only way to discover
the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them into
the impossible.”
- Arthur C. Clarke, Technology and the Future
Interactive Multimedia
Purpose:
• Student affairs utilizes interactive multimedia to engage various
learning styles by presenting information in ways that stimulate
different senses.
Past:
• Programs, services, and information were presented through lecture,
one-way, and linear communication techniques.
Present:
• Computer programs (PowerPoint), multimedia downloads, blogs,
vlogs, instant messaging, podcasts, webinars, touch screens, interactive
kiosks, and online trainings all promote active learning.
• Companies such as e2Campus provide colleges with a mass
notification system utilizing text messages, emails, digital signage
throughout campus, loudspeakers, PA systems, and school websites in
order to create a safer and more connected campus community.
Multimedia Definitions
• Blog: provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as
personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to
other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.
• Vlog: a blog whose medium is video.
• Instant messaging: a form of real-time communication between two or
more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers
connected over a network such as the internet.
• Podcast: a collection of digital media files which is distributed over the
internet, often using syndication feeds, for playback on portable media players
and personal computers.
• Webinars: a type of web conference that can include polling and question
and answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the
presenter.
Why are these useful?
– Provide bi-directional forms of communication, which allows for
opinions and immediate feedback.
– The language used can be more informal and digestible (Dowdell, 2006).
Blogging Limitations
• Time can be wasted
reading and creating
ineffective blogs.
• Validity of source:
– authors opinions may be
biased.
– posting may not always
be appropriate and/or
reflect the views of the
institution.
– information may be
incorrect (Dowdell,
2006).
Student Affairs Examples
• Orientation Services
– Student orientation leaders blog about their experiences on campus.
• Judicial Affairs
– Downloadable video segments help students understand the judicial
process.
• Career Services
– Students can blog about their internship experience or use instant
messaging to receive immediate feedback on questions.
• Student Health Services
– Staff create podcasts of quick recipes for healthy eating.
• Residence Life
– Downloadable PowerPoint presentation about life on campus with movie
clips.
The Evolution of Assessment
Assessment and Evaluation
Purpose:
• “Assessment is a means for focusing our collective attention,
examining our assumptions, and creating a shared culture
dedicated to continuously improving the quality of higher
learning” (Angelo, 1995, p. 11).
• Assessment is critical for student affairs professionals in order to
demonstrate the value of their programs and to continue to
receive funding, support, and room for growth in their
institution.
• Technology has revolutionized the way student affairs
professionals:
1. Evaluate programs and services.
2. Provide assessments for students.
Assessment Areas
Program Assessment: provides the opportunity for the evaluation
of what services and programs are currently doing, how well
they are accomplishing goals, what is still needed for students,
and the potential for growth in their program.
Web-based Surveys:
• Utilized by student activities, residential life, dining services,
academic departments, and other student services programs to
obtain feedback from students on programs and services.
• Statistical analysis programs, such as SPSS, revolutionized the
ability for professionals to assess greater numbers of
respondents and utilize the information more efficiently.
Assessment Areas
Individual/Self Assessment: is the process of gathering
information about yourself or an individual in order to make an
informed decision. An individualized assessment could include
reviewing the following: values, interests, personality, skills,
ability, at-risk status, or mental health conditions.
Online Screening and Evaluation Assessments:
• Often utilized by career services, counseling and mental health,
student health, disability services, and orientation services.
• Provides faculty and staff the ability to review warning signs or
to assist students in identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
• Provides students the ability to identify their own struggles
and/or areas for improvement.
• Also provides appropriate resources in a timely manner for
students to access both on-campus and off-campus.
The Evolution of Assessment
Assessment has grown tremendously through technology
advancements over the last twenty-five years.
Past: Assessments were paper-based or face-to-face interactions.
• Required experts to collect data, analyze data, create feedback
and reports all by hand.
• A great deal of time from one employee or department needed
to be dedicated to the process to collect the information and to
utilize it properly.
Examples:
• Resident assistants handing out floor surveys to ask for
programming ideas or feedback.
• Orientation leaders handing out paper-based evaluations to
assess the effectiveness of the orientation sessions.
The Evolution of Assessment
Present: The internet has impacted the distribution, presentation, and quality of
assessment of student services.
Characteristics of Online Assessment:
• Survey large numbers of students quickly and accurately.
• Receive timely feedback and opportunity for improvement of services.
• Responses can be monitored on an ongoing basis and collectively at the end
of the assessment with ease.
• Assessments can be stored and used again in the future.
• Result comparisons can be done more efficiently and with more flexibility by
the assessment team.
• More sustainable and cost effective option for institutions to gather
information.
• Web-based surveys do not over extend the information technology
department or monopolize the time of one individual or department to do
the process well.
• More departments and individuals have the ability to create assessment tools.
• Survey anonymity and security are issues that must be controlled (Moneta,
2005).
Closing Thoughts
• As technology continues to evolve, student affairs professionals need to stay
current with technological advances in order to provide the most efficient
service to meet students’ evolving needs.
• Although technological advances provide opportunities for a new delivery of
services, it is important to remember that technology can never completely
replace face-to-face interaction and interpersonal relationships.
• An effective student affairs professional will need to maintain a balance of
both technological and personal interaction when working with students.
“Information technology in student affairs has the potential to provide student
services, programs, and activities that promote learning while also improving
the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of administrative operations. The
senior students affairs staff set the tone for how information technology is
introduced in the division and possibly the greater campus community.”
- Karley Ausiello, 1997, p. 79
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