ACADEMIC SCHEDULING
Penn State University is a multi-campus public
research university that improves the lives of
the people of Pennsylvania, the nation, and
the world through integrated, high-quality
programs in teaching, research, and service.
With over 44,000 students at its University
Park campus and an additional 48,500 students at its other 23 campus locations, Penn
State is the largest university in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; it is a recognized
entity throughout the United States and the
World.
DELIVERING CONFLICT-FREE EXAM SCHEDULES
THE CHALLENGE
Penn State’s final exam schedule creation was a paper driven, manually
intensive, 11-week process that was based on course meeting times
instead of being based on individual student schedules.
This process resulted in over 1,200 conflicting exams each semester,
which forced students to visit the Registrar’s office late in the semester
to file for conflict resolution. The final exam schedule was not available
before the 8th week of the 15-week semester, and the conflict exam
schedule was not available until the 13th week of the semester. Students
and faculty members were not given individualized exam schedules.
THE OBJECTIVES
■■ Modify the final exam production process to focus on students;
■■ Automate the production process;
■■ Provide visibility over direct and overload conflicts;
■■ Identify and resolve direct individual student conflicts before
publication;
■■ Publish the final exam schedule earlier.
SOLUTION:
INFOSILEM ENCAMPUS™ - EXAM
By putting students at the centre of its final exam scheduling
process, the University dramatically reduced the number of direct
and overload conflicts, identified and resolved the remaining conflicts
and successfully generated individual student and instructor final exam
schedules.
EXAM™ also helped the University reduce the number of people-hours
required to prepare the final exam schedules and successfully publish
them three weeks earlier.
Exam Scheduling
“The INFOSILEM ENCAMPUS™
EXAM software has allowed us
to significantly reduce the time
and effort required to produce a
conflict-free final exam schedule.
Everyone at the University –
students, faculty and staff – have
benefitted from this improvement.
”
Karen L. Schultz,
University Registrar
ENTERPRISETM • FORDHAM UNIVERSITY’S SUCCESS STORY
MAINTAINING HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS
With nearly 1,200 individual student conflicts generated each Fall and
Spring semester, workload for the teaching faculties increased as they needed
to generate a high number of alternate exams to offer at different times
and different locations. The ability to identify and resolve individual student
conflicts early has dramatically reduced the number of alternate exams and
has helped the University maintain its high academic standards and better
serve its student population.
BETTER STUDENT SERVICES
“The bottom line is that the
Before implementing EXAM™, the University could not identify students who
had direct or overload conflicting exams. As a result, the responsibility for
conflict resolution rested squarely on the shoulders of students. The conflicting
final exam schedule being released on the 13th week of a 15-week semester
created a lot of stress for students, and indeed across the board.
”
With EXAM™, individual student exam schedules are published early, direct
conflicts are identified and resolved before publication, and students are
notified of overload conflicts. This results in vastly enhanced student services.
University has dramatically
increased its operational
efficiency and is now able to
produce a more accurate final
exam schedule faster.
“
Students were thrilled to have
access to their final exam schedules
weeks earlier than they used to.
”
Todd Clouser
Information Technology Manager
INCREASED OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES
Penn State eliminated its inefficient manual paper process, reduced the
amount of effort associated with the production of each final exam
schedule, and publishes its final exam schedule three weeks earlier than
before. Since direct conflict resolution takes place before the exam schedule
is published, the amount of work associated with conflict resolution and
changes to the exam schedule post-publication has also been dramatically
reduced.
EASY IMPLEMENTATION
The software implementation supported a change in the business process,
which was necessary to successfully reach the goals set by the University.
Despite early apprehension about the dual scope of the project – and the
short timeline – it proved to be a very easy implementation with fantastic
results.
ABOUT INFOSILEM
For the past 25 years, Infosilem has been developing solutions that have improved all scheduling functions and
practices in the higher education sector. We offer the best customer support in the industry. In fact, our dedication
and our comprehensive understanding of our clients needs are rewarded with a 99% retention rate. You can trust
Infosilem as your partner in scheduling success.
99 Émilien-Marcoux Street, Suite 201 • Blainville (Québec) Canada J7C 0B4 • sales@infosilem.com • www.infosilem.com