Technical College System of Georgia
Quarter-to-Semester (Q2S)
Conversion Meeting Minutes
(Including Conference Call Participants)
January 8, 2010
Dr. Kathryn Hornsby, Assistant Commissioner of Technical Education
Dr. Hornsby welcomed all participants both at system office and those joining by conference call due to inclement weather. She introduced Becky Farrow, Project Manager for the Q2S conversion, relaying her background and experience, to the group. Dr Hornsby updated the participants on TCSG Board and
President’s approval to move forward with this initiative for the Q2S project. She then introduced
Andrew Dollar to relay the historical time line, reasoning for the project, project update, advantages to semesters, and cost mitigating strategies. She indicated the need to move forward to be ready to implement Q2S conversion by July 2011.
Andrew Dollar, Data, Planning and Research
Andrew presented the Quarter to Semester Proposal through a Power Point presentation which is attached. The Power Point addresses the following question:
Question: Why are we doing this?
Answer: To provide as seamless education in Georgia.
This is the Commissioner’s selling point- we do not have seamless education in Georgia.
The public school (K-12) and college calendar should align. Courses should transfer: which would help eliminate barriers . C hanging to semester will eliminate excuses for future education initiatives.
TCSG looked at other systems that have moved from Q2S (enrollment figures). Did the conversion affect enrollment? For the most part, students returned after the conversion. Initially they enrolled in fewer hours as they were uncertain how the new format might impact them.
The enrollment and hour loss creates a situation where TCSG will lose potential revenue.
The loss could be captured by $5 increase to $40 to $45 to $50 in FY11 and FY12. Under the conversion factor of 1.5, tuition would be at $75 per hour under semesters, which is in line with the USG college tuition. TCSG is also pursuing legislation to extend the carryover provision and include tuition. This essentially creates a glorified savings account to help offset future costs.
The total cost may range from $50-90 million depending on the decline in enrollment and credit hours. TCSG has developed implementation strategies designed to fund the change without asking the Governor or General Assembly for additional funding.
Mr. Ron Jackson, Commissioner
Mr. Jackson updated the group on the positive reaction of State Board. The Governor indicated his desire for the TCSG to move forward to implement a change from quarter to semester.
Mr. Jackson reinforced that it is the ‘Right thing to do for students”.
Q2S conversion will have a positive impact on dual enrollment and students can move on when ready.
Q2S lends support for articulation and transfer and is supported by the Governor, General Assembly,
State Board, and Board of Regents.
The semester system has only three registrations, compared to four registrations for the quarter system.
Questions have been raised as to when we should do this?
It provides a seamless transfer for High School students to enter college and opens the possibility of transfer between the systems.
It is not the intent of the TCSG to take over the two year colleges.
Dr. Sanford Chandler, Interim Deputy Commissioner
Dr. Chandler indicated that there was a positive reasoning for the change.
He also communicates to the Presidents and Board in support of change.
Dr. Chandler shared the implementation timeline - 2010 for the curriculum conversion, with the implementation of the conversion for Q2S to occur by July 2011.
Advising will occur by July 2010 utilizing the curriculum that will be in place starting April 2010
We need to take a look at Banner coding from forms for catalog information for Data base. What is the exception (Faye). It is designed by College Code. Should it be universal?
Becky Farrow, Project Director
Review previous minutes and establish the following committee structure;
Implementation Steering Committee
Academic Affairs Committee
Student Affairs Committee
Administrative Committee
GVTC Committee
Marketing Committee
Establish a college contact for each college –Q2S College Committee
Establish the following: Presidential Involvement, any additional committees or involvement
Create overall calendar/ timeline
Establish Meeting schedule
Reporting schedule
Establish a Listserv
College Reporting Schedule/Meeting Schedule
Check List/ Task List
Create Communication vehicle system-wide
Create an evaluation system of the Q2S project
Dr. Teresa Resch , Academic Affairs
Curriculum Revision- Curriculum ready by July 1, 2010
Budget Issues- build budget for Q2S.
Timeline from July 2010 (Curriculum) to Implementation July 2011
Advising using curriculum (2010)
Standardized curriculum- 100 programs
Banner 50 programs
900 courses entered into new curriculum data base
Teresa- Workload of faculty
Full time//Part time
Traditional delivery vs. non-traditional on line/ hybrid, short term, 15 week
Mini - mester
College by college choices depending on workload
Policy on workload
600 programs: 400 standardized- (65% completed)
200 institutionally developed
How many at each college? What to do?
Curriculum Data Base used in Advisement Process
Develop Timeline for course/ program completion
Nichole Kennedy, Student Affairs
Student Affairs Committee: Financial Aid, Registrar (July 1, 2010)
Advisement Package
Advisement Plan- Nancy King
Advisement of all Students begins July 1, 2010- July 1, 2011
Existing Students- fall 2009
Existing students- winter 2010
New students- Spring 2010
New students- Summer 2010
Financial Aid- begins July ?
Advising Handbook Task Force- Is it complete?
Report to DOE about transition from Q2S
Jan 19 Workshop- Bob Evans (10-1) (consultant)
Topics to be addressed- Financial Aid
Report to DOE
Communication to:
Ga. College 411
Title IV Financial Aid
FAFSA Form
David Bernackie
Application- Registration Process
Use of CAP P(18 colleges) in Advisement Process??
Catalog rebuilt to go to CAPP-What is the time frame?
Make CAPP automated- CAPP must be compliant
Parallel programs- 2 catalogs- both CAPP
Computers and splitters
Pilot- Students entering Fall 2010- convert to semesters
Robert Keown , GVTC
GVTC Committee: GVTC Coordinators Advisory board (CAB) will serve as the subcommittee for
GVTC. The CAB consists of the following Technical College and GVTC Staff representatives:
Technical College Representatives:
Augusta Tech – Tammy O’Brien ( tobrein@augustatech.edu
)
Altamaha Tech – Chad Swanson ( cswanson@altamahatech.edu
)
Columbus Tech – Ray Mercer ( rmercer@columbustech.edu
)
Gwinnett Tech – Judy Tedford ( jtedford@gwinnetttech.edu
)
Georgia Northwestern Tech – Sharon Wilson ( swilson@gntc.edu
)
Savannah Tech – Sherry Heidkamp ( sheidkamp@savannahtech.edu
)
Valdosta Tech – Sally Dorminey ( sdorminey@valdostatech.edu
)
GVTC Staff Representatives:
Kathy May ( kmay@tcsg.edu
)
Pam Warren ( pwarren@tcsg.edu
)
Robert Keown ( rkeown@tcsg.edu
)
Points of concern:
GVTC will be impacted by almost every aspect of the Q2S project
Implementation Timeline will be high priority
Possible increase cost for LMS and Enterprise Level Applications used by GVTC
More fulltime manpower may be required
Learning Management System:
Change from 7.3 to 7.4 Angel
Quarter to Semester transfer- Develop process and determine how best to fit into existing
LMS, Angel
Analyze projected downtime for implementation
Look at schema, Data elements, level change from Eng 101 to Eng.1101
Plan and build out platforms- may need multiple platforms (Cost increase may be required)
Analyze overlap of semester/ mini-mester and try to validate impact of system
Curriculum/Content development:
Collaboration in Content Development o Will need to encourage cross sharing and construction of discipline Master Courses. o May require presidential approval to share resources and existing course content across the state.
Master Content Development needed for semester o Possibly use IFCC for on-line course environment development and design.
Banner:
To ensure the LMS can be updated by the July 2011 implementation Banner will have to be ready for population by Spring quarter registration March/April 2011
Other areas to monitor:
Will dual enrollment be impacted?
Where do we go from here:
I think we need to bring together the work that has already been completed and establish a flow chart/timeline of where we are headed and how each sub-committee will participate. I am sure each of our areas will start overlapping and we will know what everyone has accomplished or not accomplished and need to also understand how our parts impact others.
Mike Sorrells, Human Resources
Possible Sub-committee- Academic Affairs, Budget, Becky
Policy Impact- Full time/ Part time Faculty
Teaching- Instructional Hours
How to Manage - 10, 11 month faculty positions
Traditional Instructional Delivery
Pre K- 10 month- stay the same
Adult Education- change to semester calendar or continue on a traditional academic quarter – either approach will work
Conduct staffing analysis
What is impact on Adjunct Faculty?
Mini-mester- staffing varies by college
Use of same adjuncts, same number now as in future or will additional adjuncts be needed upon movement to semesters?
What will our instructional staffing pattern look like in July 2011?
Impact on occupational areas
Full time- redefined- number of hours taught/minimum number of required contact hours?
Teresa Resch workload situations- 25/30 contract hours
College by college - choice on workload?
Look of Instructional workload
Traditional vs. non-traditional online/ short term, delivery mode hybrid
Policy on workload
Mr. Mark Ayers- Banner- Information Technology
Timeline- now till July 2011 Me
Meeting on Impact of Q2S
Data Center Changes
E stablish plan to implement
Coding- catalogs do not have same coding information
Faye- key in data for catalog and for Data base which is designed by college code
Lori- Review Hope for changes affecting Banner
Faye- Establish process from State for training- Develop policy and timeline
Mark- what can Banner do to implement Q2S?
Use Nicole, Becky, others
Develop questions to help establish process
Determine outliers of required data elements for course catalog
Curriculum Data Base stored on HRMR
Manual or Automated - (no) Automotion
Banner extraction is too complex- cannot deal with
Exceptions Ma y need to be manual
Bring colleges online with advisement
Use of CAPP in advisement
Rewrite support reports and scripts for each college
Mark summarized what was written above.
Concerns with the project time-lines:
With the semester curriculum not scheduled to be completed until July 1, there is not enough time with the current project schedule to load the catalog into BANNER for all colleges, have the college staff manually update local data differences, and setup CAPP for the semester catalog before fall quarter registration opens. Therefore the students will not be able to be advised on the new curriculum until either Winter quarter registration or possibly Spring quarter registration. This also has a domino effect on the points listed below
Time needs to be allocated in the project for the technical testing of the curriculum load
Time needs to be allocated in the project for the Enterprise Services (ES) group to test this process and document the required changes in BANNER this conversion will require
The project plan needs a contingency in case of technical loading of curriculum cannot be 100%.
The colleges will have to dedicate staff to work with ES to both tweak the catalog auto load and to perform the manual clean up that will be required.
Bottom line, either move the curriculum approval dead line back to March or move the advisement goal to Winter or Spring quarter.
Policy Decisions:
Use of two levels – ALREADY decided by Nichole
Need to define the names used for parts of term need before my department can begin true testing– Nicole is supposed to get us this information
Need to know the fee structure before my department can begin true testing– Nicole is supposed to get us this information
Basically we can't move forward with functional development of this project until the above are decided.
Misc:
Need support from the top-down to be sure this project is a priority with the registrars and other staff that will be working on the catalog load and clean up
Need to be sure resources are allocated for CAPP setup of the quarter-system catalog and the semester-system catalog
Colleges will need time to research, analyze and re-write where needed, local scripts and reports.
Andy Parsons, Data Planning and Research
Suzzette: The Curriculum Database is being developed to replace the existing HTML pages that contain the agency’s standardized curriculum. The database is being developed in phases. The first phase, the Courses module, is already live and Academic Affairs has entered many courses that will be used to make-up the programs. The second module is the Programs module. Within the Programs module you enter all data elements related to the program, to include the curriculum. The Programs module his undergoing user acceptance testing currently and should
go LIVE (available to the customer) on January 29 th
, 2010. Specifications for the next phase of development are currently being developed.
Andy: To the extent possible, DPR is prepared to assist with developing an automated way in which to import Curriculum Database data elements into the Banner system. We do not yet know if this is possible, but steps are being taken to determine the feasibility. Data, Planning, and Research (DPR) will identify the data elements available within the Curriculum Database that may be available for import or data entry into the Banner system. DPR is willing to work with Mark Ayers to determine shared data elements and identify any outliers that need to be addressed before a decision can be made on importing data vs. manual data entry – or a combination of the two methods.
Steve: Once we better understand how the Semester system will be structured and tracked within Banner, we will need to make changes to our MIS and Data Warehouse data collection and reporting systems.
Andy: DPR will meet internally to develop the list of items from within DPR that need to be addressed in accordance with the Q2S initiative. Once the items are identified, a plan of action will be developed and shared with the Q2S committees.
Suzette: At this time, we do not anticipate any changes to the GALIS or PASSPORT systems, but we will continue assessing those systems and all other supported systems (i.e. HOPE applications, COC Banner tool, etc.) to be sure.
Sandra: Once all Q2S timelines are confirmed, we will notify a few of our state, regional, and national partners, such as IPEDS and SREB. We’ll also be reviewing all state and federal reporting requirements to make sure that no additional changes are needed.
Ken Kincaid, Budget
Subcommittee 2 of the Q2S Task Force had developed a 5-year estimate of the costs of conversion covering the period FY10-FY14.
Using this cost estimate to build a budget for Q2S would require further input from the sub- committee.
The structure of the budget will depend largely on the fund sources available for the project, and this may not be known until after the current session of the General Assembly.
Fortunately, Perkins funds have been available in FY10 for curriculum revisions and building the curriculum database.
Randy Dean confirmed that although Perkins funds can be used for curriculum expenses, they cannot be used for marketing expenditures or for financial aid.
Another issue in formulating the budget will be determining which of the expected expenses will be paid by the colleges and which will be covered by the system office.
Marketing will begin in FY10. Mike Light will head the procurement effort to develop a master contract for the statewide campaign.
Dr. Josephine Reed-Taylor, Adult Education
There is no impact on the offering of Adult Education when implementing Q2S. There will be a need to coordinate the calendar..
We will work with Andy- Research; Suzette- Phase I- Data Base
Courses and programs nearly complete for testing- Phase II- Revision
There will be no change with Adult Education.
Victor Bullington, Accounting (Administrative Services) - Ken Kincaid responded
Ken Kincaid, Budget
Besides the task of converting the calendar and curriculum, colleges need to prepare for the financial impact of the conversion.
Care must be taken in the advisement of students to minimize the number who are adversely impacted and to alleviate student concerns about the change. Even with the best possible advisement efforts, we still expect a significant reduction in credit hours after conversion, and a significant drop in revenue.
Although the revenue loss may be mitigated by increases in tuition in FY11and FY12, plus a proposed statutory change to include tuition in the rollover of funds to future years, the reduction in credit hours will cut formula funding in FY14.
Changing the calendar will also have another impact on college finances: because the summer semester will straddle the June 30 fiscal year end date, colleges will have to prorate the revenue from that semester across two fiscal years.
In addition to revenue loss, colleges will also have expenses. Even if there is a master contract for the marketing campaign, colleges will have some expenses in tailoring the local campaign to their own specifications.
Bill Gray, Instruction Technology
Banner is the big question?
Develop questions of need. The questions are as follows:
Ask President’s what is used on their campus for a degree audit. (CAPP or Degree Work, or other
Can CAPP training be put into place?
Where are we with the curriculum in regard to the transition from quarter to semester?
When is the curriculum ready for Andy’s Data Base?
Sandra Kinney, Planning, Research
No impact on IPEDS reporting. Schools must indicate when filling out the IPEDS Institutional
Characteristics survey that they are on a semester system.
Southern Region Education Board (SREB) surveys must also indicate that we are now on semester system for proper FTE calculation. Notification would occur during the annual Data Exchange meeting or at the beginning of the survey period in February.
College Board Survey, Petersons Survey, Wintergreen/Orchard Survey are updated by the Office of
Planning Research and Policy. Several of these surveys update public data sites on TCSG colleges.
Lori Burnette, Business Analyst- Data, Planning, and Research
Review TCSG HOPE reporting and tracking scripts for changes due to semester conversion.
Where do we go from here:
I will work closely with the Banner Enterprise and Student Affairs departments to ensure that any
Banner changes or new standardizations are incorporated into the HOPE reporting and tracking scripts.
As the process progresses I will help to identify and develop any new scripts or programs that will assist colleges with the conversion concerning all areas of financial aid processing.
Mr. Norm Cherry, Accreditation
The quarter to semester conversion does not require a substantive change.
This conversion requires that institutions going through the COC application/initial accreditation process must update their applications or compliance documentation at the time the system converts from quarters to semesters.
COC accredited institutions must note the conversion of program data information from quarter to semester when submitting their Annual Reports for the year when the conversion takes place. The data given to them for inclusion into the Annual Report will come from the Data Center. Therefore the change will originate there.
Marjorie Kuezi-Nke, Institutional Effectiveness
Review TCSG policies for correct language usage- Q2S conversion (use of semester). Revise
Inform college to perform institutional policy review and revision.