Minutes 3/31/06

Advising & Technology Committee
Minutes March 31, 2006

Present: Bob Baer, Anita Crawley, Michele Knoerlein, Eva Surowiec,
Fran Smither, Gina Strauss, Tomeka Swan, Bonnie Sulzbach, Maria Agosta-Martinez,
Bill Elliott

Bob provided a description of how the ATC was formed and the
relationship with the Advising Affinity Group.

The group listed the following in response to an inquiry about what everyone
wants from the committee:

• Professional Development
• Speakers
• Vendor Presentations
• To learn what others are doing
• Online Student Services - Best Practices
• IT representative
• Academic Advising website development

Online advising was the topic of most interest and was broken down into these
components:

• Tracking systems
• Keeping statistics for online advising (counting #'s, content, online
  forms)
• Mission of online advising
• Confidentiality/FERPA
• What is and is not most effectively accomplished at a distance
• Working differently with current and perspective students based on access
  to student portals/course management systems & public websites
• Organizational structure of online advising
• Minimal standards - what might be included in all online advising
  interactions
• Evaluating impact/outcomes/effectiveness of online advising
• Useful tools and strategies in addition to email
• Styles used in email advising
• Utilizing student feedback through focus groups
  

Many resources at each of our college and beyond were described. Here
are some of them:

• Michigan State used instant messaging to communicate with students even
  with an evening shift. At Cecil, they are using instant messaging for
  communication between the front desk and counselors. Benefits - can
  communicate outside of student earshot, less interruptive than phone, yet more
  effective/immediate than email. Also used instead of taking phone
  messages.


• Right Now FAQ software allows development of FAQs based on student
  inquiry. See link to the right.


• Bergen Community College in New Jersey is doing online orientations.


• Employ On - pulls jobs from several online job search engines including
  Monster


• Math Anxiety had a great response at Cecil. How about doing
  workshops such as this online. See Collaborative Software link for
  platforms. Also can be delivered through course management systems such
  at WebCT and Blackboard.


• CCBC uses a form that students submit along with their question. The
  fields including identifying information, a choice from several categories of
  questions, and the question itself. Lots of potential uses including
  filtering to most appropriate office/advisors for answer and ultimately
  tracking email advising activity.

Anita Crawley presented Montgomery College's Online Student Success Center
and Online Companion: A Guide to Online Success. PowerPoint can be found
in the Online Student Services link

What's next?

• We will meet twice a semester


• Harford agreed to host the next meeting in late September. Possible
  topic managing emails, tracking email advising, etc. Possible vendor
  presentation from Right Now. Bonnie Sulzbach is point of contact.


• We will create a blog to continue the discussion between meetings.
  Start by introducing yourself on the blog - uploading a picture would be great
  for connecting names and faces.


• June 16th is the Advising Affinity Group annual conference at Howard
  Community College. Bob and Anita will be presenting. Let us know
  if anyone is interested in joining us.