Reengineering Administrative Partnerships

Copyright CAUSE 1994. This paper was presented at the 1994 
CAUSE Annual Conference held in Orlando, FL, November 29-
December 2, and is part of the conference proceedings 
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REENGINEERING ADMINISTRATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

Susan Cover
Joseph DiMartile

University of Delaware
Newark, DE  


ABSTRACT

In a renovated research building, Delaware's student services 
have been reengineered.  Students no longer travel the campus 
in search of service.  The functions of billing, collection, 
cashier, registrar, dining services, financial aid, ID card, 
parking, and long distance telephone service have been merged 
in a partnership of process and technology, and located in a 
single building.

The Student Services Building follows a "branch bank" model 
with a large lobby where self-service technologies enable 
students to perform routine business; providing easy access 
to transcripts, grades, schedules, financial aid and billing 
information.  An open counter is staffed by "generalists" 
from several campus units who have been cross-trained and 
provided technologies to enable them to deliver a variety of 
services.

This successful merger of business units was facilitated by 
the application of appropriate technology and has resulted in 
staff reduction, cost containment, and improved customer 
service and satisfaction.


Background

The decade of the 1990s presents a unique set of 
problems and challenges for colleges and universities.  It is 
a time of shrinking budgets offset by demands for improved 
and expanded services.  Institutions face keen competition to 
attract and enroll qualified students.  Once enrolled, 
students and their parents, faced with seemingly endless 
increases in costs, scrutinize more than ever how their 
tuition dollars are spent.  The current climate demands that 
we spend these dollars wisely, not only to instruct and 
educate our students, but to build positive, lasting 
relationships with our alumni-to-be.

Colleges and universities have mobilized to meet these 
challenges by initiating programs, some campus wide, that 
employ management methods now in vogue.  Total quality 
management and process reengineering programs, though they 
may in themselves be old methods with new labels, represent 
sincere efforts to improve the way we do business.  
Invariably, efforts involve information technology resources 
and invoke the power of these resources to solve problems, 
streamline processes, enhance instruction and improve service 
to students.   

This paper will provide a look at one approach to the 
challenge, that of the University of Delaware.  As a case 
study, this paper will focus on the specific problem of 
improving student services in the face of the 90s dilemma of 
greater demand on fewer staff and fewer dollars.  It is an 
approach that utilized elements of process reengineering, 
creation of administrative partnerships among many student 
service units and the judicious application of the 
University's investment in information technology.     

Institutional Objective: Improve Student Services; "Think of 
Yourself as a Student".

To begin the decade, the University of Delaware 
formulated its short and long range plans in a campus wide 
effort called  "Project Vision".  A central theme and 
strategic goal of the plan is an enriched undergraduate 
experience, not just in the classroom but in every aspect of 
campus life.  In 1990, as he assumed the presidency of the 
University, Dr. David Roselle urged deans, directors and 
managers to "think of yourself as a student" while 
implementing Project Vision plans in academic and 
administrative units.  For directors and managers of 
administrative units, this meant a close examination of 
administrative services from the students' perspective and a 
complete reevaluation of how we conduct business with our 
primary customers.    

While Project Vision implementation began to take shape 
in the Fall of 1990, the University had just completed a 
major conversion of hardware and software systems, including 
migration to a fully integrated student system. From a system 
perspective, administrative units had acquired a significant 
resource which could and should be used to its maximum to 
improve student services.  SCT's IA-Plus Student 
Information system (SIS Plus) is a fully integrated system 
for demographic information, student records, financial aid, 
housing, billing and collections, and admissions data.  The 
system is run on an IBM 3090 600E under MVS CICS. The 
underlying DBMS is ADABAS and access to ADABAS is through 
direct calls in COBOL.  The system runs very efficiently and 
will return a 26 page internal transcript or a complex 
degree  audit to the screen in less than 6 seconds.  Staff in 
those  units were no longer limited in their access to 
information  and, through participation on the Student 
Information System  Task Force, had gained an understanding 
of the needs and  interdependencies of their colleagues in 
other administrative  areas.  An integrated student 
information system and a new,  more collegial attitude among 
staff provided a foundation on  which better, more efficient 
student services could be built.  
	
One long standing issue that the Student Services  Planning 
Group felt needed to be addressed had to do with the 
physical condition and location of the offices responsible 
for student services.  Administrative units were scattered 
across the campus so that it could take several days for a 
student to find and visit them all.  The offices were not 
well configured for student traffic and not well arranged 
given the new technological tools available. The Registrar's 
Office, for example, was designed and constructed when the 
University's student population was only 5,000, one forth of 
what it is today and the Cashier's Office was located in a 
basement off a long, narrow corridor that allowed for only 
two cashiering stations.  Neither office was connected to the 
campus network.  To accomplish our institutional objective of 
improving administrative services, it was essential that this 
problem be addressed.

A Central Student Services Facility      

In the summer of 1991, a small but centrally located 
building of approximately 11,400 square feet of assignable 
space became available.  The space had previously been used 
as a research laboratory but it was thought that it could be 
renovated and serve as a central facility for student 
services.  A preliminary study concluded that the idea was 
feasible provided the interior of the building was gutted and 
renovated in its entirety.  The Student Services Planning 
Group was then assigned the task of designing the interior of 
the building around the services that would be dispensed 
there and support the service delivery with every available 
technological tool.  

The prospect of having a facility designed specifically 
for student administrative services was both an opportunity 
and a challenge.  The Planning Group knew from the start that 
the facility would serve the University into the distant 
future and the design was critical to its long term utility.  
Of necessity, the first task of the Planning Group was to set 
very specific goals and objectives (Table 1) for the new 
facility.  These provided a useful structure against which a 
reengineered process or design idea could be tested.

=========================================================

TABLE 1	
STUDENT SERVICES BUILDING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

_______________________________________________________

Goal:  Quality and Efficient Service to Students

Objective:  *  Change Academic Policies
            *  Question Past Practices
            *  Streamline Procedures
            *  Become "Student Friendly"
            *  Use Concept of Being Serviced by "Zero or
               One" Person.
________________________________________________________

Goal:  Teamwork Among Administrative Units

Objective:  *  Foster Cooperation Among Units
            *  Focus on Institution Goals over Individual 
               Unit Concerns
            *  Be Willing to Reorganize When Necessary
            *  Be Willing to Cross Train Staff
_________________________________________________________

Goal:  Apply Technology to Fullest Advantage

Objective:  *  Use the Campus Fiber Option Network
            *  Take Full Advantage of the Data Base 
               Environment and Its Integration
            *  Ubiquitous Access

=============================================================

With a set of goals and objectives in hand, the Planning 
Group's next task was to decide which administrative services 
were to be located in the new facility and how they would be 
structured.  Since the facility when renovated could provide 
only 11,400 square feet of assignable space, it was not large 
enough to accommodate all personnel from each service unit.  
Services and staff were carefully selected and targeted for 
permanent location in the new facility based on the frequency 
and number of students served.  For example, the registration 
and cashier functions typically deal with each student in 
each enrollment period while others provide services on a 
less frequent basis. Concurrently, policies and procedures 
pertaining to student services were evaluated, and where 
necessary, changed to fit the student service goals. 
Staff from service units were selected on the basis of their 
frequency of student contact and a number of jobs were 
redefined, clustering the student service tasks in selected 
positions and distinguishing them from processing or "back 
room" tasks.  In the end, the new facility houses on a 
permanent basis the Cashier and Accounts Receivable 
operations in their entirety, portions of the Registrar's and 
Financial Aid Office services, Dining Services, Student 
Telephone Services.  In addition, provisions were made in the 
building design to accommodate activities of other units, 
specifically Public Safety, Housing and Student Life, on a 
temporary basis. 

The Banking Industry Model

The process of planning the new facility included 
contacts with other colleges and universities and with 
industry in an attempt to find a model similar to what we 
were trying to achieve.  Contacts and visits with other 
colleges produced some new ideas but a comprehensive services 
facility in which a student could attend to a variety of 
administrative tasks in a single stop seemed to be non-
existent.  A model, however, did exist in the business world, 
specifically in the financial industry's branch banks.  The 
branch bank model fit the student service objectives in many 
ways; service was quick and efficient, the customer could be 
selective in how he or she dealt with the bank i.e. by phone, 
by mail, at an ATM or in person, and financial 
   
institutions seemed to be on the forefront of using 
technology to support customer service operations.  Applying 
the branch bank model  to the planned student services 
building, parallels could be  drawn quite easily.  For
example, the self service and ubiquitous access objectives 
could be served well by ATM type machines or by Interactive 
Voice Response  devices.  The bank model served too as a 
guide for staffing  the facility and distinguishing the 
routine tasks  accomplished by someone generally trained 
(bank teller) from  those with special training in a specific 
function (loan officer).  The Planning Group adopted this 
generalist/specialist model (Table 2) and devised the plan 
for the new facility accordingly.    	

=============================================================

TABLE 2 
BANKING INDUSTRY MODEL APPLIED TO STUDENT SERVICES
TRANSACTION TYPES

20%: SELF HELP

Closed Circuit TV:
Post specific student-related information from all areas.

Information Packets:

Drop Boxes:
  Registration
  Fee Payment

Kiosks:
  Access to Student Information
  UDiscover


60%: ROUTINE STUDENT BUSINESS AND INFORMATION ASSISTANCE

Generalist:
  Respond to information requests from all students; deliver 
  routine services. Direct students to appropriate source of
  help.

Routine Business:
  ID Cards
  Cashiers
  Financial Aid
  Registrar
  Public Safety
  Dining & Debit
  Housing
  Long Distance Phone Service
  Student Paychecks
  Event Tickets

20%: SPECIALIZED ASSISTANCE

Specialist: 
     Provides assistance that requires attention above the
     routine business transactions.

Financial Aid
Registrar
Accounts Receivable
Dining Services

============================================================


Technological Support

Technology to support the new facility involved 
purchasing new workstations and utilizing software with 
attention focused on getting the most service for the fewest 
dollars.  Existing software was modified to provide new 
functionality and, when necessary, new software was purchased 
and customized.

Each staff person in the Student Services Building has a 
personal computer (PC) work station.  Additionally, 6 PCs are 
located at the Service Desk counter and 5 at the Cashiers 
counter.  The PCs were purchased in the summer of 1992 and 
are 386SX machines costing about $1500 each.  At the Service 
Counter the PCs are equipped with numeric key pads for 
services that require a PIN.  At the Cashiers counter the PCs 
are equipped with a journal printer for the register tape and 
an OCR scanner for processing bill and student loan forms to 
support the additional functions of a Cashiering operation.  
All PCs came installed with Microsoft Windows 3.1.

Microsoft Windows provides for multiple sessions 
resulting in a quicker response to a student's request.  The 
Cashiers PCs always have one session running the Remittance 
Processing system, a DOS application, and another session 
running a terminal emulation session to SIS Plus.  Windows 
supplies the means to switch from one application to another 
quickly and easily.  

Another group of PCs in the Student Services Building 
are the "kiosks" for self-service student access.  The kiosks 
are also standard $1500 PCs.  The CPUs are stored in a locked 
cabinet and some keys on the keyboard have been physically 
disabled to prevent students from re-booting the PCs.  A 
staff person logs the kiosks on to the IBM MVS Student 
Information system each day. The kiosk application was 
developed by modifying SIS Plus using MIS staff. New screens 
were developed and existing COBOL programs modified to 
interface to the new screens.  Functionally, a student enters 
his/her student identification number (SID) and a personal 
identification number (PIN) on the authorization screen and 
then can view an unofficial transcript, grade report and 
class schedule for current and previous terms, financial aid 
information, billing information, and address information.  
The student name and number never appears on any kiosk screen 
to protect the student who walks away from the kiosk without 
returning it to the authorization screen.  The kiosk 
application is character based and is very popular with the 
students.  

Another self-service PC for students provides access to 
"U-Discover", the campus gopher client for world wide 
access.   This service includes the full schedule of classes 
for future  terms weeks before the booklet is published; 
lists of open  courses updated nightly and the final exam 
schedule. Students  can also read through listings of 
apartments to rent, job  opportunities, and general 
information.  U-Discover also  provides access to the same 
personal data available through  the kiosks.  A menu option 
labeled SIS+ Personal Access uses  gopher software modified 
in-house to provide for encrypted  authentication.  When 
that menu option is selected, the student is prompted for SID 
and PIN.  Then an unofficial transcript, grade reports and 
class schedules, financial aid and billing information can 
be viewed. Students can also submit a change of address 
request using SIS+ Personal Access.  The current address 
information is displayed and the student types over it to 
make a change.  The change is sent as a mail message to a 
staff person in the Registrars Office who reviews or corrects 
it before mailing it to an application that updates the 
Student Information System address segment. This eliminates 
the keying of hundreds of address changes each term by the 
Registrars Office staff.

The Cashiering software was purchased from CORE Business 
Technologies of East Providence Rhode Island.  The software 
is designed to be customized with regard to screen layout and 
validation processing.  The customization is written in C++ 
and can be maintained in-house or by CORE.  Initially, all 
transactions were transferred using FTP to the IBM mainframe 
after the office closed each day.  In the fall of 1994, the 
Cashier's Remittance Processing system was enhanced to 
interface realtime to the HP Unix ID card system for posting 
of flexible spending (FLEX) account deposits.  This interface 
is written in C++ and sends a TCP/IP packet across the 
network to a server running on the HP machine.  The server 
was written by Harco Industries of Phoenix Arizona.  The 
application will set up a new FLEX account if the student 
does not already have one or will post a deposit to an exist
ing account.  Prior to this enhancements students were told 
that FLEX account deposits would be available "tomorrow".  
Now they are told the money is available immediately.

Also in the fall of 1994, an ID card production system 
was purchased to capture a digital image of a student and 
print an ID card in full color on white PVC plastic.  The 
system was purchased from Goddard Technologies and was 
customized by Goddard to interface to the Harco ID database 
that controls student privileges and access on campus.  The 
Harco Industries server is also used in this application to 
implement the real time interface.  The images are stored as 
.JPG files on a SUN unix server so they can be used in other 
applications.  It is no longer necessary to take a new 
picture of the student to replace a lost ID card resulting in 
a cost savings.  However, some students consider this a 
drawback.  We recently learned that some students lose their 
cards intentionally because they do not like the picture.

An imaging project currently under development will 
replace an obsolete microfilm reader for transcripts that 
predate our online system.  The microfilm reels were 
converted to .TIF files on compact disk.  The paper indexes 
were keyed by data entry staff and loaded into an ADABAS 
file.  A client server application was developed in C++ to 
provide an index search and image retrieval system.  It 
interfaces to an image viewer developed for this application 
using Image Basic from Diamond Head Software, Inc.  The 
transcripts can be viewed and printed for mailing.  The 
quality is better than that printed from microfilm and the 
Student Services staff saves time because index and images 
are online.  Once the system is operational it will be made 
available to Dean's offices and the Alumni Office reducing 
the dependency of these offices on the Registrars Office for 
transcripts not available in the Student Information System 
(pre-1972).  

Outreach Efforts

The Student Services Building at the University of 
Delaware opened in August of 1992 as the center piece of the 
institutions efforts to improve student services.  It has 
been in operation two full years and has become a hub of 
student activity on campus.  It has also spawned a number of 
services that are now provided outside the confines of the 
building.  They are a direct outgrowth of the planning 
process and provide a useful complement to the central 
facility.  

Interactive Voice Response applications (IVR) were 
developed to expand student services beyond the Student 
Services Building.  The IVR system is from Perception 
Technology and the IVR application development tool from 
Touchtalk, Inc.  Dubbed UDPHONE, the first IVR application 
was developed for registration.  The application uses a 
component of SCT's IA-PLUS Student Information System.  
Grade reporting was implemented the following year also using 
a component of SCT's software.  Two other student oriented 
IVR applications are UD1-BOOK for renewing library books 
over the phone and UD1-CARD that interfaces to the IBM main
frame and the HP Unix mainframe for changing personal ID 
numbers, suspending a lost or stolen card, checking FLEX 
account balance, dining points balance, and remaining 
meals.
 
The development of a secure gopher client for accessing 
personal student information system data provided us with 
the means to distribute access to that data across campus.  
In the fall of 1993 all residence halls were connected to the 
campus network.  Students may purchase an Ethernet connection 
for their computer in the residence hall and have access to 
their personal data.  The secure gopher client is distributed 
initially on diskette to students.  Later upgrades can be 
downloaded from a software library available on a gopher 
server.  This semester over 600 students have requested 
Ethernet connections up 300% from last year when it was first 
available.  For students not in residence halls, the secure 
gopher client has been installed in all public computing 
sites on campus and on PCs in the Student Center and several 
Dean's offices.  

Results, Measurable and Perceived

The University of Delaware chose to deal with the 
challenge of improving student services in two distinct but 
related ways: by creating an environment in which student 
services are dispensed from a central facility and by using 
to the fullest extent possible the University's investment in 
computing technology.  The results are measurable by the 
simultaneous reduction of staff and budgets in most of the 
units involved and the increase in productivity. With better 
access to a broader spectrum of information, staff are better 
prepared to serve students.  The perception among students is 
that doing business with the University is much easier now.  
They can very quickly and conveniently dispense with the 
administrative necessities of enrolling in college.  Perhaps 
the greatest testimony to the success of 
this effort at the University of Delaware is an editorial 
which appeared in student newspaper and read in part:

     "The end of another school year... 'The Review' spends
     its time reevaluating the past year's memorable events,
     judging the highs and lows... Cheers go to the new
     Student Services Building.  Finally, a student can take
     care of a multiplicity of needs, at one time!"--From
     'The Review', Friday, May 21, 1993.

Date Revised: 2/14/95 (jjh)