Campus Profile: Waubonsee Community College Copyright 1990 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 13, Number 2, Summer 1990. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its dateappear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu WAUBONSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE ************************************************************************ This article is based on a visit to Waubonsee Community College by editor Julia Rudy. The Campus Computing Environment department of CAUSE/EFFECT regularly focuses on the information technology environment of a CAUSE member campus, to promote a better understanding of how the information technologies are organized and managed in colleges and universities of various sizes and types. ************************************************************************ Waubonsee Community College, established in 1966, is located on a 183- acre campus in Sugar Grove, Illinois, with a second campus in nearby Aurora. With a full-time equivalent enrollment of 2,700 students (annual headcount over 12,000), Waubonsee offers an associate baccalaureate/transfer degree, occupational degrees, and adult education programs. The college's Business and Industry Institute offers district businesses and corporations individualized assistance in the assessment, training, and development of employees through workshops and seminars, with direct instruction at the business, on one of the Waubonsee campuses, or through Instructional Television Fixed Services (ITFS). Information Technology Strategy According to Gloria Pursell, Vice President, Development and External Affairs, information technology is an integral part of the strategic planning process at Waubonsee. Plans for computing are based on needs and priorities identified in the environmental screening process which, in turn, is facilitated through the use of planning databases. A Computer Steering Committee, made up of the college's three vice presidents and the associate dean of information systems, meets periodically to evaluate identified directions and react to necessary changes. The most recent Institutional Plan for Computing, published in January 1989, continues the process initiated with the first multi-year plan for computing in 1983, which identified several major strategies: * centralize the management of computing while implementing a distributed computing network of microcomputers (supplanting terminals) to work in concert with mainframes and each other; * invest in a central database management system with productivity-enhancing software to develop new systems in-house rather than purchase application packages; * computerize the libraries of the Learning Resource Center; * establish a college-wide office automation system, standardizing on hardware and software for all computer systems; * increase the faculty's awareness of the potential of computerized instruction; and * create a flexible environment to respond to new opportunities and ideas. The latest plan documents that all of these goals have been accomplished. The college has installed three Hewlett-Packard 3000s -- one for administrative computing, one for academic computing, and one dedicated to the automated library system (and used for administrative computing backup) -- and an IBM 4361 for academic computing. More than 500 microcomputers are in use (IBM compatibles are the standard), many with hard drives and 200 of which are linked back to the mainframes. An office automation system running on the mainframes and PCs provides word processing, spreadsheets, database management, voice mail, and electronic mail, including a "fax mailbox" that allows users to send e- mail documents through a facsimile transmission interface. Ten computing labs have been established, as well as a distance education program via a microwave system. Most of this technology has been acquired with general college funds, but the three HP3000s were purchased with funds generated from outside-user computing fees. The college brings in about $2 million a year in external funds, primarily grants, about a third of which are federal, a little more than half are state, and the rest are from private corporations. The local business community is very supportive of the college as a result of their synergistic relationships and projects. Last fall, Louis A. Herman, Associate Dean of Information Systems at Waubonsee, was awarded honorable mention in the National Awards for Achievement in Managing Information Technology, a program sponsored by American Management Systems, Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration. Winners of the award came from Chrysler Corporation, Citicorp, Commonwealth of Virginia, Levi Strauss & Co., and the Royal Bank of Canada. In the three-year history of the program, Herman is the first information technology professional in higher education to be recognized. Information Systems According to Herman, the decision to write applications running on the HP 3000 in Powerhouse, a fourth-generation language tool, has made a major impact on the productivity of the Information Systems staff at Waubonsee. The backlog of requests that existed before its use has long since disappeared, and even major applications are now developed with efficient turnaround times -- for example, a major purchase-order system that ties into the budget and financial systems was recently brought up in under two months. The flexibility of the design tools allows IS staff to work back and forth with end users in developing an application, modifying and refining the system until it meets their needs. This same ease-of-use makes it possible to enhance systems throughout their lifetime, i.e., to "mature" rather than simply "maintain" them, avoiding the crisis of aging systems that have outlived their usefulness. IS staff are able to efficiently produce programs to accommodate user-office requests for special reports; it is not unusual for an office such as Personnel to have over 250 customized reports available on command. The same is true in the business office, where online, readily accessible purchase-order, budget, and financial systems have changed the way the college does business. The key, according to such users as Director of Personnel Keith Klein and Dean of Finance Donald Manning, is access to data. Access to data through central, on-line, integrated, easy-to-use systems has allowed a significant degree of decentralization, not only from Information Systems to major user offices, but from these offices to local offices. According to John Murphy, Vice President, Finance and Operations, "This places the authority, responsibility, and thus accountability for data and reporting where it belongs. User offices still exercise the ultimate decision making, but individuals also have responsibility now, and much of the 'mystery' has gone out of the process. Our information systems have given us the opportunity to realign our administrative policies." Within this decentralized environment, the systems are integrated through a central DBMS under the management of Information Systems to ensure appropriate data administration at the institutional level. Herman credits a relatively "flat" IS organization as another factor in being able to quickly respond to user needs not only for systems development and enhancement but also for end-user training and hardware and software support and maintenance. His staff of eight full- time and eight part-time employees have a project orientation, rather than responsibilities in specific, narrowly defined areas. According to Herman, this structure also results in more job satisfaction for IS staff, who enjoy being able to see a project through from start to finish. In addition to the regular IS staff, thirty Waubonsee students function as operators and student programmers, as well as computer lab assistants who monitor equipment to be sure it is functioning properly, help students get into the systems, and solve minor logic problems with software. IS also offers a "temporary service" through which three part- time "computer office assistants" trained in the standard office automation packages and applications are deployed to campus offices in the absence of regular office personnel (e.g., during vacations or interim vacancies). One of the showcase systems at Waubonsee is a state-of-the-art touchtone registration system. Through this system, which is available 24 hours a day, any touchtone phone anywhere in the country becomes a terminal with on-line access to the central database. Callers can register for a class, drop a class, find out how much they owe, check for open classes, and request grades. These same functions, as well as viewing the current class schedule, are available on public terminals in the admissions and records office. The registration system is part of a fully integrated student information system, including such applications as prospective students and advisement audit. Data entered by other offices in the college -- for example, test results entered by the assessment office -- become part of students' records and electronically control whether or not they can register for a specific class. The student system has allowed valuable data analyses to be performed and trends to be identified -- for example, tracking which students have had difficulty in their courses. Another innovative feature of the system is a program set up in conjunction with the voice mail system which automatically generates calls to all students registered in a particular class when the class is cancelled -- an application with significant benefits to a community college with evening classes and commuting students. Finally, the college provides enrollment assistance to thirty area high schools through the Guidance Information System. Educational Computing According to Donald Foster, Vice President, Educational Affairs, Waubonsee faculty are increasingly using instructional software in areas such as nursing, criminal justice, social sciences, and psychology. Rhetoric and composition classes use word processing and a grammar- checker package, and computers and synthesizers are used in a variety of ways in the music department, including a software package called Music Matrix designed by department chair Gibby Monokoski. The college offers opportunities for faculty to attend software fairs and visit other campuses, provides budgets for purchasing chosen software packages, and supports ten computing laboratories for use in teaching. Computing is also used heavily in the technical and business programs, for example in classes in accounting, electronics (for circuit design and analysis), automotive robotics, and drafting. The office careers program uses a computer lab to teach keyboarding skills and desktop publishing, and an airline reservation-system simulation package to teach travel and tourism. Two Novell-networked computer labs with a total of forty stations (IBM compatibles and PS/2s) are used by the Survival Office Skills program, which offers structured classes as well as individualized training in the Business and Industry Institute. Another computer lab is dedicated to teaching English as a second language, and a disabled-student program serves more than 100 people through a micro lab for hearing-impaired students. The Learning Resource Center (LRC), under the direction of Lynn Blakesley, Associate Dean of Learning Resources and Instructional Technology, includes the libraries, telecourse program, audio-visual area, and Telecommunications Instructional Consortium (TIC) program. Through TIC, courses that would otherwise be unavailable (e.g., Japanese, Cultures and People of South America) are taught through two- way interactive video via a microwave system to participating local high schools. In March of this year, the college broadcast a live teleclass on the role and ethics of interpreters for the hearing-impaired to over forty sites nationwide. LRC libraries offer dial-up access to the automated catalog from homes and offices, have had an OCLC interface since the mid-eighties, and will offer patron keyword search capability this fall. Two microcomputer labs at the LRC are open to the public when not being used for classes, and several stand-alone CD-ROM files are offered, including ERIC, Infotrac, Computer Database Plus, and Compact Disclosure. President John J. Swalec sums up Waubonsee's philosophy thus: "We recognize our investment in information technology as necessary for us to be efficient in meeting our students' needs. We use it to reach out and serve our students and the community. But we don't believe that 'he who has the most toys wins' -- we aren't into having the best and the newest of everything. We develop a technology strategy and then follow it with action, but we know we have to stop and evaluate periodically how well we are leveraging our investment. Waubonsee is small compared to many other community colleges, and we don't have their resources; we have simply worked hard to maximize what we have." ************************************************************************ Campus Profile: Waubonsee Community College