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AA-002-067 Extended Education Registration Process Revision
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Academic Affairs Committee Report
AA 002-056
Extended Education Registration Process Revision
Academic Affairs Committee Date:
Steering Committee
Received and Forwarded Date: 2/7/07
Academic Senate Date: 2/14/07
First Reading
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AA-002-067 Extended Education Registration Process Revision
Background
This referral asks to rectify the problems that occur when extended education students who do not have active Bronco IDs and CPP email addresses attempt classes that require students to use course management systems (Blackboard or to a decreasing degree, WebCT). Even though these students may attend class from the first day, they have to wait to register and acquire their Bronco IDs and email addresses until after the add/drop period for regularly matriculated students is over. Course instructors cannot add these students to the class list in the course management system until they have active email addresses, which means they cannot participate in course activities.
The students who are registering in classes through extended education are often vulnerable from an academic standpoint, and may be reticent to call attention to their plight. Some have been disqualified and are trying to requalify in order to continue their university education. Others are international students who do not understand how the system works. The CSU Policy Governing the Enrollment of Non-Matriculated Students in CSU State-Supported Courses and in CSU Self-Support Special Session Courses states that they can only register after regularly matriculated students have completed their registration.
The numbers of extended education students is not trivial: approximately 2000 per quarter use extended education to register for courses. Not all of them would enroll in courses that use Blackboard, but the numbers indicate the volume of registrations that Extended Education staff need to handle.
I&IT clarified that extended education students fall into 4 categories:
1. Students who have been active students within the last two quarters have active email accounts and can be added to Blackboard courses by faculty immediately.
2. Students who have NOT been active students within the last two quarters, but have been enrolled within the past year have email accounts that have expired and need to be activated.
3. Students who have NOT been active students for the past year no longer have accounts, but do have bronco ids. (Expired email/intranet accounts are removed after six months.) Their email accounts need to be recreated.
4. Students who are new to CPP do not have bronco ids or email accounts and need to be added to PeopleSoft and to have email accounts created. Once the accounts are created, the students can claim their email accounts.
The Cal Poly process for handling extended education registration does not allow these students to register directly in the extended education class or to activate a dormant Bronco ID or claim a Cal Poly email account until after they:
1. Receive written permission on a petition to enter the class section from the instructor, which usually does not happen until the second week of class.
2. Turn in the signed petition to Extended Education and pay their fees (which are substantially higher than state-subsidized student fees).
3. Staff members in Extended Education enroll the student in the Extended Education section of the course, and create or activate email accounts and Bronco IDs.
The problem is getting worse for several reasons. An increasing number of faculty have discovered the benefits of Blackboard. As long as there is room in a class, instructors are willing to add extended education students and want to help them succeed in their efforts to become students in good standing. Departments benefit from extended education students because they receive extra compensation for students who register in this way.
The referral suggested a simple solution that unfortunately will not work: create extended education sections of existing courses, allow extended educations students to register themselves in these sections, and then give the instructor the right to confirm the addition of the students or drop the students if the course was already full or if the student did not seem prepared to take the course. Currently PeopleSoft creates a “cloned” extended education section of each class, but the two sections are not decoupled. Enrollments in the extended education section are included in the total class enrollment, which means that their enrollment would decrease the numbers of students allowed to enroll in the regular section (up to the class limit size). Enrolling extended education students in seats that might be occupied by regular education students is in conflict with The CSU Policy Governing the Enrollment of Non-Matriculated Students in CSU State-Supported Courses and in CSU Self-Support Special Session Courses.
Resources
Donna Tillman, Debra Brum, Claudia Pinter-Lucke, Kathy Street, Julie Holland, Maria J. Martinez; David Levin; JoAnn Piergallini; Policy Governing the Enrollment of Non-Matriculated Students in CSU State-Supported Courses and in CSU Self-Support Special Session Courses (Chancellor’s Office Executive Order No 298, February 14, 2002)
Discussion
The discussions that the Academic Affairs Committee had with representatives of I&IT, Extended Education, and the Registrar’s Office revealed that they are well aware of the problems and would like to do something about them. It was very apparent that Extended Education needs a technological solution that will allow each student to register electronically in the extended education section of the class, so that EE staff are not responsible for registering all the students each quarter. If extended education students could register themselves, the process would go much more quickly and the likelihood of errors in data entry would be less.
In its investigation of this problem, the Academic Affairs Committee found several critical issues:
1. Registration through extended education does not even begin until after the first week of class (the add/drop period for regularly matriculated students), a fact that cannot be changed because of the CSU Policy Governing the Enrollment of Non-Matriculated Students in CSU State-Supported Courses and in CSU Self-Support Special Session Courses.
2. Extended Education students have not been required to complete their registration until the tenth day of the quarter, and most students wait until the last two days to complete their registration and pay their fees.
3. Once the students register with Extended Education, someone in that office has to register each extended education student manually into BroncoDirect. Typically this process has not been completed until the fifth or sixth week of the quarter.
4. Student may request that extended education speed up their registration to become eligible for Blackboard registration, but extended education students are often vulnerable students (disqualified students trying to requalify for the university or newly arrived international students) and may not realize that they have to advocate for themselves and make their plight known in order to receive help.
5. While BroncoDirect automatically clones each class section and creates a separate section for extended education students, these students cannot enroll directly in that section for several reasons:
o The regular and extended education sections of the courses cannot be decoupled, so a student registered in the extended education section occupies a place
o Extended education students may not have active Bronco IDs if they have not been enrolled for the previous 2 quarters or if they have never been enrolled. Extended education provides them with these IDs.
o The class size limit is for the regular section. If the regular class is full, then the extended education students would raise the number of students above the class size limit.
Resolving the issues in this referral requires changes in technology and organizational processes. Administrative officials have already begun progress on resolving the problem:
1. Changes to shorten the current registration process to a maximum of three weeks, which does not solve the problem of enrolling students in Blackboard courses at the beginning of the term if they do not have email accounts. (see appendix: Important Note Regarding Open University (OU) Students and Blackboard.htm).
2. Notification sent out to faculty about the process of registering extended education students in Blackboard in the above Important Note …).
3. Identification of other CSU campuses (Northridge, Fresno, Chico, Long Beach, San Jose, and possibly San Bernardino) that register extended education students through PeopleSoft.
Recommendation:
The Academic Affairs Committee makes the following recommendations:
1. Investigate whether the solutions developed by the one of the other CSU campuses (Northridge, Fresno, Chico, Long Beach, San Jose, and possibly San Bernardino) that register extended education students through PeopleSoft could be borrowed or bought for implementation at Cal Poly. (I&IT and Registrar’s staff indicate that they are ready to take this step.)
2. Investigate the creation of a separate on-line application system for students who intend to register through extended education that would allow them to obtain Bronco IDs and email accounts BEFORE they actually are able to register in the class. The students would have to pay a fee to cover the transaction costs (if approval for such a fee could be obtained), but the instructor could add them to their Blackboard class lists and they could participate in the Blackboard assignments from the first week of class, even though they are not registered until the third week.
3. If PeopleSoft cannot be changed without major, expensive alterations (because of the way the extended education courses are created as clones that cannot be decoupled), and the solutions from the other CSU campuses are not workable at CPP (because our implementation may be idiosyncratic), then an on-line standalone, separate registration program for extended education students should be developed to allow them to register themselves in extended education sections of courses during the second week of class. This change in the process would still require Extended Education Staff to check petitions and give the students permission to register, but it would make the process more efficient, lessen the likelihood of data entry errors, and considerably shorten the registration period. Information from this standalone system could be ported to PeopleSoft in text files during the night.
The Academic Affairs Committee commends the staff members from I&IT, Extended Education, and the Registrar’s Office who met with us and shared information with us. We appreciate their collaboration in working toward a solution to this problem.
Appendix:
Important Note Regarding Open University (OU) Students and Blackboard
sent by David S. Levin to on 1/14/07:
Dear Colleagues,
The College of the Extended University and the Divisions of Instructional and Information Technology and Student Affairs are in the process of improving the procedure for registering Open University (OU) students. When the new procedure is in place, it is anticipated that, within 24 hours of registering for a class, OU students will be automatically enrolled in the associated Blackboard Course Site. Until that time, the enrollment of OU students into Blackboard Course Sites will be a slower, more complicated process. In order for OU students to have access to a Blackboard Course Site in the shortest time, the following steps should be followed:
Registration:
• Instructors may add OU students to their classes between the first day and the tenth day of the quarter. Instructors should ensure that regularly enrolled students have had an opportunity to add the class before adding OU students.
• Instructors add an OU student to their class by signing an Open University Petition and Prerequisite Form, which the student then submits to CEU. Some departments and colleges may also require the signature of the department chair or dean. Students enrolling in 500 and 600 level courses are required to get additional signatures. Instructors or students with questions about necessary signatures should contact their department office, college office, or the CEU Registration Office at (909) 869-2288.
• Instructors should encourage OU students to submit their form to the CEU office (CTTI Bldg 220-C) and pay their fees as soon as possible.
• Once CEU receives the form and payment, the CEU Registration staff will begin processing the student’s registration. If the student is new to Cal Poly Pomona, the registrar must create and activate the student’s account. If the student’s status is inactive, the registrar must activate the student’s account. Depending on the daily volume of OU enrollments, the activation of the student’s account can take from one day to three weeks.
Blackboard Enrollment:
• Instructors are advised to manually enroll students into their Blackboard Course Site as soon as possible so that students can access the site. For instructions on manually enrolling a student into a Blackboard course, visit: http://www.csupomona.edu/~ehelp/blackboard/faculty/step/usermanagement/enrolluser.html
• If the student has an active account (was a regularly enrolled student in one of the previous two quarters), the instructor can immediately enroll the student manually into the Blackboard Course Site.
• If the student does not have an active account, the instructor will need to wait 24 hours after the account for that student is activated before enrolling the student manually into the Blackboard Course Site.
For assistance with Blackboard please feel free to contact Pauline Salim by email at .
Bronco Account Claiming:
If the student is new to Cal Poly Pomona, or has not attended for two or more consecutive quarters, the student must claim a Bronco account for access to IT services including email and Blackboard. For assistance, the student may contact the Help Desk at (909) 869-6776 or . Instructions on claiming a Bronco account also may be found at: http://www.csupomona.edu/~ehelp/idm/account-claiming.html.
An explanation of the registration, account activation, and Blackboard enrollment processes will also be sent to Open University students.
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David S. Levin, Ph.D.
Director of I&IT Learning
Cal Poly Pomona
Tel: 909.979.6304
Fax: 909.979.6403
Cell: 909.455.5830
http://www.csupomona.edu/iit/learning