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Commission Projects: Electronic Publication Awards 2002 Electronic Publication Award Nominations/Winners Award-winning publications were honored at the special Awards Presentation and Reception, October 2002, during the annual NACADA conference in Salt Lake City, UT. The site highlights listed below were provided by the nominators.  CHEP Office of Student Support Services (University of Delaware)Highlights: A comprehensive two-fold advising tool developed to support CHEP (College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy) undergraduate students as well as the faculty and professional staff who advise them. Everything you need to know to be a successful undergraduate CHEP student. Everything you need to know to be a proactive CHEP adviser. Best links for students: academic advisement; important dates and academic deadlines; the ABC's of UD; monitor your academic progress; registration reminders and procedures; on-campus resources for success; enhance your CHEP experience; frequently asked questions; and the just for seniors section. Best links for faculty and professional advisers: academic advising includes helpful adviser tools such as an adviser's checklist; recognizing and responding to student developmental stages; registration deadlines and procedures; tips for making referrals; test your knowledge of FERPA; as well as many other links mirroring those in the student section. Majors & Careers Series (Indiana University)Highlights: The Majors & Careers Series Web site at Indiana University provides an information page for every major at IU along with several ways for students to search for which majors to explore. One important feature of this Web site is that the information about each major is presented in a standardized format. Significant adviser and student feedback has indicated that this standardization, which provides a Web resource with the same information for each major in the same field on every major's page, is a feature that makes this Web site much easier to use while providing an excellent basis for comparison of the majors. It is much better than having multiple types of descriptions and presentations, which is so common in universities. Another important feature is that the information is in a database, rather than on static Web pages. This provides the opportunity to manipulate the information through sorting, searches, etc. The Web site provides the ability to search for majors by alphabet, degree-granting school, student's interests, salary, skills, and jobs - or by any keyword search. A new search can be added to the Web site at any time. For example, the Strong Interest Inventory has recently added a college major page to its profile - this indicates to which general college majors the student's interests (based on the results of the Strong assessment) relate. In the near future, this new sort of majors, based on the "Strong" results, will be added to the Web site. A third very important feature involves keeping the Web site up-to-date. With this type of information (both academic and career info) about the university's majors online, it is critical to update the database annually. This Web site has an electronic updating system that is designed for a non-technical Web site administrator to manage, and keeps every major's department involved annually in the updating. Department liaisons and the Web site administrator utilize a "split-screen" system on a secure Web site for the updating. Each major's liaison submits recommended updates, additions, and/or deletions to the Web site administrator, who maintains complete editing control before any changes go into the database. This is very important in order to maintain the standardization. Here's how it works. The administrator maintains an establishment of a designated liaison person for each major at IU, and beginning in March each year an email is sent to the distribution list for these liaisons. The email instructs the liaison that it is time to update the "Majors & Careers Series" and provides them with a URL for a secure Web site. When they go to this updating Web site, they will get a split screen on their computer - on one side, the current Web page for their major will appear - and on the other side of their screen, there will be a blank template with a field matching each field on the current Web site. The liaison is instructed to look at the current information for the major and enter any text changes and/or new information to be added in the corresponding field on the template. When they have completed reviewing all fields and entering all their requested updates, they click on a submit button to send the updates to the administrator's computer. Anytime after an update has been submitted by a liaison and when the administrator logs into the administration secure Web site, a message will appear to indicate that an update has been submitted. The administrator can then bring up an editing screen on his/her computer, which also has a split screen - on the left side, there appears the template with the liaison's requested changes and/or new additions and on the right side of the screen, there is a corresponding blank template. With this design, the Web site/database administrator can review and edit each liaison's requested updates and edit this text before submitting the changes to the database for the Web site. This split screen design for both the majors' liaisons and the Web site administrator is very helpful and effective for submitting and editing the text updates. Particularly, the design feature that provides the administrator with the ability to edit requested changes rather than allowing the liaisons (departments) to submit changes directly into the database is critically important in order to maintain the consistency in many ways such as writing style and keeping all information in the correct fields. At IU, as it likely would be at any university, when implementing a Web site that includes information about majors - it is important to obtain the information from each major's department and keep it updated. Since implementing this online system at IU, all the departments report that like the system and find it easy to use. It keeps them involved without requiring any excessive amount of time. Typically the department liaison's will not be able to provide all the information needed to set up and maintain an information page for every major and, an important design criteria established for this Web site was for every major's Web page to look identical in format. In order to maintain this consistency, it is necessary for the administrator (or student assistants supervised by the administrator) to conduct research for some of the initial data as well as to collect needed updating information as part of the annual updating process for any information that is not provided by the liaisons. This additional data can be submitted to the database via the administrator's editing screen also. Additionally, the administrator can delete a major completely or add a new major easily. Beyond this updating system design and the important basic design features of the Web site, you will find several other "highlights" on this Web site - links to IU's Exploratory Student Resources Web site, a Fairs & Expos calendar, links to every career center's and academic department's Web site at IU, as well three other "special features" - they are a link to a description and calendar for our "Choosing Your Major" workshops, a link to "College Majors of Famous People" (to add some fun to the Web site), and a link to "IU's Exploratory Files" (a collection of former exploratory students' stories that are very helpful and interesting for current exploratory students to read). Finally, the Web site has a caricature sort of the Web site's mascot - called "Clueless Lewis," who appears on the home page and on other pages to help direct students in using the Web site.  Cyber Advising for Orientation and Beyond (University of South Florida)Highlights: Advising, orientation, and registration for new freshmen on the Web. New Student Information Session: CD only (North Harris College)Highlights: (none available) Virtual Advising Center (Northern Michigan University)Highlights: We kept our site simple and easy for students to use/navigate. The Site Map allows students to see everything on our Web pages and go directly to whatever they are looking for. Virtual Adviser link allows student to be in contact with an adviser through a simple form which generates an e-mail to our office. Frequently Asked Questions provides a comprehensive list of common questions and answers for students. Change Your Major link allows students to change their major over the Web. Liberal Studies link provides all information pertinent to our general education requirements with links to classes that meet those requirements, course descriptions and pre-requisites. Choosing a Career link offers comprehensive career exploration information, resources, and processes. Tips and Tools provides information regarding support services and tools students can use to improve their skills. Faculty Information provides all information and materials necessary for faculty advisers to successfully advise students, including an online advising manual. Other Nominations Academic Advisement Center Web Site (Weber State University) ID/password: ID number: 55555 PIN: 5555 Highlights: Links to Student Data online (degree audit, unofficial transcripts, academic status, registering for classes, and lots more!); "Lingo link;" Online Catalog; Online Automatic GPA Calculator; Course Schedule Planner; "Choosing and Using a Major;" list of advisers; Staff of AAC; One-Stop-Shop (All of the important links for students in one easy-to-navigate place, including checklists of what to do to get Admitted to WSU, apply for Financial Aid at WSU, apply for Scholarships at WSU, and what you need to do to apply for graduation at WSU; links to Student Support Services, Services for Women Students, Veteran Affairs, Multicultural Students, Services for Students with Disabilities; map of campus; online catalogs) Academic Advising Atlas (Monroe Community College) Highlights: The best feature is the Site Map which shows everything available on the site divided into the 10 categories of information including one section specifically for faculty and another titled Ask An Adviser which provides for students, perspective students and faculty to e-mail questions into our staff. Another highlight is the organization and ease of navigation, especially on internal site pages which have a side navigation bar and a blue star indicating current section location (ex: www.monroecc.edu/depts/counsel/AAA/preplist.htm). The site is very comprehensive with approximately 50 links to other college pages and external resources and nearly as many newly developed pages. Some of the best links include those to video clips, student records, current registration brochures, the master schedule of classes, online registration and a GPA calculator. Academic Advising @ University College (University of Rhode Island) Highlights: FAQ's, Rhody Ram Advising, various interactive tools like: GPA calculator, registration search tool created by an engineering student, great links in Major/Minor Programs of Study "If you don't know your major section" Advising Notebook: CD only (William Rainey Harper College) Note: This CD is being provided in lieu of the secure Intranet site used by employees of Harper College Highlights: * Design replicates an "Advising Notebook" which exists in hard copy * Content covers a broad range of issues related to advising a diverse student population (ie: Scholarship, athletic, medical withdrawal, assessment cutoffs, program notes from coordinators /department chairs for career programs) as well as transfer programs, to name a few) * Links take one directly to the College Catalog when appropriate * Site allows advisers and counselors to link directly to the "Transfer Guides" which provide articulation information for area 4-year colleges and universities * An alphabetical index for the career program information eliminates need to scroll, thus allowing content to be accessed quickly * "Menu" remains at the top of each page of the electronic Advising Notebook Arts & Sciences Advising Center Web site (University of Kentucky) Highlights: Information for prospective, current, and returning students; "Advising Answers" for students, faculty, and staff; Consistency of departmental info pages; Availability of all advising forms, with an introductory instructions/use page; readily available campus links; "Ask an Adviser" submission form; Attractive layout and design Freshman Seminar @ Creighton University ID/password: User Name: guest. Password: guest (for FRS Demo listed at bottom of page). Highlights: CD with videos that interact with site. Password-protected site available only to members of each Freshman Seminar. Student can communicate directly with Academic Adviser and Student Group Leaders. Information and CD sent to freshmen in June prior to arrival. Site contains a great deal of information relevant to freshmen prior to their arrival on campus (Summer Preview, Registration, Move-in, etc) as well as much information that they will need during their first semester. Most popular sites received over 5000 hits in summer of 2001. NC State's Advising Central (North Carolina State University) Highlights: Advising Central is North Carolina State University's virtual advising center. It does not replace on campus advising efforts, but rather compliments them and has proved to be a vital tool in the advising process. The purpose of the Advising Central is to connect students to the best human as well as informational resources on campus. There are several "best features" of Advising Central. The Virtual Adviser and Academic Adviser buttons link students to people who can help them. Students can ask a question via email of a virtual adviser and get a response in 24-48 hours and/or they can ask a question of the lead adviser in each major and college via the Academic Advisers button. Virtual advisers also advise students by phone and in person depending on the needs of the student. Students can also find answers to many questions themselves through Advising Central's new FAQ page. This page is a dynamic database that allows students to quickly search through pages and pages of FAQs and their respective answers. The top ten most frequently asked questions surface to the front page of the list overall and on any given topic. Students can view the top 10 questions, search by topic and sub-topic or can search by natural language. An internal algorithm moves questions up and down the list in order of priority as they are answered. A question moves up by one point each time a student accesses the answer. But more importantly, the student has the opportunity to provide feedback to the quality of the answer if he or she so chooses. If the student rates the answer highly, the question gets additional points and moves up higher in the list so that the most frequently asked and the best answered questions are always floating to the top. The database allows advisers to answer a student's question privately or publicly and to publish it to the FAQ database with relative ease, reducing the number of times a question must be answered repeatedly. Other aspects of the site are as follows: * The What's New page includes academic items of interest that are frequently not published in other venues on campus. Of special importance here are new course listings that students can review as they prepare to register. New courses are not yet in the catalog and thus are not easily searchable. * The Majors/Minors page shows students a listing of all degree requirements for all NC State majors and minors. The majors page links to Registration and Records' degree audit system where students can view the courses required for the degree. The courses are linked to the course catalog, and to the online listing of course offerings for registration (called TRACS-Telephonic Registration and Course Scheduling system) * The Links page allows students to get to other areas of interest quickly and easily without having to leave the Advising Central Web site. Of special note on this page is the "Courses that Transfer to State" link near the top that connects students to the Undergraduate Admission's database of courses from universities all over the country. This database shows how or whether a course transfers from another institution to NC State. The database is complete for all North Carolina schools and out-of-state institutions are added as students transfer from those schools. * The Policy button allows site visitors to access NC State polices as they are written verbatim. Most students will use the FAQ site or the virtual adviser email form to ask an adviser's interpretation of a policy. Still, should a student or other Web-site visitor want to view the actual policy, it is contained on this page in one of four resources. * The Faculty /Adviser page is restricted by password. It is simply a link page where faculty and professional advisers can access their advisees' records, access their transfer credit upon admission to the University, and access any online course information they have created. * The Feedback button allows the site visitor direct access to our Web content developer for feedback on the Advising Central Web site. Advising Central opened in September 1999 and has had over 75,000 different visitors each year. About 19,000 visitors are one-time visitors to the site; about 6,000 visitors use the site repeatedly for advising information. Visitors are mostly current and prospective undergraduate students, but also include parents, faculty, and advisers. Students who have used the site have identified that the information and advice that they received help them decide on their major, return to school, avoid suspension and stay in school, and helped them graduate. 91% of all students who use the site would recommend Advising Central to a friend. Finally, Advising Central has helped advisers on campus by changing their workloads and by raising advising to a new level. Students often use Advising Central to get basic questions answered and reserve in person appointments for more complicated matters. On campus advisers send their students interested in changing majors to Advising Central for guidance and in turn Advising Central helps students decide on a path and then sends campus advisers students who are interested in their respective majors. Old Dominion University Academic Advising Web site Highlights: This site is useful for students and advisers because it includes the following: Advising Mission Statement; Adviser and Student goal statements; printable curriculum sheets for all majors; online transfer guide; gpa calculator; study and testing tips; and many other resources for our diverse student and adviser population. Within the next few weeks, we will have video clips from the Continuance link that explain University policies such as Grade Forgiveness – we think this is very unique. Preview Prep (University of Florida) Highlights: "Preview Prep" is an online assignment UF asks incoming freshmen to complete prior to attending orientation. It includes five simple steps that inform students about academic requirements and the majors offered at UF as well as facilitate the timely completion of mundane tasks required of new students (e.g. signing up for a UF computer access account, submitting immunization verification, etc.). Students complete a short submission form that allows us to automatically send reminders to them about tasks (such as online placement tests) prior to the specific orientation session the student is attending. With 80% of students completing the assignment last summer, Preview Prep reduced both information overload during the orientation program and the number of technical problems incoming students experienced when registering for classes. 95% of the students who evaluated Preview Prep reported that it was attractive and easy to use. Note: If there are any problems with links, please let us know. Preview Prep is currently not in use as we are preparing the newest version for next summer. UNLV Student Development Center Web site (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) Highlights: One of the site highlights is the Advising and Registration page. Once the student accesses this page, he or she is provided with many valuable options. This page is comprehensive, convenient, and user-friendly. The student may obtain information regarding how to plan a schedule, degrees offered at UNLV, General Ed. Core Req., Pre-Professional program req., sample schedules, registration, and grades. In addition, one of the best features of this Web site is found on this page. This feature is the "submit semester schedule" option. The student is able to submit his or her schedule via Web to the Student Development Center. An adviser then contacts the student via e-mail with feedback regarding the schedule. This allows the student to obtain accurate and efficient academic advising. Another highlight of this Web site is the Study Skills & Time Management option. The student is able to access an outline of tips that will facilitate academic success. Moreover, the ACT Placement Test option links students to National Testing Information, not only for the ACT, but also for the LSAT, GRE, OATP, MCAT, and VCAT, just to name a few. UTA Advisor Handbook (University of Texas-Arlington) "Advisers Corner" has lots of resources for advisers to use on a daily basis, including sample worksheets and handouts and cheat sheets for advisers. These were developed by full-time advisers, but faculty and part-time advisers have praised them because they don't have the resources to develop these types of materials. The Introduction to Academic Advising link is a great resource for new advisers who are training and trying to learn about what advising is or trying to learn how to be a better adviser. Revised June 17, 2004 |