University Business - November/December 2011 - (Page 42)

Office Of the RegistRaR University of Oregon Advanced Technology s if new student orientAtion wasn’t busy enough, the University of Oregon registrar’s staff was faced with processing thousands of pieces of paper containing Advanced Placement test scores that had arrived not long before the arrival of eager freshmen. Because oregon operates on the quarter system, orientation sessions are held throughout July, after AP scores are mailed to the school. That tied up personnel who had to manually enter the scores into Banner and pull files so that each session’s students could be properly advised on which courses to register for. “it was just a real scramble,” says Jim Bouse, associate registrar for technology. “it took 400 hours in that month of orientation programs in the summer. with new students coming in and going through advising trying to get classes, we were always behind trying to get AP scores done to allow them to meet prerequisites to get into classes they needed to take. The students weren’t getting served as well as they should have been.” Lori Manson (right), assistant director of academic advising, now has more time to A two-step process helped oregon turn what had work with students and families as they complete the registration process. been a time-consuming, tedious, and error-prone process into something smoother and more effecsions,” notes Brian Lowery, associate registrar for tive. first, the registrar’s office took advantage of the Automated operations. “This information is also available to College Board’s electronic transmission capabilities uploading of AP them before they even get here. They can view this to upload AP scores directly into Banner, which auin their self-service portal. They can have an idea tomatically populated the school’s student informa- test scores freed of what they’re doing, where they’re going, and tion system with the data. second, university staff up staff, improved they can share that information with their parents wrote a program to automatically assess the test reand start planning before they get here.” academic advising, sults and award students the appropriate number of oregon officials credit their new process with and boosted college credits their scores had qualified them for. allowing them to serve students better. The priThe process has saved oregon hundreds of customer service. or notification of students and families of credit hours of staff time annually and vastly reduced availability “was timely and very good customer errors. Because students can view their AP credits service” on the front end, university registrar suin a more timely fashion, they can have more effective discus- san eveland says. sions with faculty advisors about course selection and degree “on the back end,” she adds, “our orientation month is a very planning. And sorting out which credits serve as prerequisites crazy month, and having less manual data entry to do during that is now an automated process. time freed up staff to interact with families on campus, to help “we are at an extreme advantage with being able to up- out with registration and be able to spend a little more time with load these scores before students come for their orientation ses- students. That’s the second big win in this.” A 42 | November/December 2011 universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - November/December 2011

University Business - November/December 2011
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Financial Aid
Viewpoint
Education Gateways
Models of Efficiency
Business Intelligence Gets Smarter
Internet Technology
Independent Outlook
End Note

University Business - November/December 2011