The process of scheduling final exams at Rowan University used to take two full-time employees about three weeks to complete. Now, it’s done in three days.
By partnering with Information Resources & Technology to update its process, University Scheduling has been able to shift its focus to more strategic initiatives. With the time it previously spent manually updating class sections in Banner, University Scheduling is now conducting outreach to academic departments regarding course planning and providing draft schedules earlier in the semester, which gives faculty and staff more time to review and request changes.
The final exam scheduling process is just one example of how IRT has partnered with offices and departments throughout Rowan University to deliver more efficient and reliable service to students, faculty and staff. We’ve also recently automated the course placement process for incoming freshmen, which saved the university more than 300 hours in staff time.
“The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the need for processes that can quickly adapt to new realities,” said Dr. Mira Lalovic-Hand, Senior Vice President of Information Resources & Technology and CIO. “By identifying and automating labor-intensive, manual processes, as my team did with University Scheduling and with the course placement process, Rowan University can better position itself to respond to future challenges — and seize future opportunities.”
From start to finish, the development and deployment of the new scheduling process took approximately two weeks. The speed at which we were able to convert this process can be attributed to two things. First, University Scheduling came to the table with a well-established and well-documented business process, and second, University Scheduling actively engaged with the development team to map out requirements and address questions during recurring meetings.
"The amount of time that it took to manually enter the data into Banner always felt wasted. But it was 'how it was always done.' We knew there had to be a better way,” said Chris Fields, Supervisor of Academic Scheduling for University Scheduling. “While automating the process took time and resources to figure out, the end result of weeks of work time saved was worth it. IRT was very receptive to our ideas and was collaborative in determining the best solutions to our situation."
If you have a process you want to update, submit a request in the Rowan Support Portal, and a member of IRT will be in touch with you to talk about next steps.
“My team is here to support and partner with Rowan’s academic and business units to improve your operations,” said Dr. Lalovic-Hand. “When we work together, everyone benefits.”