Before the pandemic hit, the Office of the Registrar handled thousands of course withdrawal requests every semester using a paper-based process that was time-consuming and prone to error.
When COVID-19 made that manual system untenable, the Registrar started managing course withdrawal requests via email. But they quickly realized that moving a paper-based process online does not address its underlying flaws. Sometimes, days would pass before a request was approved. Other times, requests submitted by a student to an instructor were never forwarded to the Registrar, and therefore never officially processed.
The Registrar needed help, so they turned to Information Resources & Technology.
“We knew there had to be a better way to manage this process, but we weren’t quite sure how to get there on our own,” said University Registrar Linda Drexel. “Our goal was to improve student service while reducing the amount of time my office’s staff spent on this repetitive task, and we turned to the partner we knew would be able to help us achieve those objectives for us — IRT.”
After identifying and removing an extraneous approval step in their existing process, the Registrar worked with IRT to transition to an online form that allows students to directly submit requests to withdraw from a course. The workflow associated with the form sends automated notifications to students and instructors when a request has been processed, keeping everyone in the loop about the status of the withdrawal.
The updated process saved the Registrar nearly 40 hours of work time in the first two weeks it was available, and the time savings is expected to reach more than 230 hours by the end of the withdrawal period in November.
“Digitizing processes is a step in the right direction, but true operational efficiencies are realized when you remove unnecessary human intervention,” said Dr. Mira Lalovic-Hand, Senior Vice President of Information Resources & Technology and CIO. “As this project shows, automation can create better experiences for the staff and our students while saving what amounts to nearly seven weeks of work for a full-time staff member.”
“This project also shows what’s possible when teams across the university work together,” said Lalovic-Hand. “This project was successful thanks to the great partnership between the Division of Academic Affairs and my team.”
The automation of the course withdrawal request process is not the first successful partnership of the two units. IRT and Academic Affairs successfully executed automation of the Pass/No Credit grade option during the pandemic. That option allowed students to determine their priorities, make decisions about how they want to complete their course requirements and minimize their academic and personal risk factors.
As a next step, IRT and Academic Affairs are working on automating a full semester withdrawal request that will generate notifications to appropriate parties across campus, including the offices of Financial Aid, Bursar and RowanCard, as well as the Student Success team and Residential Learning and University Housing.
“Working together, we can find ways to improve operations across campus and propel Rowan to truly be the University of the Future,” said Jacqueline Ring, Associate Vice President of Information Resources & Technology.
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.