From Ad hocery to Organized Chaos: AARB at AACRAO From Ad hocery to Organized Chaos: Advisors, Enterprise Architects, Registrars and Technologists working together to improve undergraduate advising Monday, July 2, 2012 3:45pm – 5:00pm Session ID: 160

About UW-Madison Founded in 1848 Total Research Expenditures: #3 Total Students: 42,441 Undergraduate (28,737) Graduate (9,251) Professional (2,823) Specials (1,630) Total Schools and Colleges: 13 Number of Degrees Awarded Annually: 10,099

Introductions Scott Owczarek Jim Phelps Jeffrey Shokler University Registrar, Division of Enrollment Management Jim Phelps Enterprise Architect, Division of Information Technology Jeffrey Shokler Associate Director, L&S Honors Program

Five Years at Madison 8 9 10 11 12

or do something worthwhile!" Angst 8 Lots of angst in the advising community Long standing decentralization (low communication, low coordination) and local control Tradition/habit: development of local technical solutions to problems challenges (led to high redundancy in solutions and significant gaps/needs across disparate units/divisions) Mistrust in directions between RO and Advising (going back to the ISIS Crisis) “Go and plant trees, or do something important” "Go and plant trees, or do something worthwhile!"

Initiative for Undergraduates (MIU) Madison Initiative for Undergraduates (MIU) 9 Critical importance of the MIU for enabling innovation on this campus in every corner

Advisor Notes System and MIU Task Force 10 Advisor Notes System (ANS) brought a distributed community together and also demonstrated we could successfully work together to produce a product both useful and beneficial to all First Round MIU proposals included independent/uncoordinated advising components (need identified to set aside MIU funding to strategically address undergraduate advising issues) $1.5 million dollars of MIU funding set aside for this purpose MIU Task Force created to review and create a report on the most pressing needs for undergraduate advising on campus

Advising Architechture Review Board (AARB) 11 We brought all the communities to the table and began to “architect” the advising experience The Advising Architecture Review Board (AARB) arose during the 2010-2011 academic year out of a growing awareness of the need to better integrate the tools used by UW-Madison undergraduate advisors in their work. A more holistic approach is needed for aligning and delivering the increasing array of technology related resources. The Advisor Notes System (ANS) project, in particular, brought to the advising technology communities attention the need for better communication, increased trust and collaboration, and improved coordination of efforts among DoIT, the Registrars Office, and the advising community in order to improve services, tools, and service delivery to undergraduate advisors. At the May Council of Academic Advising (CAA) meeting, the Council agreed to the creation of what has come to be called the Advising Architecture Review Board. The team was tasked with assessing the landscape of advisor tools and trying to determine if a more efficient and effective delivery of these tools could be achieved. The team includes advisors, advising administrators, and technical leads from both the Registrar's Office and the Division of Information Technology. Framework The AARB began by exploring and then defining the advisor life cycle on campus – the nature, requirements, and key phases of undergraduate advising. From this an Advisor Core Diagram was created that captures the key advisor activities, the core services needed to perform those activities and the administrative pipeline (processes and administrative support infrastructure) that supports them (see Addendum 1). The work of the AARB will assist the advising community in identifying strategic gaps in core services and/or administrative support that hinder or prohibit advisors from working effectively or efficiently. The AARB will also work to identify areas of overlap in tools or technology services where too many tools are provided to achieve the same goal or outcome, answer the same question, or accomplish the same task.

Undergraduate Advising Director of Undergraduate Advising 12 New position and office created as an outcome of the MIU Advising Task Force effort to: provide coordination and leadership for undergraduate advising efforts and initiatives on campus oversee the distribution and management of the MIU funds set aside for undergraduate advising assess the outcomes of the MIU advising hires and use of MIU funding supporting undergraduate advising initiatives provide a central point for coordination, leadership, collaboration, and advocacy for the undergraduate advising community Office of the Director of Undergraduate Advising Director Assistant Director for Advising Technology and Assessment Assistant Director for Training and Professional Development Direct reports include: Director of the Cross College Advising Service Director of the Center for Pre-Health Advising Director of Pre-Law Advising Director of the Undergraduate Academic Awards Office

Critical Success Factors The right people at the table Key retirements Maturity of the moment Buy-in and support from leadership Building on a win

Building the AARB Community buy-in and shopping the idea Build on existing governance Role of the Enterprise Architect Aaron Brower and Joanne Berg as sponsors Brand new Registrar with no history/baggage Through the AARB's work building the Core Diagram the following issues emerged: There is a complex landscape of data used by advisors. These data live in a wide variety of systems. There is a complex landscape of technology tools available to undergraduate advisors on campus - each with its own characteristics, quirks, and value, many of which are also redundant due to local development. There are gaps in the tools provided and no holistic framework for their delivery. Similarly, advisors may or may not be aware of the existence, availability, or authorization path(s) for any given tool or set of tools on campus. The advising endeavor is very complex on our campus as shown by the diversity of the types of advisors: those with large pools of advisees vs. small pools vs. faculty advisors with one or two advisees; drop-in advising vs. assigned advisees; wide-open options (undeclared advisees) vs. structured programs (engineering or business), academic advising vs. auxiliary advising, deans offices, academic/student affairs units, departmental advisors, peer advisors, etc. Historically, technology tool/system development and delivery have been ad hoc and disjointed. In some areas there are multiple tools while in many there are complete functional gaps. Knowledge of the tools and data available to advisors is incomplete. Knowledge transfer and professional development rely on peer relationships and are, again, largely ad hoc. Duplication of efforts exists because of these effects. There is no home on campus where coordination of solutions or campus-wide decision-making occurs at present. (The new Director of Undergraduate Advising position and central advising administrative unit should address this issue.) The ad hoc nature of the definitions of advisor, advising, and advisee cause confusion in discussions around advising. The ad hoc nature of the advisor - advisee relationship also adds to the confusion. Strategic Gaps Three major strategic gaps were identified through the AARBs efforts this summer. Advisor training and professional development – at present, although some units on campus provide comprehensive training to new advisors (CCAS, for example), many advisors receive little to no training, and participation in on-going professional development varies widely. Access to core services – currently, separate authorization and log in processes exist for many advising tools, and in some cases, simultaneous logins to systems can cause interference in the systems. Coordination of issues and solutions – there is for the moment, no single point of contact or coordinating structure where advising technology questions, issues, and solutions can be explored, examined, evaluated, coordinated, and implemented. This has led to the initiation of numerous local, ad hoc/uncoordinated efforts to solve advising technology issues on campus.

How we use the AARB

How we now guide technical decisions

How we use the core diagram

Moving to the CoRA Model Advisor EBOs

Outreach to projects and scalability Why you come to the AARB Gary Essenmacher’s report plan

Scenario: SAM (SOAR Advising Module) SAM - could have been built as another silo. Now it is very different. Required the coordination of the different groups and input from a variety of groups.

Scenario: Future Planning Dots on Core Diagram

Scenario: Impact(s) of Decisions Operational decisions on advisor assignments that are causing impacts downstream (6 years on)

Scenario: Training Analysis Complexity of the training (Michelle’s story) Simplifying the complexity of the advisor technical landscape then technical training becomes easy. We can then focus on effective advising training.

Summary From weeds to a garden From tactical to strategic From filling holes to knitting an experience

Questions? Thank You! Session ID: 160 Scott Owczarek, owczarek@wisc.edu Jim Phelps, phelps@doit.wisc.edu Jeffrey Shokler, jshokler@wisc.edu

https://wiki.doit.wisc.edu/confluence/display/AARB/Home For more information: https://wiki.doit.wisc.edu/confluence/display/AARB/Home