2016-2021 AMP Implementation Updates (January 2019)
- Charge to the Committee—Offer Alternative Scheduling and Delivery
- Scheduling Committees and Membership
- What the Initiative is Designed to Address
- Impact on Student Success, Faculty, Resources
- Scheduling And Delivery Implementation Timeline
- Identify Possible Conflicts/Challenges
- Assessment
CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE—OFFER ALTERNATIVE SCHEDULING AND DELIVERY
The Academic Master Plan Initiative 2 work group will recommend actions to the senior vice presidents of academic affairs and student affairs to effect alternative scheduling and delivery and guidelines for efficient and effective scheduling that enhance student retention and completion rates and are financially sustainable. This multi-year effort will be based on a data-driven audit of existing practices and informed by best practices. Implementation will parallel approval/acceptance of recommendations.
Scheduling Committees and Membership
ATD Scheduling Core Team
Margaret Latimer (project lead), VP & Provost, Germantown Campus and Collegewide STEM Unit
John Hamman, ATD and Dean of Mathematics and Statistics
Ayanna Burney, Course Scheduling Manager
Mohamed El Muwaqqat, SIS Manager
Scheduling Review Committee
Carolyn Terry, Associate SVP for Academic Affairs
John Hamman, ATD and Dean of Mathematics and Statistics
Bess Vincent, Assistant Administrative Dean, Germantown
Ernest Cartledge, Director of Enrollment Services and College Registrar
Frank Trezza, Dean of Visual and Performing Arts
Marvin Mills, VP of Facilities and Security
Ayanna Burney, Course Scheduling Manager
Deborah Crutchfield, WDCE Registrar/Customer Service Supervisor
Beatrice Lauman, Academic Operations and Special Projects Director
Ad Astra Scheduling Team
Ayanna Burney, Course Scheduling Manager
Jennifer Gottwald, Student Information Systems Specialist
John Hamman, ATD and Dean of Mathematics and Statistics
Sanjiv Prakash, Report & Data Warehouse Manager
Bess Vincent, Assistant Administrative Dean, Germantown
Phong Banh, Director of IT Application and Web Services
Mohamed El Muwaqqat, SIS Manager
Beatrice Lauman, Academic Operations and Special Projects Director
Ernest Cartledge, Director of Enrollment Services and College Registrar
Jessica Zelt, Quality Assurance Analyst
Dong-Min Kim, Space Planning Analyst
Ad Astra Analytics Team
John Hamman, ATD and Dean of Mathematics and Statistics
Phong Banh, Director of IT Application and Web Services
Beatrice Lauman, Academic Operations and Special Projects Director
Bess Vincent, Assistant Administrative Dean, Germantown
Jessica Zelt, Quality Assurance Analyst
WHAT THE INITIATIVE IS DESIGNED TO ADDRESS
- Post multi-semester (multi-year) schedules showing 80% of courses
- Guarantee that program requirements posted in the multi semester schedule will run
- Recommend software that uses institutional data to create effective Collegewide scheduling
- Use two or three year rolling enrollment data to predict demand and schedule high demand courses at optimal times
- Minimize class cancellations
- Achieve average 85% seat utilization rates during fall and spring terms
- Reduce the nine parts of term which define the blocks of time (days/weeks) during which courses may be offered, thereby limiting the number of standard start and end dates for terms
- Standardize year-round terms (flex terms) (7-week, 14-week, etc.) and market courses and degrees (programs) built around flex-term scheduling
- Reduce the number of distinct meeting patterns (currently over 400), and class start
times (currently over 100), to maximize flexibility while minimizing confusion
- Define and use standard start and end times for classes
- Rotate low-enrolled courses by campus, semester, and time-of-day
- Ensure ratio of course offerings by campus reflects appropriate campus balance unless specialized facilities necessitate otherwise
- Couple scheduling and academic program advising
- Develop and market evening and weekend courses and programs
IMPACT ON STUDENT SUCCESS, FACULTY, RESOURCES
- Reduce the nine parts of term
As of Fall 2018, 9 parts of term have been reduced to 5: full term, first half, second half, week-2 start and week-3 start. Week-3 start (POT 8) has been maintained at this time.
- Develop and market evening and weekend courses and programs
Each VPP has identified one or more evening/weekend programs for which Pathways are being developed. In addition to program course requirements, general education courses will be specified. This lays the groundwork for developing a subset of gen ed courses that will be guaranteed in the evening/weekend schedule. Students will be permitted to deviate from recommended Pathway courses.
Identified Programs
- Early Childhood Education AAS ParaEducator
- Community Health AA
- Biological Sciences AS
- Chemistry AS
- General Engineering/Engineering Science AS
- Computer Science AA
Pathways are being developed in Fall 2018 to advise evening/weekend students regarding Spring 2019 course registration. Deans and chairs will confirm that recommended courses are scheduled in Spring 2019, permitting students to take the recommended Pathway courses. Faculty, including counselling faculty, learning centers, and message boards Collegewide will be used to inform and market these opportunities.
- Online Courses
Almost 6,000 students (Fall count) enroll in distance classes. As program Pathways
are developed and marketed, online options will play a role in reducing the time to
completion.
Four online degree programs offer Business, Computer Science and Technologies, Criminal
Justice, and General Studies majors the flexibility to complete their degree without
the restrictions of on-campus classes. Early Childhood Education is in the online
pipeline.
- Recommend software that uses institutional data to create effective Collegewide scheduling
Implementation of Ad Astra Information Systems scheduling software package has begun.
See timeline for more details
- Astra Schedule™ creates optimized space usage schedules.
- Platinum Analytics™ analyzes Montgomery College data on past course enrollment practices, enrollment numbers, and classroom usage to generate recommendations for future scheduling practices, particularly to reduce class cancellations
- Rotate low-enrolled courses by campus, semester, and time-of-day
This is currently being done on a limited basis. For example, PHYS 010, required in the Diagnostic Medical Sonography (DMS) program, is offered each semester at TPSS, where some of the required DMS courses must be taken due to lab/equipment at TPSS. One section is now offered at Germantown in the fall and will be offered at Rockville in the spring, giving students the option to plan to take it at the campus of their choice.
- Define and use standard start and end times for classes
In AY 2018 there were 6741 CRNs for which a start time was assigned. Of these, 6111 (90.7%) started on the hour or half hour. Of the remaining 630, 310 were discussion or lab sections, and an additional 48 were held off campus. Finally, of the 272 on-campus non-lab/discussion CRNs, 95 were early morning/late evening and 177 (2.6%) were held between 9 a.m. and 5 pm. During the two academic years (201620-201730) 89.6% of CRNs started on the hour or half hour, and 3.7% of odd-starting time classes were on campus starting between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
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Couple scheduling and academic program advising
Four – semester Program Advising Guides for most programs have been posted www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/program-advising/advising-guides.html
Six – semester Guides have been created for some programs and will be created for the top 16 enrolled programs. These Guides provide a pathway for part-time students who comprise approximately two thirds of our credit students.
Program Advising Guides with Pathways for evening/weekend students are being developed. As noted above, these will be quite prescriptive, permitting guaranteed course schedules to be developed.
Program advisors, chairs, and deans will follow the communication benchmarking described in the Program Advising Plans or develop new communication plans to reach out to students at 15, 30, and 45 credit hours (or other as deemed appropriate for the program.) Collaboration with counseling faculty will occur at the program level as well as through the Achieving the Dream Core team since students are undecided, change majors, and seek the advice of both program faculty and counselling faculty when life issues interfere with their current plan.
- Achieve average 85% seat utilization rates during fall and spring terms
This benchmark is being met, consistently, at the beginning of the fall and spring semes - ters. This goal has achieved significant cost savings and resulted in fewer classes being canceled. Fewer cancellations provide faculty and students with greater assurance that their planning and efforts to prepare for a semester will be rewarded. Spring semesters exhibit some slippage by the third week. The table shows Collegewide seat utilization for all CRNs.
It should be noted that in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018, 66% and 61%, respectively, of CRNs had seat utilization rates greater than or equal to 85%. The remaining 34% and 39%, respectively, had seat utilization rates less than 85%. The 85% average seat utilization rate was established as fiscally sustainable target that did not overly constrain the ability to provide scheduling choices that meet the needs of students’ demanding lives.
- Multi-year scheduling permits students to plan for multiple semesters and faculty to project their teaching schedules
SCHEDULING AND DELIVERY IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE
Semester-by-semester timeline
- Reduce Number of Class Cancellations (Fall 17)
- Achieve average seat utilization rate of 85% (Fall 17)
- Reduce Parts of Term (Spring 18)
- Standardize Start Times (Spring 18)
- Begin to utilize Schedule Building Software (AY 18-19) (See more detailed timeline below.)
- Confirm evening, weekend, and DL Programs (AY 18-19)
- Establish Collegewide Scheduling Protocol (AY 18-19)
In January 2018, through approval by the Board of Trustees, Montgomery College purchased Ad Astra Information Systems’ software scheduling packages Astra Schedule™, and Platinum Analytics™. The products will help the College optimize classroom space usage and course section offerings, reducing section cancellation rates.
Astra Schedule™ is a scheduling platform that integrates with campus student information systems (SIS) to optimize classroom space usage. The Office of Information Technology completed the technical setup, including establishing connectivity with MC’s SIS so that MC data can be utilized by Astra Schedule™, for analysis. The MC Astra Schedule team comprising members from Academic Affairs, OIT, and Student Affairs has developed room and course information files that Astra Schedule™ will utilize to provide optimized schedule proposals.
The data analytics package, Platinum Analytics™, utilizes Montgomery College data on past course enrollment practices, enrollment numbers, and classroom usage as well as utilizing peer institution data to generate recommendations for future scheduling practices to attain key performance indicator benchmarks. The kickoff presentation was May 22, 2018. The College receives weekly interim reports, holds bi-weekly analysis sessions with Platinum Analytics™, representatives, and will conduct a full analysis of the Spring 2019 schedule. The historical and predictive analysis will be refreshed on an ongoing basis to provide longitudinal tracking and insights for improving scheduling practices.
The Ad Astra Information Systems’ software packages are expected to be fully utilized for the creation and analysis of the Fall 2019 schedule.
IDENTIFY POSSIBLE CONFLICTS/CHALLENGES
While there is sensitivity to overhauling the longstanding campus-based schedules, the adoption of Ad Astra as the college’s scheduling software will help the committee to form a new scheduling process, which must be communicated clearly to all constituents. While the old process emphasized physical spaces and the kinds of courses that had historically been offered in them, the new approach emphasizes courses and the physical resources they require to facilitate learning. This is a powerful approach because it aligns pedagogical needs with available space, while identifying room features that are in the highest demand. In addition, it encourages fiscal stewardship because the software will identify which resources are most critical for instructional spaces and where resources may be used to alleviate scheduling bottlenecks. While deans and chairs support this approach, it requires everyone to suspend current scheduling practices, which are often too focused on specific rooms or regions and individual instructor preferences. This also requires everyone to place student schedules at the center of this work, scheduling courses based on student demand and then staffing them accordingly, rather than adjusting course offerings based on staff availability or preference. As implementation continues, a clear, Collegewide scheduling policy that supports student success will need to be established, communicated, and followed.
Maximizing the utility of the Ad Astra software packages involves integrating the Ad Astra system with our internal student management system. This has been addressed to a large degree, but additional issues may arise. Additionally to gain the maximum benefit from the software package, a detailed list of rooms and room features with consistent labeling nomen - clature is required. This is being addressed as well but construction, relocation, and reconfigu - ration will be ongoing challenging factors. The Ad Astra software also requires documentation of course-based space needs so that it can sort courses into the appropriate spaces. This has been involved and will continue to require considerable work from deans and chairs to generate these lists and coordinate across campuses to ensure Collegewide consistency.
Assessment
It is critical to this initiative that a clear evaluation is in place to measure the effectiveness of the changes we are implementing. The evaluation has begun already but will be ongoing as additional parts of the initiative are implemented and operationalized.
The broad areas of measurement are:
- Fall-to-Spring Retention
- Fall-to-Fall Retention
- Time to degree
- Graduation
While there are many initiatives throughout the college that will impact each of these areas of measurement, the increased efficiency of the schedule as well as offering of alternative schedules will undoubtedly positively impact each of those areas.
Additionally, there are areas of measure that are specific to scheduling.
The scheduling specific areas of measurement are:
- Seat utilization rates
- Course cancellation rates
- Number of unique meeting patterns
- Number of unique start times
- Number of parts of term
- Standard week classroom utilization
- Off-grid waste
- Student satisfaction with scheduling