Presentation from Salesforce.org Higher Ed Summit 2017 by: Shuguang Hong of Georgia State University Communication and engagement with the stakeholders is essential to the success of class scheduling in an academic unit. The unit needs feedback from students about their study plans to predicate course demand in a semester; it requires to know faculty availability to staff the classes with qualified instructors; and it must communicate with various units to understand the constraints of facilities, services and support. Unfortunately, this process is currently a manual process. It severely restricts the communication and engagement with those stakeholders, which can result in various errors in a class schedule and affects students, instructors and other stake holders. To address this critical need, Georgia State University has developed a class scheduling application built on the Salesforce Community Platform to enable communications and engagement with stakeholders during the class scheduling process. This presentation will discuss the architecture, design and implementation of their application.

1. Communication and Engagement with
Stakeholders In Class Scheduling
​Shuguang Hong
​Associate Chair & Clinical Associate Professor
​Computer Information Systems Department
​Georgia State University
​shong@gsu.edu
A Collaborative, Data Driven Application

2. Georgia State University In the Headlines
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/innovative

3. Pioneer in Using Data Analytics to Improve Graduation
Rate
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/what-can-stop-kids-from-dropping-out.html?_r=0
…within three years, Georgia State’s black,
Hispanic, low-income and first-generation
students were graduating at the same rate as
the student body overall: a first in US higher
education…
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/how-do-universities-use-big-
data?utm_content=buffer4ea4e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm
_campaign=buffer#survey-answer

4. Top-Rated Computer Information Systems (IS) Programs
​Top-10 programs in both IS research and teaching
​Large student population
• 1,000 undergraduate students
• 150 master students
• 25 Ph.D. students
​About 100 classes each semester
• Traditional academic programs
• 12-month cohort programs
• 8 different concentrations

5. The Life Cycle of Higher Education
Recruitment Education Placement
Alumni
Networking

6. Major Key Stakeholders Involved in Student Class
Registration
Students
Faculty
Academic
Dept.
Academi
c
Advisors
Registrar
ClassesClassesClassesClassesClassesClasses
Admin &
Services
Education

7. No Collaboration & Engagement with The Stakeholders
​Academic advisors don’t know what classes are planned and scheduled
• Plan of study is a to-do-list, rather than an executable plan
​Classes are planned based on past schedules
• Poor predication for the demand of incoming students
• Not data-driven for determining the # of sections of a course and the day and time to offer them
​Faculty has very limited influence on class scheduling
• Have to be flexible for schedule conflicts
​Student has no input to class scheduling
• Can not get into all desired classes as planned
• May be delayed for graduation

8. Main Project Goals and Objectives
​Main objectives:
• Innovative and data-driven
• Collaborative with all stakeholders
• Adapting the state-of-art technology
​Success factors:
• Improve student graduation rate
• Optimal class schedules
• Maximize the utilization of resources

9. A Collaborative, Data-Driven Solution
Students
Faculty
Academic
Dept.
Academic
Advisors
Registrar
Plan of
Study
Academic
Programs
Availability
&
Preference
Facility &
Availability
Class
Schedule
Admin &
Services
Student
Status

10. Data
Analytics
The Functional View of The Class Scheduling Application
Communit
y Portal
Plan of
Study
Student
Data
Programs
& Courses
Historical
Data
Class
Scheduler
Programs
Admin
Academic
Advisory
Class Scheduling Engine
Data Analytics Engine

11. Why Select Salesforce As The Implementation Platform?
​Salesforce platform natively supports the life-cycle of higher education - HEDA
Recruitmen
t
Education
Replaceme
nt
Alumni
Networking
Class
Scheduling
​Class scheduling can be built on top of the platform
​The platform provides the data analytics capability

12. Current Project Status
​Completed
• Academic programs admin module
• Class scheduler module
• Planned for production in May/June
​Technology used:
• Salesforce.com platform
• Apex and Visualforce
• CSS
• AJAX

13. Class Schedule Creation & Editing Screen

14. Development Plan
​Community portal
• For schedulers, instructors & students
​Academic advisory
• Creation of plan of study
• Collaborate with academic advisors and students
​Data analytics dashboards
• Class fulfillment analysis
• Class enrollment & capacity analysis
• Student graduation effect analysis
​Followed the Agile development approach

15. Q&A