Jones, Leighton D. liautman, DeForest.L.,

Deliati-IeVel Inforaation Systems. AIR'Forum Paper

.1978- .. . .

INSTITUTION' Toleao Univ., Ohio.PUB-DATENOTE

s flay 78,E ? ,

18p.; Paper presented at the annual Association TorInstitutional Research Forum (18th, Houston, Teias,NAY .21-q e5. 1978)

EDRS PRICE OF,40.83 HC-$1.87 Plus Postage.-DESCRIPTORS ejudgettingt -*CollegerPlanning; Data Bases; *bate

Collection;,Decision Baking; *Display Systems;1 Educational Administration; Faculty-Workload; Higher.Educition; *Information Need's; Information Retrieval;'1*Banagemest Information Systems; Hodels*Higher Educatfon Planning System;,*Universitv of

: Toledo OH

ABSTRACTTo support informational needs of day-to-day and

long-range aecision-makin , many universities:

li

have.developed theirown data collection devi

rs and institutional reporting .systems.

Often these models only epresent a...single point in tine Ana do not-,Offectively support needs 'at: college and departmental levels. This ;,

paper,identities some of the Wore prevalent problemi encountered Withhigher le4ekinformation models adA discusses Higher EducationPlanning Systems (HEPS)_as a viable alternative,that will serve all '

.'organizational levels. HEPS's reports 'Are produced at several levelsof aggregation and displaz datefor several time periodsi A tetinicalOverview of the REPS sutset is presented as implemented by the.Univ4rsity of Toledo, utilizing data from the College of-BusinessAdministration. Costing methodology is the fulctum of.a planningprocess designed -to- affect, budgeting. The mannerKel retbrding coursesthat span multiple. instructional levels .and- the iethOd of : -

representing faculty work load are essential to costing the,components of inStruction. Two.methods of recotding faculty work loadwere tested in HEPS: (1) assigned work.load and (2) diary type of,work lbal.Reactions and comments from different.levels 10hin theUniversity and-prOposed future 'uses for` this system are discussed.'(Authrit/JHD) .

********************************************************************4* ; Reproductions supplied by ERRS -are the best that can be:Made* from the original doctipenfi''

. .

*****************************44**************************************

This paper is. partof 1978 Association,

search Forum Papers,Collection were recoithenby the AIR Forum PubliCamittee.

0

Robert A. Fendke'y

Arizona StateLlniversity,(Editor, 'AIR Fora* Publication

_U.S.-DEPARTMENT

OF HEALTH,.ErtficaTION a WELFARENATIONAL, INSTITUTE OF' EDUCATION

THIS DOCOMENiHAS BEEN ;REPRO.DUCED-EXACTLY AS RECEIVED-

FROTHTHE PERSoAsOR ORGANIZATiONATiNo IT PCHHIS

OF VIEW OR OPINIONSSTATED.D0 NOT_NECESSARiLY REPOE-SENT OFF_ICIAL

NATIONAL I-NSTITUTE OFEDUCATIONPOSITION OR i'OLICY

"PERMISSION_ TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL AS BEEN GRANTED BY

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESIN'FORMATION CENTER IERIC) ANDUSERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM,"

MULTI=LEVEL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Leighton D. JonesProject Leader, Planning and Management-Systemi

and

DeForest L. (Woody) TraUtmanDireotor, Management Information Services

The Univesity'of'Toledd, Toledo, Ohio 43(419) 537-2462

.1

Multi-Level InformationSystems.,,/!!

'Multi-Leve j

.

Abstract.

To ..support informational needs of day=to-day and "long range

decision' making,,many universities have developed their own data col

,

lection devices. aid =institutional ;reporting: systems. Often these models

only represent ust9gle point in time and de not effectively support1

t college-and departmental levels. This paper identifies Some

of the more prevalent Problems encountered with higher level information

pc els and discusses REPS = Higher Education Planning SY'Aems -1asa

viable alternative that will serve all organizational levels.. HEW

reports.are produaid at several levels Ofaggregation:and.dislay data

for several time perdedi. We Rresenta.thnical overview: of theec ov

HEPS sdbset, as.was implemented by The University of Toledo utilizing;_

data fromthe College of Business Admintstration.

Costing methodology is the fulcrum of a planning Pro ess designed

to affect budgeting: The mane'of recording courses t t span multiple. ,

instructional.leveli and the method of representing fi ulty work load

are essential to costing the components'of ipstructio . Two methods\ ,

) asiigned work/

load ,and 2) diary type of-work load. We present reactions end "-comments

from different leels within the University and our proposed' future uses,

for.this system,.;

tiA.evel liffOrMatiOP Systems

Much develOpment has taken place in recent years in cdaiprehensive,

qUantitative, planning and management infornetiOn systems; and ttley.

haVe been aeompared in the literatUre.T.- HisWever, this.paper ident4ies

some of the proC4-dures Which shoOd prove .heliful in the selection;

intitallatien; and use of a Olatining 'and management.sysatem primarily.

foCused on instructional indiCes.,

The Need for Comprehensive Multi-Level Reportihql

The needneed for quantitativi ibfbrmatiop is 6sually motivated by

inquiries 'from. central' administration or feom sources 'outside the u.ni=.

such as state'coordi noting' governing agencies. In" an

effort to comply with these demands, collegeS and universities have

aeii,eloped eaten -ite data retrieval sifstenis4 Since most lkorinatienal

crequesti are 'eventually hapdled through "Mid-administi.ation" offices or..

4 the' institutional'.r esear-Ch pffiCe,, data processing? systems are designed

to medt their-needs. Often these systems' are not as functional in

I '

ether. offices' or departinents. ° "Very little p'rogress) has been- made- in supplying i nformation. to

lower 'revels of adMinistration within.the unilersiti; (i.e., 'colleg'e

deans and .departmental chairmen). Since these levels are .. the

. -10-inary tottrces or data within the ,iversity, resultant data

base represents. tower managements' perception 'information that may

Pe useful*,at higher levels:. ,Beca46e. of the y gency of most requestS,

* 0

3

cycling back the informatian'for'verifiCatiOn is usually tooTtime

consuming and is often omitted altogether. This 'situAion,has tended

to stratify-the university with regard to the supplY.of report inforta-.. .

tion in one instance,.and the use of management information for evalua-... .

tion arid planntngin another. Management reportingts,ystems should. be

designed to tfeet reqUirements of multiple levels of organilation: .J

'"tr.u.atuf-0;,,,---

; - -Tv, ' .^._

0 ' i t .3 .4 ..,

Put oivanizational level is.only one dimension of .a cathprehensiie:. ,

management informatioil system. The second dimension is tit of time.

Management tifotmation reports are usualii'createa from ongoing operat- .

ing or transactional sytielps, such as a student _record systerri.o. a-. . 4

iipaynoll-iersonnel tys cm. Thetanagement informItion System -rnuit. ,,,-

utilize.a usnapshot" o the -operating -system at sorie point :in time... But

a snipshat at a single point in time can only desc ibe one itistanaeOf

any event. It Cannot- ive necessary historical kgromnd Or trend

information. For exam le, if we were to say that t he Call:age of AY!

.and 'Sciences Ms an enrcillment of 900 Fir, is this eseriptie enou

of\ihe tatal reality to-adequately pan for the I col

ITE is certainly a descriptive statement relating t the col eg

it.fe11 short of providing the information necessa y for the dete.

tion.of future needs and resources' of the corlege.n.However, if we a

display the enrollments in the College of-Arts and 'ciences over

years., We might be able to-ideritify the trends in wth. These

bring us soinewhat clOserto describing' realities. aba

taus help .us plan for the ;future.

Multi= level'4

.

Iuniversity is coinposed of many- diverse operating systems which

should: not: operate in isolation; Therefore a comiirehensive'prlaniiing and t

,manageMent system must' display- integrated- information froM these other.

systm across multiple organizational levels and time periods.1

. , .

(Figure l)

The use of an inttituti.onal research Mode4°4tlowerjebartMehtal6.

7 I

levels has:Some:inherent problems , 1) it is usuallr .designed to

aggregate or: give a simplified view.of the datic ):1 its output iS qften

Printed.' n' alorrnat that it not directly related to .organizational or

departmental -structures; 3) .the-Aisejof special code, abbreviations and,.'

acrenynis make it, difficult fOr non ,analysts to uiei',:piiiyane wFro. hag hid. ,

,,-.the experience.of trying to. explain io\a-dppit-,tmental,-.chairman what 1*

,- ;-

meant by "PIDuton. an. NCREMS report can relate to this problem; 4) the

institutional research mo' del: may not display the' reality that es heeded,

for lowpr level planning and-management due to timing and defin-itional t-

prdblpms, ,sequencing of events, the desire:,

of a de ar nta ,chairman. :

to supply oinforination that wi31 -optilmize. the petceOtion of his depart=.

ment,,,Gr .host of other reasohs;,5) repors Usually represent onl,y

one time period thus longitudinal study,,will :itliklme laying several

ide and maNaty ext,racting

TheHEP_Stncounter

/ In earl' 'The UntVersity of Toledo purchased from EdJcation.

and Economic (EU.): a subset Of their Higher Education

Plahning.Sys Our 'emphasitwas supplying rnanagenient.

/rePortl to several leVels within tiie instructional area REPS was

"I.

chosen boiiius it came clos6t to solving., many of the,foregoing

Figure 1

Management Information Cube

(1) -PCa -0 02 0 o (1) 0

0 Z 0 -Z. 02 g 'a 0+5)-t o 4-1 X4--1 0 F-ICO 0 a) XI

Multi=Level&

problems as could reasonably be expected in a °Purchased' syStem."

REPS first provides a series of assessment reports at a course/.

. section level; Simultaneously it. generatei more aggregate reports at

both the college, and suniVeriity, levels; This helps to guarantee that

all levels.within'.thei university will have'numbers generated from the

same data base, at the same time,"-and ijiat they Can be audited back

to the details.of coursi and section.. This also provides the individual

depar s-with the detailed data that the-admiinistration has identi-

ied as being "offici14 data."

Most,RERS reports have few extraneous codes or abbreViations.

tmental and account- codes have.all been decodeeto give their,.

alphabetic names. Exteinal..,,or extraneous codes not .a part of the

university, ashimposed by other a9encies,' are caplet ly omitted:from

'these j reports. This may.be a- two_ edijed sword. Since . REPS* reports-are

not designed to display information according to other constructs,

rnanUal trarisformation must, occur in order to conform or balance

to reports used outside the, university.

REPS is a com*hensive` system whiCh identifies 40 .ddspi'iy's ;cost

ty'rhajor discipline objectiVes. These costsrilui-Oltimately bgtf-econci141-1. accounting tontrol totals. Because:of this there is a greater i31--;

centive for faculty or 'chairmen to properlS identifyiand code resource

expenditures. for example, if educational 'expenses are reported td.,be

low!i instruction, an -offsetting- qqfpvcpens'41.. item will. likely- be found; -

in. another program or activity, such -4-depar.tiental administraiion;.

public service, advising, etc.

.Because REPS reports are derived from

figurelM0.1ti=level

7

'TOTAL COURSE

LUwER'' DI VISION

,50'

,TOTAL COUR4

MAL DIvISIOu

COURSE COST

COURSE SECTION 1976 1977

0102Os

-04

0607a.

o9

Pi-02:03

.1247

1100

1i 369

t°8.1u:400.

FACULTY SALARY COSTS -PER- COure.';

f4247i,11247

80044577

,

.

4rOST pER STUDENT--CREDIT HOUR

1978 , 1976 . 1977 . 1.978

,

64)2

... 7;42 ...

.7;13:24916;915441:7,00 ,

3,64. ' . '. '-.., 0.1413 ''''.22.06

6;72

._ .

4497 * ,8443 :

-6;365426'6.7364

H16.HER2EDUcATLON PLANNING- SYSTEM

INsT17uTION UNIvERsITY 'OF '01E00COLLEGE BUSINESSDEPARTMENT: AC,CouNTiNG .

HIGHCR EUuCKTION pLANNI.t,G.-SYSTEM%

INSTITUTION UfWERSI Ti OF TOLEDO'COLLEGE BUSINESSDEPARTMENT AECOOTING

TOTAL DEPARTNENT:UPPER-D.0,1610N.MASTER

. u0c1OR.PROkES51014.-TOTAL

FACULTY 'SALARY COSTS PER cOURsE_CREDIT HouR, COuTAcT HOUR

summAR7 I

COURSE COST

076 .41977'

114,97731'16113,246

49..834

)

RPf 2242FALL-.4/15/77,'

,

, .

Vi 9ER.mu

H°CO( '

1976: 41977.Q 1'978'

: 311c.320

'' 125., 120 :-,.2.00, ''L,

,!392i .: 1,

'20 - ,.

'..01.A'S ..

4320.:

;51.1, .,

111.200 .?06.

2ab

PAGE. RBI 2E,412

FALL11/15/77

COST REP STUDENTCREDIT HOUR

1178 1916 1977 078.

6,7,2.13;19

9433:

4

cuST PERCONTACT HOUR

1976 . 1977 :1473"

288,At270.

.1042 4,

they have the lis and forinat.tq display up to three' periods side,

brside on a giv reporct.., 2Tbis.faciljtates,ba.sit 'trend analysis and

longitudinal studies. Most stadies which look; at trendsoyer given

-peribds of time are as concerned with percentageS as.they are \gith

'numeric- values. -tin light of this, HEPS4'diSplays most reports in

quantifications,. percentage's and numeric counts.

Tettinical, Uric, at REPS',"

"s k.As is the ease at Many-other universities, finhncial considerations

dictated limitatidns on. what we could purchate ,in our HEPS packa0e.

omitted those reports which were.in part generated from other syttems

and still had-whit we considered to be a manageable Subset Which would

supply' pertinent i;formetion in a timely manner.t.'

Because REPS generates reports,from a series of historical files,

snapshotsof the three major files. (student, course; and personnel) are.

maintained in a vault in the same 'format. It i.s in this ,fashion that 4'

up to three periods of data Can-be diSplayedOn a single report.

Although this concept is not unique to REPS, the support :.sy-steirs which

4eneratei this, model is .soinewhat unique in packaged,planning Skitems-.

..(Figure.

The qualitg of any planning syitenilAnly equal:to the quality. . . 4

and availability of the bask, institutional data base. Therefore; REPS

puts a great emPhiSis on the institutionalta base; In caseswhere;

this it incomplete REFS provides a data management' system: This system

.isdictfehary driven and.has maintenance-capabiiO. The dictionary

defines data 'er.Oents which are present, on the master file. HEPS also

provides:a codes descriptioW.fi-le Which defines all necessary codes

,f9).;'the toyle9e. It t-s'Utecito validate codei informaiion befaie

THE -UNIYERSITYe0' T9.4Epti

,HIGHER EDUCATION PLANNING 'SYSTEM.

FT-X. &'..$

COURSE

ERROR.

LISTING

Multi-Level10

-entering the data base: Also in the cods file are conversion tables

inini 1'e-01s of .aggrigation.

also has a Pararneer Generated.Budget,godule that :ats 'quite

-i.t.friim the system which generates reports from the .HEPS hittory

vault. ThisModule is.$dt-driven bY.Master

card driven system Which contains budget factors aid other variables

such as expected student credit hours by level instruction, faculty

41,

salaries and, FTE, sfaculty work load and support stall, and other re-

source formulas.: The output of this is a set of budget doctiMents dis-,.

playing "how much" is necessary to support a particular dePartment or

college EES also developed a sophisticated libiarian system which'" I

greatly facilitates the actual installation of their computer programs.

This system, called. EESYLIB, has been utilized in many other administra-

tive applications at the university, ih addition to HEPS.

Other elements of the total, HEPS systen which were hot purchased

The University of Toltdo were the Budget Development Rodule, the

Facilities Module, and their simulation module.

1 EPSImillementation

Without getting into tedious detail, we may say that the actual

installation of the REPS programs proceeded with relatively few problems,

'considering that the system contains over 85 computer programs. Of

course a typical range of startup problems were encountered.

Many of the initial issues involving, report headings, data .element

definitions and data aggregations were identified and resolved in a

one day "on site" visit by EES. In this "initial decision" phase the

the, primary players, such as Vice Presidents, Management Information,

SerVice add Data Processing Directors, were involved., Although

Multi,Leve)11

.the concept of forcing key administrators to make decisions and commit-.

mentsi as a :group before :further .instal]ation proceeds is ..a. good idea

aI so `fps. a arlk 01rCe a , eosfoni s maf ,and ::DES `lids impl rend.:'

the decision,, it, then becomes diffictilt to change. this decisiOn 'at. a

later date. FierhapS a'better: term for this :decisions" .phase

Should-be "final cceoisions;" In .any.casei-:,ao iffloTementation. of th*4

nature would certainly consume a great deal:-more timeoirithout the ex-*,

ternal force of an outside vendor predipitatinT these decisions. It

also places the burden of responsibility. for these decisions directly

upon upper administration,. and not solely on programing or lower level

staff.

'In order to control the physical amounts of data and data collection,

we also decided to pilot only the College of Business ,Administration.

.010 choice of this particular college was partially based on,the fact

that the College of Business Admiristration had been maintaining a

large portion of support data which could be used for validation.

In addition to activities in the initial decisions phase, we

have discovered twy other issues that are complex and-philosophical

The-first is the concept of split courses. The. University of Toledo

has a large number of courses that may, depending on the status of

the enrolling student, be taken for either undergraduate, masters, or

dottoral-credit but are essentially-one class taught as i group by one

faculty member. Within these courses, all three levels are often

present: Logic dictates that if we look at section size analysis alone,

then these courses.must be mapped into a primary course section. If

not, we could have many sections with only one or two students enrolled.

Multi -Level12

But in actuality this would not be the case. If our analysis displays

the distribution of...sta4eiitr'pf.'edit ,hocir. -tau 13t by course level

necessary .to keep the -.course ',Unfortunitelyi :HEPS 'requires'

either.methad,,but not both,' be represented in the history files.

, is possible to run the programs that generate the history files twice..

pne run would aggregate the courses and one would leave the courses as

separate entities, thus maintaining both in separate history files. But

this is an inefficient-data management technique and also quite expensive.*

in. our HEPS subset we have relatively few reports by student classi-

fication,,and quite a few by section and, section type. Thus our "initial

decision" was to mac the courses into a primary course, usually the

lowest course number of the sequence. After seeing our own data in HEPS

reports, we have certain misgivings. One entire series of reports

distributes faculty teaching load-by level of instruction. Since all

multiple level courses are mapped to the lowest level, our reports. _r

show that in certain depirtients there is no graduate leiel instruction!

The second problem involves the assessment of faculty work Ibid.

The Ohio Board of' Regents requires each institution, to generate faculty

work load in terms of hours per week by activity type, (i.e., teaching,

departmental research, public service, 'etc.). On the other hand; EES

_4feels that the concept of "assigned time's is more relevant to budget;

planning and control. It-is possible to computer generate the :''assigned"

work load for instructional actiiities.- gut there na machine readable

information regarding the assigned time for other activities such as

advising or admihistration.

Multi-Level13

Since this rias,not.an issue to be resolved in an initial decision

fashion,.we designed the system to- accept both types of work load

indicators. Although this may be cumbersome, and for the time-being

requires the maintenancre, of two history files,\ it does .Provide a_

technically feasible solution to the problem.

4 4-- After hand gathering and coding the aisigned rk load data, both

sets of data were input to the HEPS system for the pilot college. As

expected,, the diary type analysis proved to be ',subjective. Although -

the assigned work load analysis.brought us cloier to in ormation that

could be used internally, it was alio subjective and ope \ to interpreta-

tion. The manner in which one dean assignS and gives work credit for an

activity might notThe the -same -as that-of another dean. In this case,

the, problem becomes-one of definition rathercthan of teclinkal-constraintl_i

Siride the Ohio. Board of Regents is requiring one type of work load

'reporting and our experiences may show that internal reporting is better

served by assigned work load, an unresolved" problem will persist until

the pilot test is concluded. Although these problems ape, not new to4

higher education, and certainly not to thii group, economies require

some kind of resoluti'an.

HEPS. Uses

We currently have tr years'Of REPS-data for th College of

Business Administration. And torhe first time we a e in the processof generating reports for the ot4r seven colleges at e University.

Some of our initial problems of section size and work 1 ad seem to

have only scratched the surface. Although the College of Business

AdministrAtion was -desirable as a pilot c011ege, it didn't have certain

\complexities of instructional type that are found in o.ther7caleges.. 5

a

Since each.course was designated as either lecture of independent stuOY;

a more complex mix of instructional design could not.be tested.

In our original HEPS :system we did not purchase-the programsde=

signed to create reports .Tcr lion-instructional personnel.. We did however.

gh*:the personnel master file such that this segMent of the University

4

could physically be included' ih the file. As-a result; we' hautein HIPS

a fairly complete file with, all personnel data maintained. Although.

not mentioned earlier, the HEPS Master file also has Variable- Report

_

Generator associated wish it.' Thus we are able :to generate baiic per-:

sonnel reportt for the, entire University. Within the structure ..of' the:

Personnel Mister File we included a position control' code which can

track not only individuals, but, also authorized positions. By usfpg

.

the VRG and the position control code We are able'to generate_ seniority

and affirmative action, reports. -- _

As part of the original contract with EES, their Personnel

make a final presentation and discutsion of the HEPS reports for the

pilot college.- This will involve the President and top administrators. ,

in an effort to gain understanding and backiii4 at the outset. We ex=

pact the final decisions.regarding-faculty wo'r-k load,. split, courses,

and other problems to be resolved af that time We are'only now begin-

ning ttotitiltze this system in its fullest caPaiitY.