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How many times in a semester are you asked for an exception to a policy? Rarely Once Are you kidding me? – Weekly!
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There’s An Exception to That?TRACY ROBERTSMURRAY STATE UNIVERSITY
How many times in a semester are you asked for an exception to a policy?
Rarely
Once
Are you kidding me? – Weekly!
Things to consider
When a policy exception is requested, what questions do you ask?
What questions SHOULD you ask?
Who decides if an exception is granted?
When does the exception become the rule?
HOW DO YOU TRACK EXCEPTION REQUESTS??
Discussion Topics
Problem Goal
Solution Tracking & Reports
Maintenance
Things to know
Examples used were from within the Office of the Registrar, but this presentation is applicable for other offices as well.
We found the difference between an exception request and a complaint to often be indistinguishable.
Our solution tackles both exceptions and complaints.
The Problem
• People were asking for exceptions and we had no way to track them.• Sometimes the exceptions were rare.
• Have we ever granted that exception before?• Has this student been granted an exception already?
• Which policy exceptions will NEVER be granted?• Have we notified all the right people of an exception or complaint?
What was our goal?
Consistent Decision Making
Document for
historical purposes
SACS Accreditati
on & Assessmen
t
Look for patterns
Solution
Created a Microsoft Application with an Access back-end database to store all policy exceptions and complaints from students, faculty, staff, and parents.
The application is stored on one of our servers, so it is backed up nightly and accessible from any computer with remote desktop connection.
It took approximately 1-2 weeks to build and test the initial model.
Solution
Brought online around August 2013; now have 366 entries.
Access to the application is controlled by folder rights and University Active Directory permissions. Only permanent employees in our office have access to it.
As part of the application, there is a folder to store supporting documentation.
What is tracked?
Student Info• ID• Name• Semester• Date of initial contact
Issue Type• Exception• Complaint• Hold
Initiator• Student• Faculty/Advisor• Staff• Parent/Guardian• Other
Office Unit• Degree Audit• Graduation• Records• Registration• Transcripts
Category• Hours in Residency
• Course Level Restriction
• Upper Level Hours
Special Offices Involved• Public Safety• IDEA/OEO• Provost’s Office• President’s Office
What is tracked?
Description of Issue• Summarizes issue
• Appears on certain reports
Actions Taken• Date of action• Action desc.• Employee ID• Type of
notification• Action
Final Resolution• Approved• Denied• Discussed• In Progress
Others Involved• Instructor• Advisor• Administrator• Staff
Tags/Key Words• Grade appeal• Falsification• Course repeat
Other Info• Attachments
Robust Search Feature
Almost every item in the application is searchable or filtered.
How many exceptions have been granted for that student?
Has an exception been granted for a particular request?
How many complaints were referred to Public Safety?
How many exceptions were requested and/or granted during a time range?
Reports
Policy Exception Summary Report Print for a single student,
semester, or office unit
SACSCOC Student Complaint Log Date range
Policy Exception or Complaint Detail Report Expanded screen print showing
all data entered for this one record
DEMONSTRATION
Maintenance
Adding reports or searchable fields as needed
Updating validation (lookup) tables with new data
Changes & Considerations
Action steps are locked down to a specific userid, so if that employee leaves, only the administrator can update/delete his/her records.
We have changed some fields to be mandatory to prevent incomplete records.
Getting employees in the habit of documenting exceptions or complaints at the time it happens.
How do you determine if a complaint needs to be documented?
