Use of a centralised Student Counselling database towards positive student growth in Higher Education

By D L de la Harpe & AC de Jager

SSCSA, Vanderbijlpark,17 – 21 September 2007

Traditions: “the keeping of stats”

Traditions: “the keeping of stats”

Mechanisms: data collection & reporting

Manual

Computerised

Manual stats-keeping

Computerised stats keeping

Limitations

In-house client descriptions One data source

Individual counselling Tedious hours of manual data collation Done irregularly on an ad hoc basis Relative simplicity of results obtained

= process evaluation data

The merging of old & development of new traditions

NMMU

The need

Smarter

Faster

More comprehensive research

Outdated application

Slowed data access / response times

(due to advanced queries on large datasets)

Cumbersome to maintain

Inadequate report structure / options

No ability to track student success rates

Why?

Increased pressure to provide systematic feedback

Changes to the counsellor workload profile

Increased emphasis on (1) focused intervention & (2) critical and formal evaluation

Why?

What?

Ukubamba

Ukubamba

A systematic and centralised databaseDemonstrate reachCreate profiles of clients seenGenerate needs assessment dataGenerate reports which can empower staff

in discussions with stakeholdersFacilitates research:

Impact evaluation - interventionsOutcome evaluation - retention and

throughput

Main characteristicsSequel Server

backend

(database)

MS Access

front end

(for capturing and

reporting)

High

security level

= access controlled

System administrator functionality

to maintain drop

-down lists

Institutional requirements

(1) Hardware & Hosting

(2) Backups, recovery &

clean-ups

(3) Link – Institutional DB

Capturing

Capture screens (indiv, group, workload – LEC imported)

Cater for data

capturers with

physical disabilities

Cater for simultaneous

data capturing

across campuses

Record client per session instead of

per campus

Use of ID

number to

track

prospective students

Capture screen: individual sessions

Capture screen: individual cont…

Capture screen: individual cont…

Reporting

Report screens (indiv, group, workload, LEC)

Track changes in the reason for referral

Multiple reasons for referral per session

Export to word & excel + PDF

Drill down functionality

Report screen: individual sessions

Report screen: group sessions

So what …applications? Campus profiles = needs assessment data

Smaller campuses = restricted capacity (x1) – ease of collation and reporting

HEADS management team = positioning of services & programmes / motivation for additional resources

Faculty reports (FMC meetings - cascaded to grassroots staff) = positioning of services & programmes / increased support from academic staff

Student services Financial Aid – NSFAS students HIV/AIDS Unit

Students and outside agencies Rape Suicide

Needs assessment profiles to referral sources Engineering - exclusions Extended Programme - Missionvale