Building Back Trust in the Scheduling Process at Lake Michigan College

Early Outcomes

After launching Coursedog’s scheduling solution, Lake Michigan College achieved the following results:

• 380+ hours saved creating the schedule
• Increased access to data to make resourcing and facilities decisions
• Fewer requests for scheduling reports due to new faculty accessibility

The Challenge:

Homegrown Scheduling System Still Required Manual Work & Lost Faculty Trust

After moving away from a pen and paper scheduling process, Lake Michigan College (LMC) used a homegrown scheduling tool that was originally developed by the institution’s IT department. While the homegrown software brought some process improvements, the system ultimately didn’t meet all of LMC’s needs as they continue to grow and evolve.

We had a homegrown program that was inconsistent in how it operated for us. We were so pleased that everything flowed so smoothly using Coursedog. We now have one source that provides the information without manual entry and increases accuracy and consistency of the information.

Scheduling administrators, Jodie Littlefield and Deb Montcalm, noted that the system wasn’t a reliable program and resulted in data inaccuracies with their SIS (Ellucian Banner) Faculty lost trust in the system, as sometimes approved faculty members for certain courses was not accurate. The inaccuracies posed an issue for HLC accreditation purposes.

Administrators spent time on manual processes, as their old system only allowed staff to roll the schedule to Banner once after the initial creation. They would then print paper Cognos reports, manually identify errors, and correct them in the system—typically fixing 25-50 errors per division each term. Additionally, system administrators had to run Cognos reports whenever changes were made or faculty requested their schedules.

That's been a huge time saver for the scheduling alone. I would say I spent an hour - hour and a half every time someone asked for a report - I would go in and pull out the columns that they didn't need and pull out the sections that didn't belong within their discipline. I would spend at least one day of work a week going through and providing these reports time after time.  Deb Montcalm, Administrative Coordinator

Solution:

Adopt a Cloud-Based, Integrated Tool That Provides Accessible Data

When LMC received a Guided Pathways grant, they used this opportunity to look for and purchase a new scheduling tool. LMC sought a cloud-based scheduling tool that fully integrated with Banner to increase their confidence of their data. While their previous system couldn’t be accessed off campus, the LMC team wanted a tool that faculty and staff could access while working from home or after hours.

After comparing different vendors, the LMC team chose Coursedog for its user-friendly interface, strong integration with Banner, and data accessibility. LMC received customer service from Coursedog that ultimately led them to choose the platform.

"We needed a system that was accessible anywhere, had a good user interface that people would be confident in, and then a big one was the data. Faculty can look at a wide variety of reports and information. They can export their own and tweak it themselves because we have taught them how to use filters. If faculty is home and it's nine o'clock at night and they want to look at the schedule, they most certainly can. It's real time information. - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs and Deb Montcalm, Administrative Coordinator.

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LMC received customer service from Coursedog that ultimately led them to choose the platform.

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Prior to purchasing Coursedog, we did shop around and look for other products that might meet our needs. We just didn't find that level of customer service right from the very beginning with a demo all the way through to where we are today. So that's a big part- it has been phenomenal and we're super happy for that. - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs

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Implementation Process:

Project Manager Helps LMC Integrate & Innovate Their Processes

A team of six staff at LMC worked with Coursedog staff to implement the scheduling platform. Jodie and Deb both called out their project manager, Danielle, and implementation team at Coursedog as one of the highlights of their experience. Danielle’s thorough understanding of Banner and how to integrate helped guide LMC staff on how the implementation mapped to LMC’s processes and Banner environment.

When thinking about LMC’s implementation process, Deb mentioned:

I think about the engineering team. There was never a time when anyone came back to us and said ‘well they didn’t have time to work on it this week.’ They would say, 'here is the next iteration, will this work?' - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs

Jodie also appreciated that the implementation process forced LMC to rethink their processes and how they could be structured more efficiently. Jodie noted that:

A big part of getting Coursedog was that we were able to evolve. It forced us to get a team, work together, and figure out what is going to work and what is needed. - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs

Results:

LMC Saves 380+ Hours & Continues to Innovate

After implementing the Coursedog scheduling solution, both faculty and staff spent less time creating the course schedule. In the administrative office, one staff member was able to step away entirely from building the course schedule because the team no longer needed as much support. This resulted in a time savings of approximately 380 hours per year for the LMC team. Scheduling staff also receive fewer requests from faculty for scheduling reports, as faculty can now easily access the reports they need themselves.

LMC is also now equipped with reports to help make important resource decisions. For example, the Director of Facilities uses room utilization reports from Coursedog to make budget and staffing decisions. These reports also help facilities determine how rooms can be used more efficiently. For example, after discovering that only one class was scheduled during the summer in a building with an expensive air handler, they were able to move that class and close the costly building during the summer.

Since beginning to use Coursedog, the LMC team has continued to evolve their practices to create better processes.

When meeting with their Coursedog project manager, Deb noted:

Just about every time we met with Danielle, we found out about something new that Coursedog could do. It was either something we had been wanting to do for quite some time or something we didn’t even think about. This happened numerous times. There was a lot of clapping going on. - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs

Similarly, Jodie noted that at LMC:

We keep evolving. There are more and more things we keep on finding. It’s been wonderful to have weekly meetings with our Coursdog rep to continue to change and evolve and get more efficient. - Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs

Looking Ahead:

LMC Adopted Additional Modules of the Coursedog Platform

After a successful implementation and adoption of the Coursedog scheduling tool, LMC purchased the event management, curriculum, and catalog tools. LMC is excited about the integration among the different solutions and that they live in one platform.

We are really happy that Coursedog feeds into Banner and DegreeWorks and the Registrar is really looking forward to that piece. We are really looking forward to having curriculum and banner integrate back and forth to increase our accuracy and decrease the constant copy and paste. -Jodie Littlefield, Executive Assistant, Academic Affairs