TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION GRADUATE ADVISORY SYSTEM

PRESENTED BY:

CARMEN MCDONALDGEORGE PAPPAS

LAURIE RILEYAPRIL WEDEKIND

___________________________________________________________

COM 542 - KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENTDr. KARL STOLLEY

THE PROBLEM:

• No one cohesive way for Tech Comm advisors to assist graduate students with their degree or certificate program of study

• Information is not located in one central place for easy accessibility.

Advisors and students use a variety of genres and artifacts to plan and track programprogress including:

Advisors:

1. Plan of study generated from the Graduate College website2. Photocopy of course requirements page from graduate catalog

Graduate Students:

1. Hard copy of graduate catalog or printed pages from on-line catalog2. Key Steps (hardcopy or PDF format)3. Own list of courses taken4. Information from my.iit.edu Banner page academics tab5. Hard copy plan of study form

THE PROBLEM, cont: These disparate sources of information for keeping track of degree or certificate progress

werenot centrally located or organized in a methodical manner. Finding it has been compared

toa wild goose chase.

THE SOLUTION:

The Technical Communication Graduate Advisory System - A systematized approach to clarifying requirements and degree progress of Tech Comm graduate students. The system allows students and their advisors to:

– Create plans of study– Have a centralized list of pertinent links– Have a list of other activities necessary to complete a program (i.e. thesis, exams)

– Monitor progress of students

GOALS OF THE SYSTEM:

• Simplify the process• Provide advisors with the tools to counsel their students on program progress in an

easily accessible, centrally located way

• Help grad students keep track of course work and degree or certificate progress

• Open a dialogue between grad students and their advisors as a step toward improving the relationships within the Tech Comm graduate program

• Improve the commitment of students to the program

USING ACTIVITY THEORY TO DEVELOP THE SYSTEM:

ACTIVITY THEORY IN PRACTICE: ACTIVITY

Why we’ve done this…

• Simplify and make more immediate and useful the process for graduate Tech Comm advising

• Important to note that nothing new was created; rather information was pulled from a variety of sources to accommodate the users -- students and their advisors

ACTIVITY THEORY IN PRACTICE: ACTIONS

• Actions are tools and tactics directed toward the objective -- a plan of study jointly developed by and approved by student and advisor.

• No specific assumptions made about student backgrounds• Students from variety of different academic and business backgrounds, with different

previous coursework or degrees• Include functionality to suit students from many different incoming scenarios

Scenarios we used to develop actions -- Student comes into program

• Directly from another undergrad program• Transferred with partial credit from another tech comm master's program• Transferred with partial master's credit from another master's program --not tech

comm• Transferred from IIT tech comm graduate certficate program• To PhD program with a master's degree (not tech comm) from IIT, another institution

• To PhD program with a tech comm master's degree from another institution

ACTIVITY THEORY IN PRACTICE: OPERATIONS

• One cohesive repository for all operations and data necessary• Quick creation, modification, viewing, printing of the program of study• Links to key documents, course listings, other information on one page• Simple, one page format which looks like a form• Sections are collapsible as you progress through each step of the process

OUR SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGIES

• WordPress as open source content management system• XHTML with CSS and DOM scripting• PHP for scripting• MySQL for database• Basecamp as a collaborative project management system• Course wiki to collaborate on documents

SYSTEM/ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS:

• Advisor sets up each student account• Each program -- 3 graduate degrees and 2 graduate certificates -- has its own page• Easy entry of required courses, electives• Links on each page to all documentation, course listings• One button update, modify, print

SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION:

• Initially system is designed to be standalone, running separately from the official IIT system, allowing for immediate implementation

• We hope it can be incorporated into the my.iit.edu portal via the Academics/Banner system tab in the future

THE FUTURE:

We'd like to incorporate the following functions in the future:

• Blog• FAQs• Potential students as users• Integrate this system into my.iit.edu