5. FOCUS AREA 4: ENHANCING COURSE AND PROGRAMME ENROLMENT MANAGEMENT Includes: admissions, selection, placement, readmission refusal, pass rates in gateway courses, throughput rates, management information systems.
General introduction The discussion below focuses on innovations, enhancements and improvement in the areas under review, providing feedback on what worked well and which aspects require further review.
Section 1:
A paragraph on aspects that are relevant to the areas above will be briefly covered as follows:
National Benchmark Tests (NBT)
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)
Career Services offered to Prospective and Registered Students
International Students.
Section 2:
The report then continues with the following areas being pertinently addressed
Admissions, Selections and Placement
Readmission Refusal/Academic Exclusions
Gateway Courses/Bottleneck Modules
Enrolment Management and
Management Information Systems (MIS).
Section 1 National Benchmark Tests (NBT) UJ has, as in the past, made the writing of the NBTs compulsory for all first time entering first year students. This includes international students. For 2016, separate additional communication regarding the writing of the NBTs has gone out to international students, indicating that those who are outside the borders of SA will be able to write at Special UJ Sessions in late February and early March 2016.
Despite best efforts and repeated communication that the NBT is compulsory, not all students write the test. UJ is a participant in the UCT NBT Project sponsored by Standard Bank, and has found the additional insight into the bands in the NBT levels (proficient, intermediate and basic), available for the first time in 2015, useful. This information was shared with the first year lecturers via the UJ First Year Experience Committee. Faculties and Departments make varied use of the NBT results.
UJ has not made the NBT a condition for application or admission, because of the potential serious risk to meeting the targets of the Enrolment Plan, and will continue to market the writing of the NBTs, stressing the compulsory nature thereof. UJ Special Sessions will be arranged for first years who did not write the NBT prior to registration.
Deliberation on the utilisation of the NBT results is ongoing at UJ.
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) UJ supports the notion of RPL and has an RPL Policy in place, which will be updated once the CHE/DHET Combined Policy on Recognition of Prior Learning, Credit Accumulation and Transfer and Assessment is finalised. The RPL Task Team is, in the interim, finalising RPL Guidelines for Staff to ensure a standardised approach to RPL, with students able to find user-friendly easy-to-access information and guidelines on RPL via the UJ website. The RPL application will be incorporated with the UJ Online Application Process. This is a new development and UJ hopes to offer a streamlined RPL process to support this national imperative. The current RPL process is being revised and the 2015/16 process remains one of hard-copy application.
International Students Processes related to the application through registration cycle for international students are continually being refined. Early clearance of senior international students has been implemented and works well. The process allows students with valid study visas and proof of medical aid cover to be processed online, without requiring students to present themselves on campus. An improvement instituted is that instead of SMS messages being sent to students (who may claim non-receipt of these) communication regarding clearance and other information will be by email. The Division: Internationalisation continues to strive to ensure that international student processes are completed timeously to enable these students to attend their lectures from the first day.
Section 2 Admissions, Selections and Placement (including the Application Process and Late Enquiries) Application Process UJ’s free online application continues to work well, with the number of online applications received by end August 2015 (92 772) already nearing the total number of applications received by end October 2014 (110 348). This has enabled UJ to retain a higher APS score for admission into programmes across all Faculties. An enhancement to the online application process is the improvement that will allow easier online registration by cell phone. As in the past, no documents need be attached in the online application. The Student Enrolment Centre (SEC) is able to achieve a two to three day turnaround due to its further automation of processes. SEC has upgraded to ITS Integrator 3, a costly process with enhancements of nearly R1 million implemented to achieve this. UJ’s application system is deemed to be at an advanced stage now.
The role of the Call Centre in the application through to registration process should not be underestimated. Despite easy-to-follow online processes available via the UJ web and mobi sites, UJ receives huge volumes of telephonic queries, i.e. 103 543 in January 2014 and 111 7778 in January 2015.
Greater Call Centre functionality is being introduced, although constrained by budget. An extended Call Centre is operational during January and, in 2016, this will extend into February due to the new Academic Calendar of 2016 with a later commencement of lectures, being 8 February 2016.
Admissions Admission to UJ is, as previously, mainly via the applicant meeting the minimum APS score. The APS threshold was raised for 2015 applicants and this APS threshold remains for the 2016 intake. The Faculty of Science reports that less academic exclusion occur as a result of the increase in the minimum APS score. This may not, however, solely be attributable to accepting applicants with a higher APS. All Faculties accept students with the highest scores first (either firmly admitting them if they already have their NSC or provisionally, based on Grade 11/12 marks), placing students who meet the admission requirements but have a lower APS on the provisionally accepted list, the waiting list. Students who do not meet the minimum requirements are declined. The students may re-apply via the late enquiry process should their NSC marks improve. The admissions are carefully monitored to ensure that enrolment targets may be met.
Application for enrolment into a UJ qualification is free. The UJ considered the implementation of a small deposit on admission to a qualification, for the 2016 intake, but this will be discussed further for possible implementation in 2017.
Selection and Placements While the writing of the NBTs is compulsory for all UJ students, the NBT scores are used principally to provide information on student needs and possible candidates who are ‘at risk’. Some Faculties use the NBT scores to place students into relevant extended/four year programmes (Science and Management). The Faculty of Financial and Economic Sciences (FEFS) utilised the NBT score for placement for the first time in 2015. Constraints on the number of students who may be placed into extended programmes arise where programmes require the use of laboratories.
Late Enquiries UJ continues to have a ‘No walk-ins’ policy, with late applicants (termed late enquiries) being managed online and off-campus only. A refinement for the 2016 late enquiries is that applicants will be screened by the Academic Ranking System (ARS) and that this will only allow applicants to apply for programmes for which they would be eligible.
The application-selection-placement process culminates in the registration of the student. UJ achieved a 91% online registration level in 2015 and continues to innovate and streamline processes to ensure a smooth registration of students. Online off-campus registrations continue to increase as students become more confident with using technology. Online student surveys provide important information and will be continued. Registration information and orientation information for first year students registering in 2016 will be sent out electronically during 2015. Enhanced registration analytics will be in place for the 2016 registrations. Another enhancement in place since 2015 is the possibility to request module changes online.
The new UJ Academic Calendar for 2016 situates the registration dates in the last week of January and first week of February. This will accommodate the fee payments and hopefully ensure that students are registered and in class from the first day of lectures, on 8 February.
Readmission Refusal/Academic Exclusions At UJ, students who are academically excluded are given a ‘F7’ status, the indicator as per the ITS system. Students who have been academically excluded may appeal this exclusion. F7 status is issued when a student has failed to pass the minimum number of modules. Some UJ faculties have initiated an online appeal process, which enables F7 students to submit their appeal electronically, only having to return to campus if they need to submit hard copy documents. Faculties report this as having streamlined the appeals process.
Faculties follow their own specific processes when readmitting academically excluded students. Often students are then referred to the Centre for Psychological Services and Career Development (PsyCaD) and/or the Academic Development Centre for psycho-social and academic support. A revised process, the Academic Recovery Plan (ARP) was introduced by the Academic Counselling Services (ACS) team in PsyCaD in 2015 in an effort to continue to provide an effective and relevant service, while meeting the changing needs of both faculty and their students.
Gateway/Bottleneck Modules The faculties reconsidered the pre-requisites and co-requisites of modules in programmes to ensure that the system did not present avoidable bottlenecks.
The following matters were considered when addressing dropout rates:
The need to be selective in the selection process of first time entering candidates;
Determination of possible reasons for the high dropout rate;
Consideration to be given to channelling more mainstream students into the extended programmes;
The possible introduction of an exit interview for students who had been academically excluded to understand the reasons for poor performance.
In order to better understand the module success rates and to identify bottleneck modules, several reports on so-called ‘Priority Modules’ were drawn and shared by the Division of Institutional Planning, Evaluation and Monitoring (DIPEM). The Division offers its assistance to faculties who wish to drill down further into the data. The reports focus specifically on modules with a success rate of below 60% and provide: Subject Code; Subject Description; Subject Department Description; Subject Faculty; Number of Registrations; Number of Passes and the Module Success Rate.
Reports were provided as follows:
Modules (subjects /courses) showing success rates above 50% but below 60% based on first semester assessment opportunities (sorted by faculty then by Course Success rate)
Modules (subjects /courses) showing success rates below 50% but not 0% based on first semester assessment opportunities (sorted by faculty then by Course Success rate)
Modules (subjects /courses) showing success rates of 0% based on first semester assessment opportunities (sorted per faculty).
The University continues to address three interrelated institutional concerns; student dropout rates, student throughput and student progression.
Enrolment Planning and MIS Enhancements Enrolment Planning and Management Since 2009, there has been a uniform process coordinated across faculties for enrolment planning purposes, which takes place at two levels. First, the Academic Planning Unit (APU) is responsible for planning at the highest level within the parameters established by the institution’s agreement with DHET. It also manages the process where high level institutional targets are disaggregated to the faculty level per qualification type. Subsequently, faculties plan at a more detailed level, translating the faculty targets into meaningful targets for the individual programmes, which is the lowest enrolment planning level. Thereafter, the planning cycle ends and monitoring begins.
Over the years, these broad processes have become well-established at the University. Nonetheless, insight, skills and knowledge are not shared or grasped at all levels and so a new focus has been to develop a broader base of people who have the requisite knowledge to effectively manage enrolment planning and monitoring, particularly among heads of academic departments and faculty administrators. A key focus of workshops has been to differentiate clearly between enrolment planning and enrolment management, but to highlight their interdependence. In some instances, the locus of these functions is different; faculty members who manage enrolment are not necessarily involved in the planning and this has the potential to lead to tensions in the overall enrolment process. The two processes must speak to each other, with the management of enrolment, which centres critically on the admissions process, operating consistently to meet enrolment targets.
Capacity Capacity constraints within the APU were addressed by appointing an Academic Planner, whose primary focus is enrolment planning and monitoring. Such dedicated capacity ensures that enrolment planning receives the necessary focus, particularly within a complex university environment.
Governance A high-level process map with timelines was created to display the two-tiered enrolment planning process. This assisted in clarifying roles and responsibilities by distinguishing between planning performed at the institutional level versus the faculty level. Enrolment targets are developed through an iterative process of negotiating enrolment targets at various stages. Careful tracking of decision-making is necessary. In order to improve such tracking, formal faculty approval was introduced where the Executive Deans sign-off on the enrolment targets. The process map was also used as a framework in the Higher Education Data Analyser (HEDA) enrolment planning dashboard to create an enrolment planning “Resource Guide”, which allowed users streamlined access to enrolment planning standard documents and functional reports relevant to each stage in the process.
Management Information System Data displayed in dashboard format provides the means to blend enrolment planning and enrolment management information. Enrolment management indicators on various HEDA dashboards and reports were expanded both in terms of number and monitoring capacity. New indicators included international student enrolments, extended UG programme enrolments, proportion of students with an APS of 35 and higher, proportion of students from school quintiles 1 and 2, and UG dropout in year two and across cohort years. Furthermore, the indicators were included within the performance management cycle for Executive Deans and HoDs, providing an over-arching linkage between planning and management.
A yield scenario report was developed to highlight risks and concerns at the executive committee that monitors the enrolment cycle during the admissions process and registration period. The report allows faculties to calculate the expected number of registrations based on a history of previous registration yields on admissions.
The high dropout of students in year two was pinpointed as a critical factor impeding the enrolment system. Specific data analyses were conducted to determine the main factors within the University’s control that were influencing students to drop out. Two important reports related to financial support (with an emphasis on NSFAS) and academic exclusions were completed.
Information packs were produced for the individual faculty enrolment planning meetings to highlight key enrolment data trends over a five year period. Faculties gained a holistic perspective on the overall faculty pattern against contextual factors.
Communication and Collaboration Throughout these processes, collaboration is a critical link between the APU, faculties and the support environments.
Most challenges were found to be experienced in the detailed planning phase. Hence, the initial step was to identify the faculty champions who were responsible for the detailed planning and enhance communication with APU. Meetings were scheduled at important junctures in the process. This facilitated information sharing amongst the detailed planners themselves, made it a far more participatory process and laid the foundation to share good practice. It also facilitated follow-up on any risks and concerns that the APU identified in relation to trend analysis or data predictions.
The format of the annual institutional enrolment planning workshop was adjusted to include three key areas, namely reflection, projection and data enhancements. By providing the overall institutional trends, participants were able to understand how individual faculties contributed to the institutional objectives, offering an opportunity for reflection. It also allowed faculties to reflect on combined achievements. The projections for the following year were introduced with the data enhancements contributing towards the creation of a supportive, enabling environment. Training Training was initiated for HoDs with the intention of developing an understanding of the relationship between the information that emanates from cohort analyses and how this should shape the enrolment plan. Through these workshops a more advanced knowledge has been acquired of the dynamic interplay of graduation rates, dropout rates and the setting of enrolment targets. It is hoped that through this intervention, deeper involvement and commitment to enrolment planning will occur in academic departments for future enrolment cycles.
Systematic, group-based training of the detailed planners was also undertaken. The objectives included:
Providing updated information on the national enrolment system;
Driving a focus on enrolment planning;
Clarifying expectations;
Encouraging the practice of planning;
Promoting consistent enrolment planning processes across faculties;
Emphasising the relationship between enrolment planning and management; and
Familiarising participants with and developing skills on available HEMIS data tools.
Enhanced facility in the use of the electronic enrolment planning model was the focus of detailed planner training. This model provides a guideline (in the form of a prediction) on the likely number of returning students (and consequently the number of new registrations) required to meet the faculty’s targets. The model is based on eight-year student cohort histories for every programme. It can be used to create a consistent basis for enrolment planning across faculties, at the level of individual programmes as well as at the level of the faculty and the institution as a whole, which leads to improved process control and performance.
Concluding remarks UJ is committed to provide its students with a student experience that is attentive, focused and caring, in order to guide, nurture and challenge students to become graduates who are confident, critically minded and able to contribute to the development of the country and continent and beyond.
In keeping with a quality-driven and innovation-focused approach, UJ has implemented new processes and enhanced others in the areas under review in Focus Area 4: admissions, selection, placement, readmission refusal, pass rates in gateway courses, enrolment management and management information systems. Feedback on what worked well and which aspects require further review and what is in the planning stage for implementation in early 2016 was shared. The successes, matters to re-look and planned developments that have been outline in the focus area have been highlighted again in the sections below.
The university looks forward to the national report on the quality enhancements in the sector.
5.1 Summarise what the university considers to be the key issues in enhancing course and programme enrolment management. Ensuring that students register for the most appropriate programme that match their ability, skills and interest remains a priority. Well-considered academic support initiatives are costly and require budget for successful roll-out, specifically given the large student numbers. Capacity constraints extend to the DIPEM. The main body of the report covers this aspect more completely
5.2 During Phase 1 of the QEP, what changes at institutional level (a) have been made, (b) are in progress, or (c) are in the planning stages that relate to enhancing course and programme enrolment management. The changes and enhancements have been outlined in the main body of the report
5.3 Provide one or more (but not more than 5) exemplars to illustrate specific aspects of the change(s) that are successful. Provide evidence for claims of success. Where an activity is in the planning stages, indicate what evidence will be collected. Successes reported on include the online and automated systems; beginning with the online application system, with greater student uptake across all systems (registration; module changes etc.) as they become more adept at using technology for this purpose. Revised processes, for example, the PsyCaD Academic Recovery Programme to assist with re-admitted F7s and the deeper insight into bottleneck modules, with attendant planned interventions. Career Services has strengthened its career guidance, assessment and counselling services to Faculties and students, especially enabling students to make informed decisions about their career futures and to take responsibility for these during their studies. The identified gap between dissemination of insights into aspects related to enrolment planning and monitoring has been addressed. Ongoing workshops will ensure continued sharing between the planning and management/implementation processes.
5.4 Provide one or more (but not more than 5) exemplars of changes that have not been successful and suggest reasons. UJ will be re-examining its NBT processes and use of the NBT scores. Not all students write the NBTs despite it being communicated as being compulsory. A national discussion will be held in November 2015, which will shed light on the national uptake of NBTs and the value derived therefrom.
5.5 If possible, identify one or more promising practices related to this focus area. Describe the practice and provide evidence for success. Suggest what the key features might be. UJ is in the planning stages (for implementation in 2016) of enhancements to and streamlining of the RPL process. A key feature will be the link to the UJ Online Application Process. The Intensive Revision Programme will also be implemented in 2016 and analysis of the results will provide insight into the efficacy of this intervention.
5.6 Identify the main challenges the university still faces in relation to this focus area. Admission and selection (with placement) of students into the most relevant programmes and then supporting them psycho-socially and academically towards success remains an overarching objective. The challenge posed by gateway modules is being addressed. The high student dropout rate remains a cause for concern, and a comprehensive strategy is being developed. The national focus on RPL may result in a flood of applications and UJ hopes that the systems in place will enable us to deal with these in a streamlined manner. Data and its interpretation for timeous interventions is always a challenge, given capacity constraints.
6. REFLECTION ON PHASE 1 OF THE QEP
6.1 What has been the effect on the university of participating in the QEP for the past two years?
Involvement in the QEP has allowed us to deepen and broaden the comprehensive student support and development work already in progress at UJ. This involvement has intensified our discussion of every possible impediment to success, every support intervention, and the structure and delivery of our programmes. The process has been inclusive, thereby engaging all academic and support staff. Involvement in the QEP also further sensitised the institution to the importance of the total institutional environment and all its parts. UJ has also been able to talk to a wider range of other institutions with a shared nomenclature about issues relating to the QEP. In that sense the QEP created a national focus for some of the institutional conversations. This was particularly useful in facilitating inter-institution conversations and cooperation.
6.2 In what ways did the university’s involvement in the QEP promote or strengthen collaboration with other universities on specific issues?
The QEP meetings allowed us to better understand the successes and challenges faced by other universities, and to understand the extent of the diversity among SA institutions. The QEP process also created a favourable national environment for the establishment of the SANRC by focussing institutional attention on issues related to the FYE. UJ staff have also been able to make contact with numerous other institutions in regards to FYE work such as UniZulu, DUT and various others.
6.3 Looking back over the past two years, in a page or two, summarise the university’s main triumphs, improvements, changes and challenges related to the four QEP focus areas. Student success
A comprehensive institutional approach to issues surrounding student success has been developed at UJ. The QEP process has allowed UJ to gain a better view of the totality of the student experience at UJ, and to work towards a better integration of the multiple teaching, learning and support opportunities. This approach is also institution facing as well as student facing. The approach is premised on the idea that Universities are social spaces within which the University is responsible for creating the environment into which the student steps and the student is responsible for making use of that opportunity. There is a renewed, intense focus on the dropout rate at UJ, involving the development of a detailed understanding of the circumstances that cause dropout, and the need for a speedy response to individual students at risk. The QEP-inspired discussions have necessitated a great deal of interaction between academic and professional support staff, thereby initiating a broader and more inclusive set of interactions.
Student life cycle
There is in UJ, an intensified awareness of the need to pull together all the disparate elements of the whole student life cycle from the points of application and admission to eventual success, graduation and embarkation on a career. The aim is to make every touch-point for a student (i.e. every real interaction between the student and the institution) whether administrative, academic or just the general environment, a positive experience.
First year and senior student experiences
The leading UJ First Year Experience (FYE) initiative as well as the first in country UJ Senior Student Experience (SSE) embody the institutional approach to student support and development at UJ. These two approaches have been used to galvanise institutional efforts and has for example contributed to a complete re-think of the first year orientation, the use of senior students and the institutional response to students who are worried about food.
Career services
A revision of the Career Services offerings made available to prospective and registered students with much information available online has been a success story. In this way UJ extends its services to non-registered students, offering a service to the wider community.
Free application
The online free application process has been streamlined, with the Student Enrolment Centre now able to achieve a two to three day turnaround response to applicants. Easier online application by cell phone is the latest enhancement.
