Supporting decision-making in managing student mobility

Transcription

1 Supporting decision-making in managing student mobility Raija Halonen Department of Information Processing Science FIN University of Oulu, Finland Abstract This paper investigates experiences from implementing an information system that was to support decision-making in managing mobility of students between universities. The process of decision-making varies in every university, bringing challenges to this implementation project. In addition, working in an information technology project has not been familiar to the people representing student affairs offices. This information system was to be piloted in three universities. All Finnish universities signed in 2003 an agreement about allowing students to pass exams in other universities as a part of their master s degree. This agreement comes real by making decisions on rights to study and related issues. Previously there has been no information system to serve these purposes and all information concerning student mobility has been manually mined from diversified files and databases. The research material is collected during the working in the implementation project, using memorandums and s and personal observations written in a diary. Keywords: decision-making, information system, implementation 1. Introduction Every university in Finland may decide whether it allows other students to study in their courses building master s degree to other universities. Every university may also decide whether it is willing to pay the studies that its students perform in other university. This decision process needs a lot of information that supports the decision-making. So far the decision-making has based on conceptions of student mobility and the information has been modest that has been at hand or available. The decision process varies according to universities and so far there has been no need to standardise this process. So far the students have browsed the web-sites of different universities in order to find the information about available courses, differing regulations and the versatile application forms. The decision process may last several weeks. Therefore it was essential to get an information system to support the process and to give information about the state of the decision process or at least be able to evaluate the length of the process. The financial grounds for supporting the right to study are dependent on the money that has been given to that purpose. This information system will support this decision-making by giving information about e.g. the spent money or allocated study rights. The information system also facilitates to manage student mobility in the student affairs offices by decreasing manual work. In addition to that, the information system will support students who are seeking possibilities to perform studies in other universities by giving information about regulations and courses that are available and offering means to petition for rights to study. Student mobility is increasing in these years between universities, bringing a lot of checking and paper work to student affairs offices and students. In June 2003 Finnish universities 1603

2 agreed that they will allow students to pass exams in other universities as a part of their master s degree. In addition to that, 33 European Ministers responsible for higher education signed in 2003 in Berlin, Germany, the Bologna Declaration where they agreed on a unified educational system in Europe (Bologna 2003). That may extend the student mobility over national frontiers in the future. This case investigates how several independent student affairs offices learnt to use a shared information system that was designed with them. In addition, the Finnish Virtual University (FVU 2001) was participating in the project, concerning the nationwide approach. Cooperation is always a challenge (Barki & Hartwick 2001; DeChurch & Marks 2001), but here the challenge is even more demanding because of two reasons. First, the client consists of several universities. Second, the failure rate of IS projects is generally known to be high (Lyytinen & Hirscheim 1987; Schmidt et al. 2001). Action research (Schön 1983; Baskerville & Wood-Harper 1998; Coghlan & Brannick 2002) was chosen to be the research method because of the active role of the researcher in the case. Like Ayas and Zeniuk (2001) mention, action research provides a link between scientific understanding and social action. In this case the process of mobility was tested in live environment when the information system was taken into use as a mock model. The final information system will include information that is needed to support decision-making in 21 Finnish distinct universities. 2. Process of Mobility The process of mobility has been specified in a preceding phase by other actors. The results of that phase were available when the universities decided to build an information system to support the management of student mobility. The process began when a student decided to apply for right to study in another university to pass exams as part of master s exam. After finding an opportune course or a complex of courses in desired universities the student filled an application. Using this information the officials in the student affairs office decided if they wanted to support the right to study and filled the information about their decision into the application form. After that they sent the form to the administration officials of student affairs office in the desired university. There the application was circulated according to their rules getting information about allocated rights, teaching resources etc. After that they decided whether the right to study in their university was to be admitted or not and filled the application according to their decision. In addition to applying rights, the studies must be paid, and it was the last phase of the process of mobility. The bill had be forwarded to the right payee in the right university, in the right department and targeted to the right studies, concerning the right student. So far this has been a tedious and laboured stage but very important because of its financial characteristic. With this new information system called MoSu the billing became simple even if MoSu was not planned to be any invoicing system but to give information to support decision-making and invoicing. 3. Research Method and Material Action research (Schön 1983; Argyris et al. 1987; Coghlan and Brannick 2002) has been chosen to be the research method because of the active role of the researcher in the project. Action research is characterised by 1) its multivariate social setting, 2) its highly interpretive assumptions about observation, 3) intervention by the researcher, 4) participatory observation 1604

3 and 5) the study of change in the social setting (Baskerville and Wood-Harper 1998). These characteristics can also be seen in this research. Action research as a research method in the university environment has been proven to be adequate also before (Heiskanen and Assinen 2003). In addition, the personnel in the student affairs offices are targets of organisational change, also being involved in the project and influencing on its progress and outcomes. Lallé (2003) introduces an actor-researcher as a management researcher and a practitioner, who on one hand works in an organisation and on the other hand generates new scientific knowledge. This actor-researcher approach describes the role of the author also in this project. Later the scientific knowledge will be judged by the university community when the results from the research will be published. Kensing and Blomberg (1998) discuss the role of users when designing information systems. In this MoSu project users participated actively in designing, influencing also on the outputs of the project. In addition to using action research, case study (Yin 2003) is strongly emphasised in this research. The case is selected in this paper leaning on Stake (2000) when he says, that a researcher chooses cases that offer possibilities for learning. The supporting idea of MoSu was to help in managing student mobility. The information to be gathered was to help in decision-making in admitting or rejecting applications. The case is reported by bearing in mind the idea of van der Blonk (2003) when he states that cases are written with a purpose that heads to the goal of the research project. In this paper writing has also been very personal (van der Blonk 2003) and the approach is linked with experiences of the researcher (Halonen 2004). The study material consists of empirical findings in the case and a personal diary (Coghlan & Brannick 2002) written by the researcher. In qualitative research studies the benefit of diaries is realised when writing out the cases (Newbury 2001). The purpose of personal notes is to facilitate the research process when they are used by the researcher, using recorded observations, thoughts and questions (Newbury 2001). In this sense the approach is also interpretative (Walsham 1993) because the approach is very subjective, the observations and findings reflecting strongly on the author s personal presence. Mason (2002) writes: Writing autobiographical and other notes, keeping a journal, and mentally re-entering salient moments can assist professional development and be integral to research. 4. Notes from Literature and the Case Organisations that are seeking solutions to manage knowledge are ever more developing technological tools to be used (Schultze & Boland Jr. 2000). Developing and implementing an information system are instances of organisational change (Davis & Olson 1985; Lyytinen 1987) and they often lead to changes in work processes and structures of the personnel (Eason 1988; Sahay & Robey 1996). Alter (1980) characterises that decision support systems are designed to aid in decision making and decision implementation. Moreover, the emphasis of decision support systems is on increased individual and organisational effectiveness rather than on increased efficiency in processing data. In his later research Alter (2003) describes how the role of decision support systems has changed. Decision support systems are helping in making better decisions within work systems in organisations. Alter defines: A work system is a system in which human participants and/or machines perform a business process using information, technology, and other resources to produce products and/or services for internal or external customers. In this sense, he considers a decision support system a special case of a work system. Further, Alter 1605

4 wants to speak about decision support instead of decision support systems and defines: Decision support is the use of any plausible computerized or non-computerized means for improving sense making and/or decision making in a particular repetitive on non-repetitive business situation in a particular organization. Hislop (2002) argues that information technology is not central in knowledge-sharing processes and that the sharing of any knowledge via information technology is problematic. However, the author believes that in some social context information technology systems will be able to be significant in knowledge-sharing processes. The researcher believes that this is the case in this study at hand. Universities represent a special environment (Hearn 2004). Further, academic organisations have their own cultural and national context, where science is practiced, organised and managed in specific, nationally-based institutions, with specific cultural and national characteristics. This case is an implementation project where an information system called MoSu was designed and taken into pilot use by three universities. MoSu was needed to help universities in managing student mobility that was increasing especially after all Finnish universities signed the so-called JOO-agreement. Student mobility had been possible already from the middle of 1990 s and during that time the universities had developed their own processes of managing the mobility. Gradually the mobility was increasing and the student affairs officials had to do a lot of manual work when finding the acquired information about mobility and making decisions concerning rights to study in their universities. The piloting universities were all located in the metropolitan area of Helsinki: the University of Helsinki (UH), the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) and the Helsinki School of Economics (HSE). The University of Tampere (UTA) was acting as a processing university and caring MoSu to be suitable also in universities that use other student record systems. Further, the Finnish Virtual University (FVU) was involved, covering the characteristics of a nationwide information system. Figure 1 describes the relationships between these groups and MoSu. The dotted line describes the special role of the FVU that was not piloting but participating in designing. In addition to these interest groups there was the Ministry of Education that paid the information system. Other universities were connected via the FVU, waiting for MoSu to be available for them. HSE HUT FVU UH MoSu UTA Other universities Figure 1. The universities related to MoSu. The decision to admit or reject was dependent on the money that had been allocated to mobility from the Ministry of Education. The decision also depended on the resources the target university (i.e. the university that offered the courses) had for other students. Before supporting the student s application the sending university needed a lot of information to 1606

5 guide the decision. MoSu was designed to support that decision-making, including information about issues that influenced on the decision. The officials of the sending universities had to be able to express their decision process and the necessary information. The student officials in the target universities also had to be able to express their demands about needed information before their decisions. Even if the universities had been used to manage this decision process by their own, they now had to assess their own processes and limit their needs to meet the needs of other universities. Also the Population Register Center in Finland collected information that had to be originated from the students. After several discussions, this information was included in the MoSu database. Now the student affairs officials had to be able to design one information system that would fulfil their needs. It seemed to be very difficult to understand the difference between acting face-to-face in student affairs offices and applying for rights to study electronically. Several times it appeared that the representatives of the universities did not figure until afterwards what the decisions meant in practice. The vendor wrote an in August 2004 to the project manager: The compulsion of the student number was decided already in the last project meeting. Should we discuss it again? Further in October 2004 there was discussion about codes in the electronic application form. The vendor had to explain the differences between electronic and paper files and how they had to be considered when implementing the process into the information system. Also Griffith and Northcraft (1996) have noticed that understanding the technological approach is essential in information system projects. The project manager wrote in her diary in December 2004: He told me that he had got notions from the vendor that the project is not proceeding and making decisions in proper time. Further in February 2005: The vendor asked me if we really should continue like we decided in the last project meeting because students should be able to see everything concerning them. Again we had to change our decisions after the meeting. In addition to supporting the decision process of the student officials, this information system was supporting the decision-making of the students. The students were able to use MoSu when they decided where they would like to perform their courses as a part of their master s degrees. They could apply for the right to study using MoSu, finding the unified application form and sending it to their university electronically. 5. Discussion This paper investigates the implementation project when an information system was designed and implemented to support the decision-making in student affairs offices. In addition, the information system was planned for students who applied for rights to study somewhere else but their home university, wanting to include the studies as a part of their master s degree. The information system was going to be used nationwide, building a database including all information about student mobility. The information that was to be collected was planned to include all information that was needed to make decision to support or reject the right to study and all information that was needed when the student was registered in the target university. In addition, both the officials and the students were enabled to follow the process of decision using the information system. The student affairs officials needed an information system to support them in decisionmaking (Alter 1980; Kensing and Blomberg 1998; Alter 2003) and they had to specify the features of their decision-making process that were to be covered by the information system. 1607

6 Having experiences from designing other information systems the universities trusted on each other and they were able to share their knowledge (Hislop 2002) about the processes of mobility in their universities. Despite their experiences, making decisions concerning the functionality of the information system appeared to be very difficult and the decisions had to be changed several times after the project meetings. However, because the information system was considered so important, the workings in the project were kept flexible. In addition, the project manager and the vendor tried to support the student affairs officials in the project work. This information system also could be classified as a work system (Alter 2003) with student affairs officials making better decisions, not only the mobility process being quicker than earlier. The officials could easily use information about studies in other universities as a basis on their decisions when they used MoSu and they could compare the courses with the courses in their own universities. In addition to these improvements, MoSu was serving when making decisions about future courses in universities and even when reporting about the nationwide mobility to the Ministry of Education. 6. Conclusions and Acknowledgements The current decision-support system was designed by several universities acting as one client in relation to the vendor who implemented MoSu. This process was carried out in a project that offered a lot of learning possibilities to all participants in the project including e.g. the project manager, the vendor and the representatives of the universities. Because the information system was first piloted in three universities but at the same time a nationwide information system was to be implemented, the approach had to be flexible and extensive during the process. At this moment MoSu is piloted in the universities and experiences of the use will be exploited when MoSu will get the last touches before its nationwide use. The system enabled the mobility process to shorten till one day when needed. The researcher is greatly thankful to Professor Ari Heiskanen for his help in the project. In addition, Professor Veikko Seppänen is thanked for new ideas in doing research. 7. References Alter, S. Decision support systems: current practice and continuing challenges, Addison- Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Massachusetts, Alter, S. A work system view of DSS in its fourth decade, in Proceedings of the 2002 Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2003, pp Argyris, C., Putnam, R., and Smith, D. Action Science, Jossey Bass, San Francisco, Ayas, K., and Zeniuk, N. Project-based Learning: Building Communities of Reflective Practitioners. Management Learning (32), 2001, pp Barki, H., and Hartwick, J. Interpersonal Conflict and Its Management in Information System Development, MIS Quarterly (25), 2001, pp Baskerville, R., and Wood-Harper, A.T. Diversity in information systems action research methods, European Journal of Information Systems, (7), 1998, pp Blonk, van der H. Writing case studies in information systems research, Journal of Information Technology, (18:1), 2003, pp Bologna (access ). Coghlan, D., and Brannick, T. Doing Action Research in Your Own Organization, Sage Publications, London,

7 Davis, G.B., and Olson, M.H. Management information systems: Conceptual foundations, structure and development, Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1985, pp DeChurch, L.A., and Marks, M.A. Maximizing the Benefits of Task Conflict: The Role of Conflict Management, The International Journal of Conflict Management (12), 2001, pp FVU (access ). Griffith, T.L., and G.B. Northcraft. Cognitive Elements in the Implementation of New Technology: Can Less Information Provide More Benefits? MIS Quarterly, (20:1), 1996, pp Halonen, R. Resisting technical change three case studies, International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (1), 2004, pp Hearn, J. Organization Violations in Practice: A Case Study in a University Setting, Culture and Organization, 2004, (9:4), pp Heiskanen, A. Reflecting over a Practice. Framing Issues for Scholar Understanding, Information Technology and People (8), 1995, pp Heiskanen, A., and Assinen, P. Learning Cycles, Organisational Back Talk, and the Persistence of Theories in Use: Lessons of Information Systems Development in a University Administration Context. Knowledge and Process Management (10), 2003, pp Hislop, D. "Mission impossible? Communicating and sharing knowledge via information technology," Journal of Information Technology (17), 2002, pp Kensing, F., and Blomberg, J. Participatory Design: Issues and Concerns, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, (7), 1998, pp Lallé, B. The Management Science Researcher Between Theory and Practice, Organization Studies (24), 2003, pp Van Maanen, J. Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnograph, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Mason, J. Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing. Routledge Falmer, London, GBR, Newbury, D. Diaries and Fieldnotes in the Research Process, Research Issues, in Art Design and Media No , (access 5 January 2005). Newman, M., and Robey, D. A Social Process Model of User-analyst Relationships, MIS Quarterly (16), 1992, pp Raelin, J.A. Action Learning and Action Science: Are They Different? Organizational Dynamics (26), 1997, pp Raelin, J.A. Public Reflection as the Basis of Learning. Management Learning (32), 2001, pp Schmidt, R., Lyytinen, K., Keil, M., and Cule, P. Identifying Software Project Risks: An International Delphi Study, Journal of Management Information Systems, (17:4), 2001, pp Schultze, U., and Boland, Jr. R.J. Knowledge management technology and the reproduction of knowledge work practices, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, (9:2-3) 2000, pp Schön, D.A. The Reflective Practitioner, Basic Books, New York, Stake, R. Case studies, in Handbook of Qualitative Research, D.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds.), Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, 2000, pp Walsham, G. Interpreting information systems in organizations. Wiley, Chichester UK, Yin, R.K. Case Study Research. Design and Methods. Third Edition. SAGE Publications, London,