© 2001,
University of Arizona
Composition Program.
All rights reserved.
Acknowledgments
Contact
us at Profcomm
Date: February 26, 2001
To: Center Team Leader and Interns
From: Miko Iwaoka, Center Intern
Subject: Visit to Pima Community College
I visited Pima Community College with Kelley Baker on Thursday, February 22, 2001, to lay groundwork for the project that I have decided on. I have chosen to evaluate Pima College˙s web registration system. We went to Pima to discuss the project with Tina Verville. She is one of the Student Services Specialists. Her main function is to advise students. Pima College is a junior college that has offices all over Tucson. Their web registration program is very advanced and rivals that of universities. Tina has been an advisor there for 2 years. She helps students pick out classes, does graduation checks, and transfer advises. We decided to interview her because she was readily accessible as a full time advisor. I heard that she was a very pleasant person and easy to work with. I went with the intention to talk to her about my project. I was hoping she would have some suggestions and be interested to work with us as well.
As I mentioned before, I would like to evaluate Pima College's web registration system. There are many facets of the system that I would like to look at. As a student, I feel that its efficiency and user-friendliness are very important. I understand that there are many other parts to look at and I want to make sure that I cover different interests and values than my own. I would like to discover the motives that Pima College had when they implemented the program. I plan to look at it from a student's, advisor's, and administrator's perspective if possible. I believe that each viewpoint is critical in the analysis. The student's point of view is important because that is whom the system was created for according to Pima College. And because the advisors are there to help students, how they see the system will be interesting as well. I am also intrigued by the administration's viewpoint. I would like to know why they made the decisions they did as to what would go on the site and why. I would like to determine if there are any kinks in the program and if there could be improvements.
I am interested in this project for a few reasons. As a student, I am very interested in this new technology. I would like to determine if it has staying power and I am very happy to have this new technology to use. I love working with computers, I feel at home with them. If I could do more online, I would. Pima College's system has the potential to help me do much more online. Their system has sparked my attention as an adjunct advisor as well. I would like to know if this is a benefit to the student body. I think the student population is very diverse and I would like to know how this would affect them. My career plans involve working in a school setting as a school counselor. If I decide to continue working at the college level, these online services could either be a great help or a hindrance. Theoretically, it could eliminate the college counselor's role altogether if all the services, including advising, were available online. This is another reason why I am very intrigued in this project. I will examine whether there is an actual threat to job security. I will also look at the possibilities of all the services being online, including advising, and how that would affect students.
Kelley and I decided to collaborate on the project and we conducted the interview together. We both want to be involved in all aspects instead of splitting it up. This started by going to the interview together. I thought that the interview went well. Tina was very receptive to the idea and we got along really nicely. The interview lasted for about 35 minutes. It was easy for us to communicate because we used the same jargon. As we are both advisors, we did not have to spend time defining any terms or clarifying. First, I described the project that we had in mind. We explained the class and how the project had to fit into the context of the class. After I told her about the project, we brainstormed for a bit to make sure I had a good list of questions to ask. We made sure we had covered all the bases. After that we actually started discussing her view of the answers to those questions.
We talked about a few of the good points to the web registration system. Then, we went into the already apparent problems with the system. Because it is so new, there will be start up problems along with anything else that happened to go wrong. Then, we started looking at it from different points of view. We looked at it from the student's perspective, then the advisor's, and finally the administrations. Tina actually showed me the different angles and how important they were. She said that I should tie them all together in my final report.
Then we discussed Pima's motivation for implementing the system. We talked about a couple different reasons and then speculated about the direction Pima was headed. We looked at it in the context of competition and them as a business mostly. And finally we discussed the look and layout of the website. We quickly came to a few conclusions that will need some further exploration. She also gave me an important bit of information when we were looking at the site. She told me that Pima˙s own Webmaster and web technicians designed the site. They did not hire out to design the site.
I believe that my critique will be useful to Pima College if they are interested because they might not see all the angles as they were looking at it from one perspective. Hopefully, I can show them what works and what may be improved. They may also be interested in how each person as different ideas as to what the system should look like and include. They might want to consider the different groups (for example, students vs. advisors) values and what they have in common.
I believe that the interview was very helpful. Tina was very thorough in looking through my notes and determining if I was excluding any pertinent information. She gave me the insight of a practicing advisor. Because I am not advising on a regular basis, I usually just look at different issues through the eyes of a student. She also had a very good idea of what the administration was thinking. The best part of the interview was her take of the student's reaction to the web registration system. As a fairly computer savvy student myself, I thought that the site was easy to navigate through. I had a few quips about the system, but I thought it was fairly easy to understand. She showed me that to many students "it was not easy, in fact in a lot of cases, it was unnecessarily difficult." I had definitely not seen it from that point of view before that point.
The interview did expand my understanding of the issue. There are many things that did not come to mind when I initially wrote down questions. For example, she brought to light that they used terminology that could probably be changed. On the site they use words like "query" and "submit," when they could easily change the words to more frequently used ones. She also explained to us a possible reason why they do not have a payment function on the website. Tina said that "they might not have it up because they did not want to pay for a more security on the website." Paying with Visa or MasterCard necessitates a very secure system and Pima may not be ready to put money down for that. I thought that was particularly insightful. Besides that, she brought to light a couple issues that we probably would not have thought about on our own. I would not have seen the administration's angle very clearly without the interview, for example.
I had some preliminary questions to ask her when I got there, but I did not write out a script. I felt that it should be more ad lib because I did not know where the interview was going to turn. I think I am fairly casual in how I communicate with all people. I brought that into the interview. I did have some questions though if the conversation did not flow and some questions that I did not want to forget to ask. Here are some of the questions that we asked:
Those are just some of the questions I asked her. The interview flowed well. It went from one subject to the next in a logical manner. When we were finishing up she made sure I did not have any other questions and invited me back if I needed more information.
One aspect that I am not very secure about is my actual research question. I would like to discuss my options and I would like your input too. I have a general idea, but I am not clear as to how to word it. I would appreciate talking to you about this matter. I will be in touch over email to discuss this subject.
I feel that the interview was very helpful in helping me pick a direction for the project. It was more along the lines of helping determine if my direction was sound. She showed me clear delineations for the outline if I choose to go that way. She provided me with crucial insight that she has an active advisor working with students on a day-to-day basis. I feel that the interview was very useful and I feel more confidant about my project idea.
My next move will be making a clear research question. I need to add layers to make it more thorough. Once I have that done, Kelley and I will start doing the footwork. We will take a closer look at the system and start delving into the more complicated portions of the critique. Those will include determining whose values are visible on the site right now, whom they are trying to cater to, what image they are trying to present, what image they are actually projecting, etc. After we propose our defined ideas and they are revised and accepted, we will proceed with the evaluation.