I have spent a great deal lately of time to figure out our graduate admissions. This is a case in organizational studies. The information technology platforms have brought us great efficiency over the last 30 years, and yet they introduced a completely new set of constraints on the organizations that did not exist before.
Here is a short version of the story, without most of the technical details. The CSU system has implemented a new online application platform, CSUApply. The rationale for introducing it is compelling: applicants can select more than one campus to apply, and the system promised to get away with the supplemental applications (these are an extra step, sometimes on paper, and they look embarrassingly low-tech). Because of the ambitious implementation deadline, there was no time to work closely with all campuses. And each campus has some sort of an admission workflow, linked to its internal CMS (which is really, the People Soft, an Oracle platform). There were no protocols for importing the data from CSUApply to these workflows. Well, campuses’ IT people had made a heroic effort (they always do), and created an OK protocol. It still has three major glitches: 1. The CSUApply is very difficult to modify for each program, which renders the last, modifiable portion of it useless. 2. The vendor who sold us the program has never worked with whole systems. They forgot that each campus needs to assign an applicant a unique campus ID to admit them. CSUApply cannot do that, so you almost have to do the supplemental application anyway. Oops. 3. Document uploads still do not transfer to CSM. Theoretically, it is possible, but in practice, we have run out of time, and the IRT folks designed an elegant patch. Thank god, we have very little Spring admissions, and the whole patchwork will work for now.
There was also one major kink in the size of the application. I counted 135 fields a teacher credential applicant must complete in just the common CSUApply portion. Again, this is no one’s incompetence or ill intention. The system has a legitimate interest in collecting all kinds of data. That we value data accuracy over the user experience is another issue well above my pay grade.
Organizations evolve as living organisms. Many things appear as a responses to changing conditions. Organizations are not designed by some intelligent designer. There is no watchmaker. This is something people unfamiliar with organization studies often fail to understand. If you see something seemingly absurd and counter-intuitive, and easy to fix, it is only because you see just a small part of the beast, and because you do not know its history.
For example, in response to the past conditions, our Office of Graduate Studies have implemented a rule: applications are released to the programs only when applicant’s GPA is calculated, and when official transcript is received. It was done to put a hard barrier to incomplete applications, which create a number of problems. However, our (COE) timelines for orientations, field placements, and faculty availability make it almost impossible to admit students on time. So, our part of the organization adapted one more time, and we now require, in effect, a parallel application, disguised as a supplemental application. And yeah, we want it in paper, because it is easier to work with, and in a way, more secure. It is a case of mimicry, also well known in evolutionary biology.
If you want to know how your dean is spending his summer, this is how. To intervene in the works of a naturally evolved organization, one needs to have an understanding of the ecosystem, and a sufficiently high level of access. Even my level does not offer a high enough vantage point, because we’re dealing with a 23-campus system at one end, and a receptionist in our 401 office at the other end. To figure out a real solution, we had to have several meetings, the last one with 12 or so people. We have an idea on how to half-solve the puzzle in time for Fall 18 admissions. It has to do with where exactly in the workflow the hard barrier is enforced. However, I am still not sure if there are other rules and policies that evolved for unrelated reasons that will prevent it from working. Therefore, we have to have plans B and C. These are serious matters, especially for programs with low enrollments. Just a small negative nudge can put them out of existence. In organizations, it is still the survival of the fittest. While whole universities never die, their smaller parts like departments, programs, colleges – do die, dissolve, get eaten by others, flourish, and mutate. And yes, there are such things as invasive species and epidemics… These are for another time.
Here is a short version of the story, without most of the technical details. The CSU system has implemented a new online application platform, CSUApply. The rationale for introducing it is compelling: applicants can select more than one campus to apply, and the system promised to get away with the supplemental applications (these are an extra step, sometimes on paper, and they look embarrassingly low-tech). Because of the ambitious implementation deadline, there was no time to work closely with all campuses. And each campus has some sort of an admission workflow, linked to its internal CMS (which is really, the People Soft, an Oracle platform). There were no protocols for importing the data from CSUApply to these workflows. Well, campuses’ IT people had made a heroic effort (they always do), and created an OK protocol. It still has three major glitches: 1. The CSUApply is very difficult to modify for each program, which renders the last, modifiable portion of it useless. 2. The vendor who sold us the program has never worked with whole systems. They forgot that each campus needs to assign an applicant a unique campus ID to admit them. CSUApply cannot do that, so you almost have to do the supplemental application anyway. Oops. 3. Document uploads still do not transfer to CSM. Theoretically, it is possible, but in practice, we have run out of time, and the IRT folks designed an elegant patch. Thank god, we have very little Spring admissions, and the whole patchwork will work for now.
There was also one major kink in the size of the application. I counted 135 fields a teacher credential applicant must complete in just the common CSUApply portion. Again, this is no one’s incompetence or ill intention. The system has a legitimate interest in collecting all kinds of data. That we value data accuracy over the user experience is another issue well above my pay grade.
Organizations evolve as living organisms. Many things appear as a responses to changing conditions. Organizations are not designed by some intelligent designer. There is no watchmaker. This is something people unfamiliar with organization studies often fail to understand. If you see something seemingly absurd and counter-intuitive, and easy to fix, it is only because you see just a small part of the beast, and because you do not know its history.
For example, in response to the past conditions, our Office of Graduate Studies have implemented a rule: applications are released to the programs only when applicant’s GPA is calculated, and when official transcript is received. It was done to put a hard barrier to incomplete applications, which create a number of problems. However, our (COE) timelines for orientations, field placements, and faculty availability make it almost impossible to admit students on time. So, our part of the organization adapted one more time, and we now require, in effect, a parallel application, disguised as a supplemental application. And yeah, we want it in paper, because it is easier to work with, and in a way, more secure. It is a case of mimicry, also well known in evolutionary biology.
If you want to know how your dean is spending his summer, this is how. To intervene in the works of a naturally evolved organization, one needs to have an understanding of the ecosystem, and a sufficiently high level of access. Even my level does not offer a high enough vantage point, because we’re dealing with a 23-campus system at one end, and a receptionist in our 401 office at the other end. To figure out a real solution, we had to have several meetings, the last one with 12 or so people. We have an idea on how to half-solve the puzzle in time for Fall 18 admissions. It has to do with where exactly in the workflow the hard barrier is enforced. However, I am still not sure if there are other rules and policies that evolved for unrelated reasons that will prevent it from working. Therefore, we have to have plans B and C. These are serious matters, especially for programs with low enrollments. Just a small negative nudge can put them out of existence. In organizations, it is still the survival of the fittest. While whole universities never die, their smaller parts like departments, programs, colleges – do die, dissolve, get eaten by others, flourish, and mutate. And yes, there are such things as invasive species and epidemics… These are for another time.
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