Online survey platforms are quietly improving organization development in the Academia, and I suspect, elsewhere. That is not what the authors of such platforms had in mind. All the survey monkeys, gizmos, qualtrics, etc. – they were literally meant to be survey instruments. However, turned them into various online forms, data bases, assessment instruments, workflows, and many other things. I have 56 of them right now, 31 were designed by someone else and shared with me. We probably have hundreds throughout the organization. This kind of technology does not need to be pushed on people.
Here is an example of where such a technology can do what would be almost impossible to do otherwise. For years, the university has been struggling to provide accommodations to Deaf and hard of hearing at its public events. It is not an easy problem to solve. The Deaf community rightfully argue that not offering an accommodation is tantamount to exclusion. They believe – again, rightfully, - that the burden of the logistics should be on event organizer, not on them. The traditional way of dealing with an issue like that would be to train event organizers, and codify the language of accommodations and the procedures. However, every month, dozens of people, who keep changing on us, organize dozens of events. A university is departments, student affairs, faculty affairs, student groups, clubs, athletics … Even if we build another bureaucratic requirement, the results would have been mixed. Diana, our VP for Inclusive Excellence, told me – yes, we can throw a requirement at all those people, but we also need to provide a reasonable way to comply. She is right: we cannot expect every unit, every organization on campus to know how to schedule an ASL interpreter or a captioner. They simply do not have standing accounts with the interpreting agency, not to mention certain expertise needed to do this. In other words, what is possible in a small or mid-sized organization, may be unobtainable at a large and distributed organization like ours.
After a chat with Diana, I asked Binod to think of a survey where an event organizer would enter event details. It would automatically generate a unique URL that can be included in any event invitation or ad; worked into any RSVP system. The link lays dormant until a Deaf or hard of hearing person shows interest to the event, clicks on the unique link, and enters his or her name and email. At that time, the system would generate another automated e-mail that would combine the event details with requester name, and sent to our staff interpreter. She will decide if she can cover it, or book more help from the agency. It took Binod a week or so figure it all out, but he did as he always does. We do not need to invest in another expensive specialized technology, and do not need to build another burdensome and inefficient procedure.
This was probably one of the most complex challenges, but I can give you dozens of examples, from faculty votes to contest entry submissions that can be done through a survey platform. The power of such technology is in its universality. It is not specialized, and with some thinking can be used for many different purposes. Universities tend to rely on heavy, all-encompassing data solutions such as Banner or PeopleSoft. They integrate HR, payroll, scheduling, and Registrar, the key functions of the university operations. At some point, we all believed they could meet hundreds of various needs staff and faculty have. Alas, it did not happen and will not happen. The integrated platforms must be secure, and therefore should be controlled centrally by a few people. Any kind of functional expansion requires months of planning and development. Out-of-box surveys are nimble, simple, and can be used by anyone on campus. Even when we have to re-enter the data into the big integrated platform, it is often worth it.
While I am often skeptical about tech innovations in education, I cannot miss the rare success story. When technology is being driven by users, and allows to solve real issues, it is miracle, because it happens so rarely.
Here is an example of where such a technology can do what would be almost impossible to do otherwise. For years, the university has been struggling to provide accommodations to Deaf and hard of hearing at its public events. It is not an easy problem to solve. The Deaf community rightfully argue that not offering an accommodation is tantamount to exclusion. They believe – again, rightfully, - that the burden of the logistics should be on event organizer, not on them. The traditional way of dealing with an issue like that would be to train event organizers, and codify the language of accommodations and the procedures. However, every month, dozens of people, who keep changing on us, organize dozens of events. A university is departments, student affairs, faculty affairs, student groups, clubs, athletics … Even if we build another bureaucratic requirement, the results would have been mixed. Diana, our VP for Inclusive Excellence, told me – yes, we can throw a requirement at all those people, but we also need to provide a reasonable way to comply. She is right: we cannot expect every unit, every organization on campus to know how to schedule an ASL interpreter or a captioner. They simply do not have standing accounts with the interpreting agency, not to mention certain expertise needed to do this. In other words, what is possible in a small or mid-sized organization, may be unobtainable at a large and distributed organization like ours.
After a chat with Diana, I asked Binod to think of a survey where an event organizer would enter event details. It would automatically generate a unique URL that can be included in any event invitation or ad; worked into any RSVP system. The link lays dormant until a Deaf or hard of hearing person shows interest to the event, clicks on the unique link, and enters his or her name and email. At that time, the system would generate another automated e-mail that would combine the event details with requester name, and sent to our staff interpreter. She will decide if she can cover it, or book more help from the agency. It took Binod a week or so figure it all out, but he did as he always does. We do not need to invest in another expensive specialized technology, and do not need to build another burdensome and inefficient procedure.
This was probably one of the most complex challenges, but I can give you dozens of examples, from faculty votes to contest entry submissions that can be done through a survey platform. The power of such technology is in its universality. It is not specialized, and with some thinking can be used for many different purposes. Universities tend to rely on heavy, all-encompassing data solutions such as Banner or PeopleSoft. They integrate HR, payroll, scheduling, and Registrar, the key functions of the university operations. At some point, we all believed they could meet hundreds of various needs staff and faculty have. Alas, it did not happen and will not happen. The integrated platforms must be secure, and therefore should be controlled centrally by a few people. Any kind of functional expansion requires months of planning and development. Out-of-box surveys are nimble, simple, and can be used by anyone on campus. Even when we have to re-enter the data into the big integrated platform, it is often worth it.
While I am often skeptical about tech innovations in education, I cannot miss the rare success story. When technology is being driven by users, and allows to solve real issues, it is miracle, because it happens so rarely.
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