OATdb Archive - Sam Houston State University

OATdb Archive

2013 - 2014

Correspondence

Goal

Enrollment

To increase the number of students enrolled in correspondence classes.

Objective

Marketing

To increase enrollment by 3%.

KPI

Registration Numbers

By looking at our registration numbers, we will be able to see if our enrollment decreased or increased for this fiscal year.Registration Numbers

Result

Registration Results

Based on reporting information ran in cognos that allows us to view enrollment numbers, we notice that enrollment did in fact increase by 1% from 387 students in FY13 to 393 in FY14.

Action

Registration Numbers

Market to students by disseminating information in the Mall Area twice a year (Fall/Spring)
Provide colleges with a closed circuit TV PowerPoint for enrollment procedures
Place flyers across campus, in the Sam Center, on bulletin boards, and at The Woodlands Center for students to review.

Goal

Meet Revenue - $280,000

Correspondence is a self-staining entity; therefore, we must meet our budget each year.

Objective

Meeting Budget

For Correspondence to meet budget, we must ensure that we keep our expenses low and ensure we have the required number of students taking courses.

KPI

Expenditures & Revenue Reporting

Ensure that we lower our O&M expenses, by purchasing only what we need to operate in the black.
Ensure that marketing objectives yield an increase in enrollments; Correspondence budge is tied to the number of enrollments.

Result

Reporting

Run Budget Reports to show if correspondence has met their budget for the year.
Run Budge Reports to show a comparison of the 2013-2014 O$M Expenditures verses last year's expenditures.

Result

Correspondence Revenue

As of today, July 9, 2014, we still have 53 days left to ensure we meet revenue. According to our budget reports in banner (FGIBDST), we have currently collected $226,404.35. According to my predictions, we will not meet the scheduled $280,000; however, we will have salary saving to take into account for a full-time position and teaching salary that will be deducted from the initial revenue dollar amount. Once the fiscal year closes, we will know for sure what our final budget numbers look like.

Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement

During FY13 we wanted to ensure that all of the courses got moved over to Blackboard in FY14 and this milestone was reached. We currently have 100% of our courses in the new LMS (Blackboard). There were many challenges to face here but the largest was ensuring that students were in the correct sections of each of the courses because of the migration. We had to ensure that those students who had already completed over 50% of their coursework in E-college stayed in E-college and did not get pulled over into blackboard. In terms of marketing, we were able to do all that we set out to increase awareness and drive enrollment; however, we were not able to implement the "going from class to class," because it proved to be too time consuming and we did not have the personnel to accomplish the task.

Plan for continuous improvement Because of our enrollment efforts/marketing efforts, we have seen an increase in our number of students enrolling in Correspondence Courses this fiscal year.

Through the continuous efforts of the Correspondence Office we will definitely be able to address the needs of our Correspondence Students. Enrollment increased by 1% from last fiscal year. For this next fiscal year, we will continue with our current efforts, because we see that they are working. Understanding that marketing is a necessity and will help increase our enrollment number, we have chosen to utilize different strategies: using sandwich boards to get information to students; yard signs that can be placed all over campus for students to obtain the information; becoming more prevalent in the mall area, by setting up an information table, as students are going from class to class; marketing on Channel 7, targeted mass emails; and placing information packets across campus. With these efforts we should definitely see an increase in awareness and enrollment.

In the new Fiscal Year it would behoove us to begin to look other alternatives for registration purposes, because currently this process is manual. Additionally, we have also learned that in order for this process of course revision to be smooth, we must involve key individuals like Dr. Bridges with the Writing Discipline Committee for the verification of writing enhanced courses. Lastly, but not least as we continue to look to marketing to drive enrollment, we must be cognizant about our expenditure, because salaries of employees continue to increase; and because of this we have to keep looking for ways to reinvent correspondence or streamline processes.