Academic Calendar Study Excelsior College Tom Green, Ph.D., Senior Consultant Nicole Spero,...

Academic Calendar Study

Excelsior College

Tom Green, Ph.D., Senior ConsultantNicole Spero, Associate Director

October 13-14, 2009

Excelsior College Calendar Study, October 2009 2

Project Summary

Goals of Excelsior College for the project:1.Facilitate student success

2.To maintain sufficient flexibility for Excelsior to compete with other colleges and universities offering online courses

3.To identify strategies and tactics to reduce administrative cost/complexity.

4.To recommend realistic ways to transition to pricing timing that better serves students with Title IV federal financial aid and veteran benefits.


Excelsior College Situation Summary

Excelsior College (EC) enrollment factors:1.EC was established an alternative route to degrees for students who were not served by more traditional academic institutions and structures

– Distance education– Previous academic credits compiled into flexible degree structures

2.EC utilizes an academic calendar of 36 periods of enrollment1. New periods start roughly at the beginning of each month

2. 15, 12 and 8-week enrollment periods are available in each month (hypothetically)



Excelsior College (EC) enrollment factors, continued:3.Enrollment into courses is a relatively recent endeavor that resulted in strong response from their market

- Previously utilized Indiana University for some distance education delivery methods but now deliver these programs directly from DC

- Revenue from course instruction has become an increasingly important element of overall revenue for the college

4.In 2004, EC resumed Title IV federal aid awards- EC also awards some New York state aid- Aid awards are highly tied to rules on enrollment periods- Federal and state aid programs are already complex and mostly

based on traditional academic calendar structures



Excelsior College (EC) enrollment factors, continued:5.Military enrollment accounts for about one third of all enrollments

- Deployed active military can take CD-ROM courses but it is harder for these students to be engaged in an online course, due to restrictions on Internet access

- EC charges the military reduced rates for courses and some fees are not charged to this group that are charged to other groups

- The arrangements for military rates and courses add to the overall complexity of EC structures and administration of enrollment


Pre-Visit Activities

1. Review of Excelsior College web site regarding enrollment periods, payment methods, financial aid

2. Pre-visit conference call to review project scope, goals and data for analysis– Bruce Smith, Tom Dalton, May Boggs, Lori Morano, Sue DeJuan– Additional call with provost Dana Offerman

3. Review of SEM area organizational charts to understand staffing levels and responsibilities for delivering student service


Pre-Visit Activities

1. Initial review of course registration data by enrollment period

2. Review of EC academic calendar/periods of enrollment

3. Compilation of EC peers/competitors for benchmarking of academic calendars


On-Site Activities

1. Group and individual interviews– Calendar Study Task Force– Records office personnel– Program directors (four areas)– Instruction Technology representatives– Information Technology representatives– Academic advisers– Financial aid personnel– Military program coordinator– Institutional research and Outcomes Assessment personnel– Finance personnel– Human resources personnel– Admissions director


On-Site Activities

1. Review of additional detail data from course registration enrollments

2. Presentation of initial observations and recommendations with Student Success committee


Number and complexity of academic terms: Observations

1. Overlapping terms create difficulty from a number of perspectives– Every group interviewed cited the lack of breaks between terms as a

significant issue at EC– Finding qualified faculty who are available to teach offered courses is

more difficult, when they may be engaged into teaching in terms that overlap (i.e., teaching an 8-week course, a 15-week course that started before this and another 8-week or 15-week term that starts before the 8-week term ends)

– The adjacency of terms does not allow for system maintenance/small changes between course offerings, as needed

– Faculty are simultaneously grading/completing one term and starting a new term


Number and complexity of academic terms: Observations continued

1. Offering as much flexibility as possible for students has been a core value of EC in its development of an academic calendar

2. Overlapping terms create difficulty from a number of perspectives– There is constant activity of grading, opening, closing, maintaining

terms• Several activities are based upon the midpoint of the term, which must be

tracked for each term

– Faculty pay for teaching is based upon number of students and the payment schedule is based upon the starting and midpoint of each term

• Tracking this in overlapping terms is difficult• Faculty often have difficulty understanding what they are being paid for

when checks include more than one term’s payments



2. Overlapping terms create difficulty from a number of perspectives– Students find it difficulty to clearly understand options for courses,

given the complexity of overlapping options• Related to this issue is the lack of clear pathways to the completion of the

degree• Clear objectives and pathways to degree completion enhance student

success

– Planning courses far in advance is more complicated, given the volume of work to manage existing terms and the possible options for course patterns in future terms



3. Financial aid awards are limited to non-overlapping terms– Awarding aid is not possible in overlapping terms, as the awards are

based on one term length• Students may receive aid in multiple terms, however, within one award

period, so long as they do not overlap• This sometimes results in students not taking courses that may benefit

them, since they need aid to enroll and cannot take overlapping courese

– Current registration policies/methods do not allow for multiple, non-overlapping term registration

• Students who may intend to enroll for a consecutive 8-week term may not do so until the first 8-week term has already started



3. Financial aid awards are limited to non-overlapping terms– Providing clear answers on affordability of the EC degree is less

possible, given the complexity of the calendar– Only initial packaging can be automated, due to complexity of term

possibilities• Virtually all students are manually packaged at some point in the process

– Any expansion of financial aid awards will result in a corresponding expansion of staff, given the manual packaging noted above


Course Term Enrollments by term and month 2008-2009 calendar years

Excludes one-credit information literacy course enrollments. Registration for October – December 2009 terms are not yet complete



4. Administration of a term has certain fixed costs, regardless of the number of students enrolled– Opening the term for registration– Running term maintenance routines to pull grades from the online

course software grade book– Payment of faculty– Assigning courses to various delivery options

• Although the number of courses increases the amount of this activity

– Offering academic advising



5. EC offers a number of terms that serve a low percentage of students– EC offered 15 and 8-week terms offered on even-numbered months

served less than 3% of all students course enrollments in 2008-2009– 12-week terms served about 1% of all students in 2008-2009

6. Students and faculty gravitate into more traditional term patterns– September, January and May are the most popular 15-week terms at

EC• These terms served roughly 60% of 15-week students in 2008 and 2009

– Program directors and advisers hear from both groups that courses over holidays are less desirable



7. Course registration in other 15-week terms is still significant- Terms staring in March, July and November accounted for about 40%

of 15-week student registrations in 2008 and 2009 and 30% of all course registrations in those two years

8. Enrollment in 8-week terms is constant across the year in odd-numbered months- This may be impacted by course offerings in these terms and one

possible interpretation of the data is that the enrollment is capped at the limits of these offerings

- There have been increases in these enrollments from 2008 to 2009- Military students and administrators favor this term length, as it is

similar to the length of term for their own training programs and the length of terms offered by competing institutions



9. Testing for credit is a significant and historical activity for EC- Students may register to test on any day of the year- Once registered for a test, the student has six months to complete it- For recording, reporting purposes, students are placed into the most

logical period of enrollment- Testing students are eligible for federal and in some instances state

aid• This adds to the complexity of aid awards and reporting



9. Completing required federal IPEDS and enrollment reports is a complex process at EC- Capturing the students accurate level of enrollment is extremely

difficult, given the ability of students to enroll in overlapping courses and/or test for credit at the same time

- EC has developed a method to capture starting and ending dates for terms to capture possible student course or testing registration activity for students

• The reports required to capture this information are more complex than usual for a college or university



9. Completing required federal IPEDS and enrollment reports is a complex process at EC- EC completes required periodic enrollment reports through the

National Student Clearinghouse (NSC)- When students do not appear to be enrolled at least half-time, this

triggers the start of repayment schedules for federal (and some private) loans

- Manual deferment forms are completed frequently for students, as a result of the reports sent to the NSC

- The institution chose to report 12 times per year, following advice from the NSC

- Each reporting cycle creates an error report that must be evaluated and corrected or confirmed

- EC may be reporting too frequently, as the NSC may not be reporting monthly to lenders



10. The information literacy course carries additional flexibility for term registration- Students may add this one-credit course up to 20 days after a term

starts• The normal length allowed for adding a course is five days into a term

- All students who earn a degree are required to complete the course successfully

- Students should take the course early in their degree programs but sometimes wait to take this until the end of their studies

- When students need only this course to complete a degree from EC, it is important to have an option for completion within the near future

- Students have eight weeks to complete the course but many are able to complete it in a matter of days



10. EC charges an initial and annual evaluation fee to students who take courses- The initial fee accounts for the costs associated with evaluation of

prior academic credits- The annual fee accounts for the costs of continued academic

advising• The annual fee is charged at the anniversary date from initial enrollment• This process is complicated by the possible number of term start dates

in a calendar year and the need to add this to the student’s bill/account accurately


Comparison to peers and competitors

1. Assessment is incomplete at this time- The results below represent information gathered to date

2. Compared academic calendar plan and financial aid award methods

3. Schools surveyed to date:- Thomas Edison State College (NJ)- Charter Oak State College (CT)- University of Phoenix (AZ)


Thomas Edison State College (NJ)

1. Offer 12 weeks terms, with new terms starting every month.– This differs for graduate and nursing programs which only have 4

terms a year, beginning in July, October, January, and April– Describe this calendar as difficult to keep up with administratively,

but is easier for the student and the multiple terms.

2. Follow federal financial aid guidelines, with the July term being the start of the new award year and the June term being the last term of the previous year’s award year.

3. The award year is 48 weeks or 4 12-week terms.


Thomas Edison State College (NJ)

1. If a student misses enrollment or aid for one term, they just roll them over to the next month.

2. Employ Datatel and use a 3 month attendance pattern to determine awarding.


Charter Oak State College (CT)

1. Students are 100% online and 100% of their students are transfers.

2. Academic calendar is semester-based: Fall, Spring, and Summer.– They have a full 15-week semester with 2 8-week terms or 3 5-week

courses.– They combine these terms to determine if a student is PT, FT, or ¾

time and this determines how they award and disperse aid.

3. If the student is enrolled for Term 2 of a semester only, they wait until they can confirm the student’s enrollment before disbursing aid.


Charter Oak State College (CT)

4. CO has just been approved for graduate programs, so right now grad vs. undergrad awarding/disbursement of aid is not an issue.

5. The only issues they have with Pell and term overlap is when a student transfers from a college where they have continuous start dates.– It is possible that that student has already received part of this year’s

Pell and so they have to calculate the percentage they can award to the student.


University of Phoenix (AZ)

1. Academic calendars are student-centric and they operate using a non-term model.

2. Every student has their own academic and financial year, whether graduate or undergraduate, on-campus or online

3. Students can start classes on a weekly basis, so basically someone can be starting a class any day of the week (student may have a Thursday class only).



1. Undergraduate students take classes one at a time for 5 weeks (undergraduate) or 6 weeks (graduate).

2. The academic year is 24 credit hours and 40 weeks, so 8 courses equals one year.

3. Graduate student classes are 6 weeks each, so they have a 48 week academic year.



1. For financial aid disbursement purposes, all students are considered to be enrolled FT in this non-term model where students are continuously enrolled.

2. There are two payment periods after 4 courses or 20 weeks.

3. You must successfully complete a course to receive your next disbursement.

4. If you fail a course, you must pay out of pocket to repeat it.



11. They use the year-round Pell schedule, but this is how they would handle the traditional Pell schedule:– Therefore, if a class overlaps the June 30th Pell deadline, they can

choose which year it is going to come out of.– Generally by June they stop disbursing funds for the current year Pell

and fill out paperwork for funds to be distributed out of the following Pell year.

– If the course overlaps they wouldn’t be able to pay out the next year’s funds until after 7/1.



12. Using the year-round Pell schedule:- The student can have 2 disbursements in 40 weeks. One at the

beginning, and one after 20 weeks. So if a student starts a class July 1 they’ll receive disbursement #1 and around November (after 20 weeks) they’ll receive disbursement #2.

- In 20 more weeks it’s approximately April and although the June 30th date hasn’t passed, the student can receive another disbursement out of next year’s Pell.

- Before the year-round Pell the April student would’ve had to wait until 7/1 to receive the new disbursement and then would’ve had to have paid retroactively.


Academic Calendar: Recommendations

1. Eliminate academic terms that serve small numbers of students immediately

– 15 and 8-week terms that start in even-numbered months– Some courses or students may have been placed into these terms

because it was possible but not necessary to do so– Most students will likely move to other terms that start in an odd-

numbered month– Worst case scenario is that 2.8% or less of total course registrations

would be lost



2. Move programs and courses offered in 12-week terms to 15 or 8-week formats– Most students in this format are enrolled in the Master of Liberal Arts

program– It is likely that most students will move into these new term lengths– Worst case scenario is a loss of the academic program and/or 1.1%– Determine a goal date for implementing the new course term

length(s)• Announce this to incoming students to alert them that the program will

change at some point• This may take more than one year; rapid implementation may be possible

– The institution will need to budget for the costs of course redesign for the MAL program and other courses offered in this format that are not already designed for other course lengths


Proposed Academic Calendar

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

15-week term

8-week A 8-week B

15-week term

8-week A 8-week B

15-week term

8-week A 8-week B

Two-weekbreak

One-weekbreak

Two-weekbreak

One-weekbreak

Three-weekbreak

Two-weekbreak



2. Implement a three-period block of course terms each year– One block of terms begins each September, January and May– One 15-week term and two back-to-back eight week terms– This format offers students an opportunity to start a term every two

months– Charge the initial assessment fee at the instance of the first term

• When the first initial enrollment occurs in a term that starts in September, January and May, charge the annual fee at the start of that term block

• When the initial enrollment occurs in the middle of a term block (i.e., March 2009), charge the annual fee one year later at the start of the next term block (i.e., May 2010)



2. Implement a three-period block of course terms each year continued– Allow and encourage students to enroll for both 8-week terms within

a term block at the same time– Aid can be planned for and more highly automated for each term

block– Create breaks between the term blocks

• One week break before the September and May blocks• Two week break before the January block• Breaks between 15-week terms will be one week longer



3. Cautiously and over time move courses and programs in the 15-week terms that start in March, July and November into the new term blocks– Current course registrations in these terms constitute about 30% of

current enrollments– Some programs may be sequenced to start and continue in these

terms– Additional research on the students, courses and programs in these

terms will be needed to develop the best possible method to migrate students from these three terms and into the 15-week and 8-week term blocks in the proposed structure

• Consider a survey of students registered in these terms to determine which of the proposed terms are most desirable or if none of those terms would be desirable, to determine possible worst-case risk



3. Cautiously and over time move courses and programs in the 15-week terms that start in March, July and November into the new term blocks, continued– Increase the number of 8-week options for students

• These are largely unchanged in format and timing from existing structure• Maintain high level of flexibility to start a new enrollment or complete a

required course within two months• Determine which courses are pedagogically able to be condensed (course

design does not appear to be an issue here, as most 15-week online courses are comprised of eight two-week modules that could be compressed into one-week modules with a minimum of changes)

• If a course is offered in both 15 and 8-week formats, increase the number of 8-week course sections and reduce the 15-week course sections to pilot the migration

• Military students (one third of all enrollments) prefer this option



3. Cautiously and over time move courses and programs in the 15-week terms that start in March, July and November into the new term blocks, continued– Determine which programs and courses are only offered in 15-week

formats• Are these programs and courses pedagogically sound in 8-week formats?• Yes – move to 8-week options• Budget for course redesign costs• No – determine risk of losing registrations if students are unable or

unwilling to migrate to three 15-week terms in proposed structure

– This process may take a two to three years to complete and should be implemented in a phased process with key pilots to determine likely long-term impact and possible risk to revenues



4. Moving to a simplified academic calendar has significant benefits for students and the institution– Academic offerings become easier to plan over longer periods of time

• Planning degree pathways should become easier when administration of a less complex academic calendar allows greater time for this work

– Faculty assignments and pay become clearer– Calendar corresponds to student and faculty preferences and other

life commitments– Explaining the course-taking options for students becomes simpler

and clearer– Billing becomes simpler to administer and understand



4. Moving to a simplified academic calendar has significant benefits for students and the institution continued– Financial aid will remain complex but could be more broadly available

to students– Implementing upgrades to course management and SIS software

become easier to plan and implement


Next Steps

1. Compile outstanding academic calendar comparisons from other peers and competitors (AACRAO Consulting)

2. Review initial report (EC)– Are the questions that you wanted to have answered covered in the

draft?– Does the information here appear to be accurate?

3. Provide additional recommendations on movement to a simplified calendar (AC) based upon additional data on current course offerings (EC)

4. Final visit– Scheduled for Wednesday, December 2, 2009– Discuss observations and recommendations– Presentation of report for group of EC’s choosing


Thank you!

Tom Green, Ph.D., Senior [email protected]

Nicole Spero, Associate [email protected]

consulting.aacrao.org

Academic Calendar Study Excelsior College Tom Green, Ph.D., Senior Consultant Nicole Spero,...

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