School Environment Evaluation

By Christopher Denny

Introduction
Using the Maturity Benchmarks Survey by Sibley and Kimball (1997), I conducted an evaluation of the Springfield School of Nursing. This evaluation took into consideration that the school is only a small part of a larger university and how the school fits into the larger organization as a whole.

Maturity Benchmarks
There are five general categories within the benchmarks and each has subcategories in an effort to specify pertinent areas for evaluation. The five categories of the benchmarks are Administrative, Curricular, Support, Connectivity and Innovation. This evaluation explores each area and how the school fits into the benchmarks.

Administrative

Policy

Behavioral - Integrated - Springfield School of Nursing has a lot of faculty that use technology on a regular basis. There are even some faculty that continue to ask that more technology be added to the classrooms. Resource / Infrastructure - Islands - There is no formal technology policy at the school in terms of classroom usage. Students are required to have access to a laptop but other than that, no actual policy exists. Planning Behavioral Islands The University as a whole has a technology plan that,
unfortunately, has not been shared with the schools. Therefore, the schools in general have to come up with a technology plan on their own. At the moment, the school in question determines its technology needs as necessary, with only passing thoughts on future endeavors.

Resource / Infrastructure Emergent Current technology decisions are made by administration and put forth to school IT staff to implement. There is no planning in regards to if the technology being implemented is necessary to improve learning. Budget

Behavioral Islands The purchase of extra technology for the school only happens twice a year and only if the budget allows for it. No formal plan is in place regarding the purchasing of technology and does not anticipate all future needs. Resource / Infrastructure Emergent Technology budget is only planned as needed (computers/printers for new faculty, replacement equipment in the classrooms). A plan such as this does not allow for other equipment or software that might be beneficial to increase student learning. Administrative Information Behavioral Integrated The school is not completely paperless as there are many systems that are still paper-based. Central University IT maintains budget and plans for paperless systems as well as supporting their integration among the schools. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent Many administrative systems are available to faculty and staff though not used by all. Central University IT provides training but faculty does not attend. Faculty and staff in the school offer assistance to others willing to learn.

Curricular
Electronic Information Behavioral Islands The school has access to several electronic resources and some of those are used on a regular basis by both faculty and students. However, there are many other resources available that the students havent been made aware of due to lack of marketing information. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent Each student is granted access to all electronic resources upon acceptance to the school. However, students are not informed of these resources until it is almost necessary to use them. Part of the technology plan needs to address the informing of students to the available resources. Assessment Behavioral Intelligent The school currently uses on an online survey system for course and faculty evaluations at the end of each quarter. These evaluations determine if contract faculty will remain on staff, if courses need curriculum changes and if there are other issues that need to be resolved. Resource / Infrastructure Integrated The same online survey system that is used for the course and faculty evaluations is available to faculty for research purposes. The school has a statistics course that teaches statistics software that students can access in the schools computer lab. Curricular Integration

Behavioral Intelligent The University LMS is required for all classes. There is no formal policy stating how each instructor is to use the LMS, only that it must be used in some capacity. A majority of the faculty use it to post their PPT presentations after each class period. Some embed online videos and use the associated quiz builder to create quizzes for their students. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent All curriculum areas have access to all school-owned and University-owned technology. The access is not the issue, however. It is that most of the faculty does not take full advantage of the technology that is available. Teacher Use Behavioral Integrated All curricular areas have access to technology as necessary though not all faculty use it to their advantage. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent In terms of basic technology used by the faculty, it is available in their workspace. Some faculty ask for additional software or hardware and with proper approval, receive the additional equipment needed. Student Use Behavioral Integrated The general consensus of the student population has determined that students would appreciate more technology being used in the classroom besides the basic technology currently used. Some courses, but not all, require technology to complete their coursework. Of those, the students have been willing to learn other technology to complete the projects. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent The school has one large computer lab and one smaller computer lab with most software available that a student would need in order to complete course projects.

Support

Stakeholder Involvement Behavioral Emergent As one school that is a part of a University, the stakeholder involvement is different. Our alumni were considered to be the best representative of the stakeholder in terms of this evaluation. While most alumni do not pay attention to the technology plans or needs of the school, there have been some in the recent past that have donated money toward new programs that involve technology. Resource / Infrastructure Emergent The alumni of the school are not involved in any planning process. At this point, there is no indication that alumni will be part of the planning process in terms of technology use other than in terms of how they wish to be contacted.

Administrative Support Behavioral Islands The schools administration has created a committee with various faculty and staff in order to determine technology needs for the classroom. While they have talked about various needs for the school, many ideas have not come to fruition due to the need to pass ideas from committee to committee. Resource / Infrastructure Islands The committee process seems to impede the Technology committee in that the committees ideas must be presented to administration and then the general faculty. Because of this, some ideas are met with resistance and are tabled for further discussion that might or might not happen. At that point, administration is unable to further advance the process because of the organizations structure. Training Behavioral Emergent Though there are a few lunch and learn type sessions, most faculty would prefer to learn on their own or in a one-on-one setting. Older faculty and lack of enthusiasm toward new technologies makes training on new technology harder as well. Resource / Infrastructure Emergent The IT staff is fully capable of supporting technology and can train basic usage. Faculty are capable of training others but not as capable with the technology. The disconnect leaves both groups frustrated with the other. Technology training, therefore, does not usually happen until there is a large enough group to request training and sometimes a third party instructor is brought in to provide the training. Technical / Infrastructure Support Behavioral Integrated IT staff assists the faculty with all technology support, though they are willing to search the Internet for answers or look to other faculty as a resource. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent There are two IT staff members that support the faculty, staff, students and guests of the school. This includes everything from office computers, laptops, computer lab, printers, copiers and classroom related equipment. One staff member is primarily hardware support while the other is software related support, though each is able to do the others job to an extent allowing for one to support the school in case one is not available.

Connectivity

Local Area Network (LAN)

Behavioral Integrated The Local Area Network is used by the faculty mostly to access network data storage. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent The Local Area Network is capable of supporting advanced services but it is underutilized. Wide Area Network (WAN) Behavioral Integrated Central IT Support controls the services of the Wide Area Network but most services are unknown to faculty due to lack of information. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent There are many services that Central IT Support has purchased for use by the schools, including class capture software and other media services, but the schools have not been informed due to lack of formal dissemination by Central IT Support that the services are available. Internet Access Behavioral Intelligent Of the various technologies available, the Internet is the one that is used the most. Many faculty use online resources during their presentations, including related websites and video. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent All offices have a wired connection to the Local Area Network. Classroom computers are connected to the LAN if faculty needs access to files on their network storage drives. Wi-Fi is also available to students with laptops or other mobile devices. Communications Systems Behavioral Intelligent All students have an email account created for them during the admissions process. All student / faculty / school-related communication is sent to the school email address. Students tend to not look at school email address at times and miss direct communication with faculty. Resource / Infrastructure Intelligent Microsoft Outlook is installed on all faculty and staff computers for email access. Microsofts Outlook Web Access is available for all faculty and students to access email via the web.

Innovation

New Technologies Behavioral Islands There has been a handful of faculty that would like to purchase new technology for the school but there has not been enough interest in the product to keep it consistently in use. Some products or software has still been purchased and used to minor success but there should be a larger base of users before spending money on a particular product. Resource / Infrastructure Emergent Due to the need to pass items through several committees, there have been times that certain faculty

members are able to persuade others to not advance the purchase of a particular new technology or resource. At times, the purchase still goes through and the results are positive, though there is still the dissent amongst the faculty. Comprehensive Technologies Behavioral Emergent The current classroom technology consists of a computer, a VCR/DVD player, a projector and a sound system. Currently, there are no plans to include any other technology, such as video cameras for the purpose of classroom capture activities or video conferencing capabilities. Resource / Infrastructure Islands Despite the lack of more advanced technologies being available in the classroom, what is available is used on almost a daily basis for faculty instruction.

Conclusion
I was really surprised by how the school performed on the evaluation. I knew that there were difficulties in the matter of a formal technology plan, but this summary has only fueled the need to begin working with the technology committee in order to begin drafting a technology plan that incorporates all sections of this evaluation and addresses them to the point that the school can begin moving forward and eventually reach the Intelligent stage of each area. The plan now is to take this summary and the evaluation that was completed and pass them on to the Technology Committee at the school. Going over it with them, the committee can see the weaker areas in regards to technology usage and work towards building a formal technology use plan for both the faculty and the students. With that in place, the future purchasing of technology, while still based on budget, will have more set ideas and plans for how it will be used.