Academic advisement, an essential part of the registration process, impacts course offerings and students' progress. Unfortunately, it's often less clear than other steps, leading to issues for both students and departments. The current system, involving Google Forms and Sheets, creates confusion, delays, and miscommunication, making a more efficient approach necessary. This is especially crucial due to challenges related to deadlines, time constraints, request volume, and complexity.
Role:
UX Researcher & UI/UX Designer
Industry:
Education
Duration:
1 Year
Challenges
No student, no advisement. Late advisment……complications happen.
Both students and academic coordinators expressed their pain points dealing with advisement. Due to experiences like miscommunication, lengthy and drawn-out conversations, and a lack of understanding of how the process works, students who undergo advisement currently view it as slow and complicated. This raises questions about how each department manages advisement and what causes these performance inconsistencies to increase.
However, there is also the issue of students who engage in last-minute ADV, especially before enlistment. This adds to the complexity of the process, given the limited time academic coordinators have to access Intra-AISIS.
Advisement requires both time and effort, yet it is a crucial process that students must undergo to modify their IPS and achieve their desired pace for their college experience.
My Approach
This process cannot happen without student engagement.
“How might we encourage students to be more proactive in starting advisement early and making the experience smoother for all parties involved?”
Promoting proactive student engagement in the advisement process not only benefits students but also enhances the overall efficiency, fostering a culture of responsibility, engagement, and collaboration for a more fulfilling experience for both parties.
The solution is to involve the students further by allowing them to submit their request and track it in one platform.
The Online Academic Advisement platform has two key roles:
For Students: It acts as a simulation to experiment with course selections and improve decision-making skills. They will also be responsible for any request changes if they choose to submit the changes they make.
For administrators: It simplifies the advisement process, offering real-time tracking and visual representations of academic plans to meet Registrar's Office deadlines.
The Online Academic Advisement platform seeks to streamline the process by allowing both students and administrator to deal with advisement within the platform.
The platform solves the problem by simulating academic plans, giving students the power to make well-informed decisions, and simplifying administrative processes. This enhances accuracy and efficiency in advisement, effectively resolving concerns regarding deadlines and communication.
Results
Both stakeholders found this platform useful and recognized its potential to enhance the efficiency and reduce the stress of academic advisement.
The research results reveal areas for improvement in the website prototype, particularly in terms of navigation. Users found limitations due to the fixed scenario, prompting the need to expand user flow for more options. Additional suggestions include revising the admin interface, offering track selection for specialized courses, and enhancing text sizes and styles for better accessibility.
Feedback consistently highlights the website's user-friendly process for students, simplifying changes and approvals. For administrators, the platform streamlines advisement procedures, replacing Google Forms and Sheets and improving accuracy and efficiency. The University Registrar also recommended potential integration with AISIS & Intra-AISIS, serving as a direct bridge between the two platforms for future enhancements.
Conclusion
In essence, advisement depends on the collaboration of both stakeholders and the utilization of available technology to facilitate the process.
This project highlights the Online Academic Advisement platform's potential to enhance the academic advisement process. The research has identified areas for enhancement, especially in navigation and user feedback, leading to a more user-friendly platform. It emphasizes the significance of processes that prioritize user experience, offering a streamlined approach.
Working on this project has been a challenging yet rewarding experience. It represents a significant milestone for me, as I successfully designed a comprehensive web application and design system, with guidance from my thesis advisor. This project has also had a meaningful impact, receiving recognition from my professors, the dean, and the university registrar.
Throughout this journey, I've gained invaluable insights into the importance of UX research in problem-solving. While I made progress in various areas, I recognize the need to further address accessibility in my work. This experience has reinforced my commitment to continuous improvement in my future projects.
