Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2023)
Implementation of an Accessibility Online System at the International Business and Technology Academy
Anne Paulson and Jane Gravill
All figures in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.
As Julie Jones drove into work early on Monday morning, April 4, 2017, she reflected upon the difficult decision that lay ahead in preparation for her team meeting later that day. She had been Manager of Accommodation Services (AS) for only a few short months and had taken on the role in the middle of a systems implementation project for the department. She did not know much about implementing a new software, but she knew that her decision of whether to proceed with the long-awaited AS system go live date of May 9, 2017, would have a major impact on her staff and the students at International Business and Technology Academy (IBTA) who relied upon their services.
Accommodation Services (AS)
AS was an academic support unit within IBTA, a higher education institution that prided itself on research and innovation. After a reorganization in 2016, AS was made a subunit of the Student Experience Office (SEO), which was led by Samantha Saber, Director of Student Experience. IBTA’s strategic plan included creating a vibrant student experience and promoting a sound value system. There was a strong governance model which included a board of governors to take responsibility of academy affairs and a senate for establishing policy.
The AS department provided academic support for approximately 2500 students at the academy. All students with a disability were eligible to register with AS. Depending on the student’s circumstances they may then receive accommodations and support from AS. Academic accommodations include classroom and milestone accommodations, such as testing accommodations or the use of assistive technology in the classroom. AS offered a wide range of services, such as providing transportation and ensuring accessible seating was available in class; creating alternative formats of textbooks and other course materials; and providing accommodations for exams such as a private space, a computer, or extra time. AS strove to support equitable access to post-secondary education. Although a part of the institution, AS received funding directly from the Ministry of Education based on the volume of students registered. AS had a staff of 15 regular full-time employees reporting to the manager and as well as part-time staff to provide additional services such as creating alternative textbook formats and proctoring exams at the start and end of each term (see Exhibit 1 – Organization Chart).
Manager of Accommodation Services, Julie Jones
In January 2017 Jones joined the International Business and Technology Academy as Manager of Accommodation Services. Jones had many years of professional experience and a robust education earning a doctorate and multiple master’s degrees, including a master’s degree in critical disabilities. Having temporarily experienced complete vision loss, Jones was inspired to work toward supporting people with disabilities and creating an equal playing field for everyone.
Information Management Processes at AS
AS relied on Microsoft Access and Excel software programs, and triplicate paper-based forms to manage student information and facilitate their processes. The MS Access database contained a record of each student along with basic demographics and disability information. Theoretically, the MS Access database also indicated whether a student was still actively registered with AS and was a repository for case notes. However, in practice, there was a great deal of inconsistency with respect to how staff used and updated the records, making it difficult to draw any meaningful data. This also resulted in challenges with reporting to the ministry regarding the number of active students because the staff thought the data from the system could not be trusted.
The MS Excel spreadsheet had a number of complex macros and included information regarding what academic accommodations each student was eligible for, the courses they were enrolled in each term, their exam schedule and exam accommodations, and free form notes. This was considered the primary and most accurate source of information regarding services for students from AS, because in theory, all students receiving service each term were recorded in the spreadsheet. By the time Jones joined the team, the MS Excel file was so large that it often crashed, and some staff were unable to open the file at all, which made them dependent on their own version of the file.
Triplicate paper-based forms were used to facilitate student requests for accommodations and reviews by advisors in AS. These triplicate paper-based forms were handed in to staff at AS who populated some information into the Excel spreadsheets. Only after this partial data entry into the MS Excel spreadsheets was complete would the information be reviewed by advisors. Then, assuming there were no complications, the requests would be approved. This process took multiple weeks, meaning that students who did not submit the forms well in advance of the start of term went without needed accommodations for the first few weeks of class. Once requests for accommodations were approved, the students were required to pick up the triplicate forms, one for each class, and take it to their professors for signing as well. Once this signature was obtained, the professor, student and AS were each to keep a sheet of the triplicate form. It was the student’s responsibility to ensure each party had the form. It was not uncommon for forms to either not be returned to AS or to be lost. If AS did not have the triplicate form on file, it resulted in students not receiving academic accommodations or students coming in for exam accommodations and AS not having the required resources such as a copy of the exam, a proctor, or the equipment set up to support the student.
Additionally, iIt was challenging for staff to get a full picture of a student’s history with AS, because information was in various places.t was challenging for staff to get a full picture of a student’s history with AS, because information was in various places (email, Access, Excel, paper forms). This made it difficult to make recommendations for changes to accommodations based on the student’s history and progress. Occasionally, a court mandate could require AS to submit all information relating to a student’s file and it was virtually impossible to be confident that they could fully comply with such a request, given the challenges in finding all related documents and communications.
New Information Systems Project Becomes a Priority
Prior to the reorganization in 2016 there were many discussions regarding the implementation of a new system to help resolve the many challenges faced by the department; however, these discussions did not lead to any meaningful results. Once Saber was made aware of the challenges in AS, she made it a priority for the department to implement a new solution. She reassigned Lisa Carlson, Student Relations and Operations Coordinator in the SEO to work out of AS to help on the information systems project as well as to support other changes in the department, such as relocating the office. A project team was formed with a project manager (PM), John Grable, assigned from the Information Systems and Technology (IST) department (See Exhibit 2 – AS Project Team).
Academy policy stated that procurements of $10,000 to $99,999 required three written quotes to be obtained. This policy was meant to ensure a competitive process was followed. The project team obtained the required three quotes and planned to purchase the solution SystemWorks based primarily on the knowledge that most Canadian higher education institutions used this product. The team also had a demonstration of SystemWorks and thought the product seemed like a good fit for their needs. In April 2017 a business case was created for the project that highlighted SystemWorks as the preferred solution.
Change in Direction
Before the team finalized this decision, Saber attended a conference where she received feedback from peers regarding SystemWorks that suggested that the software package was not a great solution. As a result, she advised the project team to take a step back and look more closely at the available options before making a decision. The project team went to visit a customer site to see how they utilize the SystemWorks solution and came to realize that it may not be the solution they were hoping for. They then reached out to other institutions to find out what their disability service departments were using, which is how they learned about Elevate Information Management (EIM). The project team viewed a demonstration of EIM’s software package.
The team also considered using a custom-developed solution built in-house by a member of the AS team, the Intake and Office Administrator, who had a background as a computer engineer. The Intake and Office Administrator felt so strongly about building an effective system for AS that she began building a custom solution on her own to provide a demo to the project team. Saber, having had some experience implementing systems on campus, was weary of a custom solution and steered the team away from that option. A meeting was held where the project team discussed their options, and they decided that EIM provided the best product for their needs. This decision to select EIM as the AS solution was made in October of 2016, approximately nine months into the process. The project team decided to aim for a launch of the new system on May 9, 2017, as the spring term generally had fewer students and therefore was expected to be more manageable.
Elevate Information Management (EIM)
The EIM software was developed by employees in a disability services department at a college in the United Sates. They built the solution because of frustration with the lack of solutions for management of academic accommodations needed for students with disabilities in higher education. In 2008, they began selling the program to other institutions. By the time AS decided to purchase the program, EIM had been a niche company for eight years and still maintained a small team (under 10 people) with specific experience providing service to students with disabilities.
The EIM system had potential to facilitate operations for the entire AS team. EIM was designed to be used for student application collection and review, appointment scheduling, case management, academic accommodations, and correspondence with faculty regarding accommodations. The system also included a student portal that allowed students to request accommodations, schedule exams, review messages, download class notes, and submit required documentation to support their requests. A nightly data feed was run to populate student demographic and course information from the institution’s student information system into EIM. This enabled students to request accommodations for each course that they were enrolled in, and for staff to send communications to the instructors regarding academic accommodations.
Procurement and Implementation
A lawyer in the IBTA Procurement Office managed the contract negotiation process, which took a few months to complete and required signoff by Procurement, AS, and IST. The contract was finalized in February 2017 and the cloud-hosted system was made available to the project team shortly after. The vendor also provided some written documentation regarding configuration options for the software. Concurrently, the PM initiated a privacy security impact assessment (PSIA) by submitting the PSIA form to the Director of Security and the Privacy Officer. Technical information was collected from the vendor in order to assess security; however, the full review could not be completed until IBTA actually obtained access to the EIM software to perform security testing within the system. Some stipulations were added to the software contract indicating that if the software could not meet IBTA’s security standards, then the issues would be corrected by the vendor, or IBTA would receive a refund. Also during this time, the PM initiated the work required for integration, including the student data feed, central authentication, and emailing.
The vendor was willing to provide the technical specifications for the data feed before the contract was finalized, which enabled the PM to begin working on this in November 2016.
System Implementation Delays
There were multiple delays due to confusion and lack of clarity regarding procedures. Eventually, it was determined that the data integration could not be completed until the stewards of the data had consented to its use and the PSIA process was complete. However, the required development work could begin, on the assumption that the required approvals would fall into place. The PSIA review and confirmation from data stewards were completed in March 2017. Sample files with test data for the integration were made available in April 2017.
Project Staffing
There was significant staff turnover within the project team during the contract negotiation and PSIA review. All staff in the AS department reported directly to Saber until Jones was appointed to oversee AS in January 2017. The AS Intake and Office Administrator played a central role as a subject matter expert during the system selection process but left the university in late 2016. In March 2017, Michelle Leeds, a business systems analyst from IST who was new to the academy also joined the team as an observer to prepare for a more active role in the future. After the launch, it was expected that Leeds would take over management of releasing any additional modules, as well as ongoing support for the new system. There was also a plan for a system administrator to be hired within the AS team, but the process had been significantly delayed, as the job description took a long time to process with HR and have a salary grade assigned. See Exhibit 2 – AS Project Team for a summary of the project team members and roles in March 2017.
One Month Prior to Launch
In a project meeting one month before launch, Grable announced that the PSIA review was successfully completed and the team was cleared to launch the new system. He advised Jones and Carlson that AS would be responsible for conducting testing, as they were the subject matter experts, and Carlson was tasked with the responsibility. Grable indicated that this testing period should be fairly short, since it was not a custom developed software and significant testing would therefore not be required. However, Carlson left the meeting still unsure of what to do, as she had no experience with software testing.
The Discovery
Leeds approached Grable after the meeting to offer assistance with creating a systems implementation test plan, including help with conducting the tests. Both Grable and Carlson were thrilled to accept Leeds’s offer. Leeds and Carlson met the next day with the intention of creating a test plan. Leeds had come from a case management software company similar to what AS would be implementing and had experience implementing case management solutions. During the meeting, Leeds indicated it would be reasonable to develop the test plans based upon what Carlson understood to be the functionality of the software, and the intended future processes of the AS team. It quickly became apparent to Leeds that a number of activities that she assumed were completed had not yet even been started, such as configuration of the software and training on its features. Leeds knew that these activities were critical components of the system implementation and had to be completed for the AS launch to be successful.
As Carlson and Leeds uncovered the various incomplete system implementation activities, the objective of their meeting transitioned from creating test plans to working together to come up with a list of items to complete before launch (See Exhibit 3 – List of Tasks Yet to Be Completed as of April 1, 2017 ). Carlson and Leeds were in agreement that they should recommend postponing the launch, as they were seriously concerned that there was not sufficient time and resources to complete these items within the less than one-month time period before the go-live date. They distributed the list of outstanding items to the team, expressing their concerns, and requested a team meeting to discuss this shocking discovery.
Jones’ Quandary
During the team meeting, it became evident that Grable and the team members were not in agreement regarding the best approach going forward for the AS implementation. As Jones reflected on the series of events that occurred during the team meeting, she was still not sure about the best strategy going forward for the AS implementation.
When Leeds described the amount of work to be completed for the items on the list during the meeting, Grable countered each item claiming that Leeds was being overly thorough and creating extra, unnecessary work. Grable kept stating that the AS was not a big system implementation and explained that since it was not custom software, the team should not really be worried about testing. He added that as a small unit, the team was already familiar with most of the processes involved and would be able to figure it out pretty quickly after launch if problems were encountered. Grable explained that launches never go perfectly and that he had seen this cycle many times before, where teams kept postponing the launch of a new system and never end up going live.
Carlson and Leeds had presented a long list of system implementation items that needed to be completed within just a few weeks before the May 9, 2017 go-live date, and Jones knew her team was already overworked. As she looked over the list, she thought the number of activities to complete seemed overwhelming and impossible to accomplish in just a few weeks. Therefore, Leeds and Carlson’s argument to delay the go-live date made sense. However, Grable was the project manager for the new system and he strongly disagreed with their recommendation. Grable indicated that the most difficult work for the implementation was the software integration with other systems used by the academy, most of which was already completed.
Jones knew that Leeds had a lot of experience with this type of system implementation, and she realized that Leeds believed the missed activities were critical to a successful implementation. Carlson was also a trusted member of the team and Jones knew that Carlson and Leeds would be the team members responsible for completing the unfinished components of the project, as they had a good idea of the tasks involved. Jones was confident that Carlson would have put a lot of thought into the recommendation to delay the go-live date, and she did not want the launch of the new system to be a failure or cause negative media attention.
AS Implementation Challenges – So Dire So Fast
Jones wondered how the situation became so dire so fast. No one on the project team had expressed concern regarding the AS implementation at the previous week’s project meeting. Now all of a sudden, the team was faced with the decision to cancel the go-live date. The AS project had started years ago, and Saber was expecting a successful launch in less than a month. Would postponing the go-live date seem like a failure? Grable seemed confident that the team could launch the project successfully on time. Furthermore, Grable was the PM and had been working on the project and in the institution for a long time. Therefore, Jones thought that it may not be wise to overrule his decision.
However, Jones was aware that Leeds had a lot of information systems experience and that she would be the team member who continued to work for the long term on the AS team after the system launch. Therefore, Leeds’s opinion was important to consider, and it was critical to be on good terms with her going forward. Whatever happened after launch, Leeds and the new system administrator would be the team members responsible for fixing any issues and supporting the system.
Going Forward
Decisions grounded in human resources management and working with teams and processes needed to support people with disabilities were second nature to Jones. However, managing an information systems implementation was an entirely different playing field that had been added to her growing portfolio with the AS project. Jones took a couple of days to reflect upon all the information, opinions, and explanations that she received during the last team meeting to consider the pros and cons of delaying the AS go-live date. As she parked her car and walked into her office, she knew what she had to do.
Exhibits
Exhibit 1 – Organization Chart
Exhibit 2 – AS Project Team
| Staff person | Project role | Project responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
| Julie Jones | Sponsor/business owner | Receives project updates, can use political capital, if necessary, ultimate decision maker. |
| John Grable | Project manager | All project management activities, ultimately striving to balance resources, timeline, and quality.
Role to end once system is launched with any remaining project management shifting to Michelle Leeds. |
| Lisa Carlson | Business analyst & subject matter expert | Liaison between staff and project team, system administrator responsibilities until the role is filled.
Role to end once system administrator is hired as this was meant to be a short-term secondment. |
| Michelle Leeds | Business systems analyst | Observer collecting information that will aid in future support and managing rollout of future modules of the software. |
Exhibit 3 – List of Tasks Yet to Be Completed as of April 1, 2017
| Task | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Software administration training | Not started | Training on how to configure and administer the software. This is necessary to understand the capabilities of the solution and the various options for how to use them. This training would be delivered by the vendor to the system administrator(s). |
| Software configuration | Not started | Determining various settings within the system that will control the way information flows through and is stored in the system, as well as labelling fields and providing text for email templates. |
| Process review and future state process design | Not started | Reviewing the current state processes to ensure a good enough understanding of key inputs and outputs required to deliver service. Creating a future state design that improves efficiency and quality utilizing the system while still handling the key inputs/outputs. |
| Testing | Not started | User acceptance testing based on the configuration to ensure it is aligned with the planned future state and there are no bugs. |
| Integration of student data | In progress | Nightly data feed from the student information system to AOS that provides student demographic and class data. |
| Data migration | Not started | Transfer of historic student records into AOS. |
| Communication strategy
|
Not started | Push communications such as emails and presentations to staff, students, and faculty. Content development and redesign of the AS website. |
| Staff training | Not started | End user training for staff in the AS department. |
| Student training | Not started | Drop-in training sessions for students. |
| User manual and job aids | Not started | Written instructional materials to support staff and students using the system. |
| Hiring of system administrator | In progress | System administrator to configure software and provide training to staff and students. |
Image Descriptions
Exhibit 1
An organizational chart outlining the Accommodation Services department read from top to bottom. It begins with Student Experience Office Director, Faber at the top. Below the director is the Accommodation Services Manager, Jones. Below Accommodation Services Manager are two branches: at left, 15 full-time employees and at right, 45 part-time employees.
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How to cite this case: Paulson, A. & Gravill, J. (2023). Implementation of an accessibility online system at the International Business and Technology Academy. Open Access Teaching Case Journal, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.58067/VMNM-3Y35
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