UNC Study Abroad Office: Faculty Led Program (FLP) System Analysis
This was a semester-long systems and user research project conducted as part of my Systems Analysis course at UNC in Fall 2020. The team of 5, including myself, conducted contextual inquiries and structured interviews to gather data which we then consolidated into artifact, flow, and sequence models and collected user stories in an affinity diagram. Using these we met with the stakeholders (in this case the UNC Study Abroad Office) and generated several ideas for potential implementation. The team then took these ideas, evaluated them, and made recommendations for systems changes and improvements. All research and collaborative work was conducted through tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams given restrictions caused by COVID-19.
Defining Terms and Background
Study Abroad Office (SAO)
The main study abroad office for the UNC-CH College of Arts and Sciences. They work with the collecting, storing, and tracking of study abroad programs. They also preform course creation, credit transfer, and marketing duties for programs.
Faculty Led Programs (FLPs)
This is a program option offered by the SAO that has UNC Faculty guiding and teaching groups of students UNC courses in various locations around the world.
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The Study Abroad Office offers many different options and usually sends about 1,700 students abroad each year
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FLPs account for 38% of total student participation in Study Abroad Programs
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In the 2018-2019 school year, SAO offered 66 Faculty Led Programs
Key roles in the Study Abroad Office, who were also the users of the systems we were evaluating, were:
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Program Directors
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Marketing
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Human Resources
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Accounting
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Course Creation
At the beginning of our project, the Study Abroad Office was tracking information for FLPs using a central Excel workbook meant to function as a sort of database. Members of the office also had their own workbooks from which they would copy and paste information into the central workbook. The different roles in the Study Abroad Office worked together, primarily through this workbook, to communicate relevant information and work together to create and manage FLPs.
User Research and Data Analysis
We conducted several contextual inquiries over Zoom where we observed users using the workbook and going about their everyday tasks in regard to their role for creating and managing FLPs. After this, we would conduct structured interviews where users would explain to us how what they do fit into the bigger picture and about parts the process that we could not see during our observation period. We also interviewed them regarding existing communication within the office and any explicit pain points regarding the workbook or communication in general.
During both user observation and interview the two interviewees present took detailed notes which were then reported back during one of our two weekly team meetings. After this we would consolidate our information into relevant models.
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Flow Models: Visualizing information flow between individuals and different parts of the overall information system
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Sequence Models: Visualizing the timeline for creation and management of FLPs
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Artifact Models: Analyzing artifacts like the primary excel workbook and FLP brochures
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Affinity Diagram: Using our notes to understand the system at progressively higher, abstracted levels (normally this would be done on a whiteboard or wall using sticky notes but we utilized a Miro board to simulate this experience)
Examples of some of the models we created are below:
Program Director Flow Model
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Sequence Model
Part of Affinity Diagram
Research Results
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The first problem was that the workbook was made up of hidden formulas to pull information from different sheets and cells to other sheets and cells and these formulas were easily broken. This was exacerbated by the fact that no one had the understanding of how the workbook functioned using these formulas to pull information to other sheets and cells other than the person who made it.
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SAO staff members were often on different wavelengths regarding what and when information needed to be in the workbook. There was also little communication between different departments in the office who were all necessary for the FLP creating and management process. Some members of the office, like one of the marketing staff, did not even know the workbook existed.
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Finally, because the workbook was created by one person and in a convoluted way that was necessary to get Excel to work like a database, a lot of burden was put on this person to maintain and recreate the workbook every year. This also limited how sustainable this solution was in the long-term.
Visioning/Ideation
After collecting all of our data into models, we got together with our stakeholders, who also happened to be our users, and walked through the models with them. After this, we worked together to generate some ideas on a Zoom whiteboard for consideration for potential solutions. The goals of this session was to come up with ideal things to have and not worry about implementation yet. Ultimately we came up with several ideas which the team took into our research on solutions and creation of recommendations. The whiteboard with the ideas is below:
Recommendations
After reviewing these ideas and looking into real-world solution options and their risks and benefits we presented our detailed recommendations. I have put the general recommendations below.
Implementing Workflow and Database Software
*This was a collaborative effort as part of a group project. I do not take sole credit for this work. Sections of this page are sourced from our group report and presentation.