Technical College System of Georgia

Quarter-to-Semester (Q2S)

Conversion Meeting Minutes

(Including Conference Call Participants)

January 8, 2010

Dr. Kathryn Hornsby, Assistant Commissioner of Technical Education

Dr. Hornsby welcomed all participants both at system office and those joining by conference call due to

inclement weather. She introduced Becky Farrow, Project Manager for the Q2S conversion, relaying

her background and experience, to the group. Dr Hornsby updated the participants on TCSG Board and

President’s approval to move forward with this initiative for the Q2S project. She then introduced

Andrew Dollar to relay the historical time line, reasoning for the project, project update, advantages to

semesters, and cost mitigating strategies. She indicated the need to move forward to be ready to

implement Q2S conversion by July 2011.

Andrew Dollar, Data, Planning and Research

Andrew presented the Quarter to Semester Proposal through a Power Point presentation which is

attached. The Power Point addresses the following question:

Question: Why are we doing this?

Answer: To provide as seamless education in Georgia.

This is the Commissioner’s selling point- we do not have seamless education in Georgia.

The public school (K-12) and college calendar should align. Courses should transfer: which

would help eliminate barriers.  Changing to semester will eliminate excuses for future education

initiatives.

TCSG looked at other systems that have moved from Q2S (enrollment figures). Did the conversion

affect enrollment? For the most part, students returned after the conversion.  Initially they enrolled in

fewer hours as they were uncertain how the new format might impact them. 

The enrollment and hour loss creates a situation where TCSG will lose potential revenue.

The loss could be captured by $5 increase to $40 to $45 to $50 in FY11 and FY12.  Under the

conversion factor of 1.5, tuition would be at $75 per hour under semesters, which is in line with

the USG college tuition. TCSG is also pursuing legislation to extend the carryover provision and

include tuition.  This essentially creates a glorified savings account to help offset future costs. 

The total cost may range from $50-90 million depending on the decline in enrollment and

credit hours.  TCSG has developed implementation strategies designed to fund the change

without asking the Governor or General Assembly for additional funding. 

Mr. Ron Jackson, Commissioner

Mr. Jackson updated the group on the positive reaction of State Board. The Governor indicated his

desire for the TCSG to move forward to implement a change from quarter to semester.

Mr. Jackson reinforced that it is the ‘Right thing to do for students”.

Q2S conversion will have a positive impact on dual enrollment and students can move on when ready.

Q2S lends support for articulation and transfer and is supported by the Governor, General Assembly,

State Board, and Board of Regents.

The semester system has only three registrations, compared to four registrations for the quarter system.

Questions have been raised as to when we should do this?

It provides a seamless transfer for High School students to enter college and opens the possibility of

transfer between the systems.

It is not the intent of the TCSG to take over the two year colleges.

Dr. Sanford Chandler, Interim Deputy Commissioner

Dr. Chandler indicated that there was a positive reasoning for the change.

He also communicates to the Presidents and Board in support of change.

Dr. Chandler shared the implementation timeline - 2010 for the curriculum conversion, with the

implementation of the conversion for Q2S to occur by July 2011.

Advising will occur by July 2010 utilizing the curriculum that will be in place starting April 2010

We need to take a look at Banner coding from forms for catalog information for Data base. What is the

exception (Faye). It is designed by College Code. Should it be universal?

Becky Farrow, Project Director

Review previous minutes and establish the following committee structure;

Implementation Steering Committee

Academic Affairs Committee

Student Affairs Committee

Administrative Committee

GVTC Committee

Marketing Committee

Establish a college contact for each college –Q2S College Committee

Establish the following: Presidential Involvement, any additional committees or involvement

Create overall calendar/ timeline

Establish Meeting schedule

Reporting schedule

Establish a Listserv

College Reporting Schedule/Meeting Schedule

Check List/ Task List

Create Communication vehicle system-wide

Create an evaluation system of the Q2S project

Dr. Teresa Resch , Academic Affairs

Curriculum Revision- Curriculum ready by July 1, 2010

Budget Issues- build budget for Q2S.

Timeline from July 2010 (Curriculum) to Implementation July 2011

Advising using curriculum (2010)

Standardized curriculum- 100 programs

Banner 50 programs

900 courses entered into new curriculum data base

Teresa- Workload of faculty

Full time//Part time

Traditional delivery vs. non-traditional on line/ hybrid, short term, 15 week

Mini - mester

College by college choices depending on workload

Policy on workload

600 programs: 400 standardized- (65% completed)

200 institutionally developed

How many at each college? What to do?

Curriculum Data Base used in Advisement Process

Develop Timeline for course/ program completion

Nichole Kennedy, Student Affairs

Student Affairs Committee: Financial Aid, Registrar (July 1, 2010)

Advisement Package

Advisement Plan- Nancy King

Advisement of all Students begins July 1, 2010- July 1, 2011

Existing Students- fall 2009

Existing students- winter 2010

New students- Spring 2010

New students- Summer 2010

Financial Aid- begins July ?

Advising Handbook Task Force- Is it complete?

Report to DOE about transition from Q2S

Jan 19 Workshop- Bob Evans (10-1) (consultant)

Topics to be addressed- Financial Aid

Report to DOE

Communication to:

Ga. College 411

Title IV Financial Aid

FAFSA Form

David Bernackie

Application- Registration Process

Use of CAP P(18 colleges) in Advisement Process??

Catalog rebuilt to go to CAPP-What is the time frame?

Make CAPP automated- CAPP must be compliant

Parallel programs- 2 catalogs- both CAPP

Computers and splitters

Pilot- Students entering Fall 2010- convert to semesters

Robert Keown , GVTC

GVTC Committee: GVTC Coordinators Advisory board (CAB) will serve as the subcommittee for

GVTC. The CAB consists of the following Technical College and GVTC Staff representatives:

Technical College Representatives:

Augusta Tech – Tammy O’Brien (tobrein@augustatech.edu)

Altamaha Tech – Chad Swanson (cswanson@altamahatech.edu)

Columbus Tech – Ray Mercer (rmercer@columbustech.edu)

Gwinnett Tech – Judy Tedford (jtedford@gwinnetttech.edu)

Georgia Northwestern Tech – Sharon Wilson (swilson@gntc.edu)

Savannah Tech – Sherry Heidkamp (sheidkamp@savannahtech.edu)

Valdosta Tech – Sally Dorminey (sdorminey@valdostatech.edu)

GVTC Staff Representatives:

Kathy May (kmay@tcsg.edu)

Pam Warren (pwarren@tcsg.edu)

Robert Keown (rkeown@tcsg.edu)

Points of concern:

GVTC will be impacted by almost every aspect of the Q2S project

Implementation Timeline will be high priority

Possible increase cost for LMS and Enterprise Level Applications used by GVTC

More fulltime manpower may be required

Learning Management System:

Change from 7.3 to 7.4 Angel

Quarter to Semester transfer- Develop process and determine how best to fit into existing

LMS, Angel

Analyze projected downtime for implementation

Look at schema, Data elements, level change from Eng 101 to Eng.1101

Plan and build out platforms- may need multiple platforms (Cost increase may be required)

Analyze overlap of semester/ mini-mester and try to validate impact of system

Curriculum/Content development:

Collaboration in Content Development

o Will need to encourage cross sharing and construction of discipline Master Courses.

o May require presidential approval to share resources and existing course content

across the state.

Master Content Development needed for semester

o Possibly use IFCC for on-line course environment development and design.

Banner:

To ensure the LMS can be updated by the July 2011 implementation Banner will have to be

ready for population by Spring quarter registration March/April 2011

Other areas to monitor:

Will dual enrollment be impacted?

Where do we go from here:

I think we need to bring together the work that has already been completed and establish a flow

chart/timeline of where we are headed and how each sub-committee will participate. I am sure each

of our areas will start overlapping and we will know what everyone has accomplished or not

accomplished and need to also understand how our parts impact others.

Mike Sorrells, Human Resources

Possible Sub-committee- Academic Affairs, Budget, Becky

Policy Impact- Full time/ Part time Faculty

Teaching- Instructional Hours

How to Manage - 10, 11 month faculty positions

Traditional Instructional Delivery

Pre K- 10 month- stay the same

Adult Education- change to semester calendar or continue on a traditional academic quarter –

either approach will work

Conduct staffing analysis

What is impact on Adjunct Faculty?

Mini-mester- staffing varies by college

Use of same adjuncts, same number now as in future or will additional adjuncts be needed

upon movement to semesters?

What will our instructional staffing pattern look like in July 2011?

Impact on occupational areas

Full time- redefined- number of hours taught/minimum number of required contact hours?

Teresa Resch workload situations- 25/30 contract hours

College by college - choice on workload?

Look of Instructional workload

Traditional vs. non-traditional online/ short term, delivery mode hybrid

Policy on workload

Mr. Mark Ayers- Banner- Information Technology

Timeline- now till July 2011 MeMeeting on Impact of Q2S

Data Center Changes

Establish plan to implement

Coding- catalogs do not have same coding information

Faye- key in data for catalog and for Data base which is designed by college codeLori- Review Hope for changes affecting Banner Faye- Establish process from State for training- Develop policy and timeline

Mark- what can Banner do to implement Q2S?

Use Nicole, Becky, others

Develop questions to help establish process Determine outliers of required data elements for course catalog

Curriculum Data Base stored on HRMR

Manual or Automated - (no) Automotion

Banner extraction is too complex- cannot deal with Exceptions Ma y need to be manual

Bring colleges online with advisement

Use of CAPP in advisement

Rewrite support reports and scripts for each college

Mark summarized what was written above.

Concerns with the project time-lines:

With the semester curriculum not scheduled to be completed until July 1, there is not

enough time with the current project schedule to load the catalog into BANNER for all

colleges, have the college staff manually update local data differences, and setup CAPP for

the semester catalog before fall quarter registration opens. Therefore the students will not

be able to be advised on the new curriculum until either Winter quarter registration or

possibly Spring quarter registration. This also has a domino effect on the points listed

below

Time needs to be allocated in the project for the technical testing of the curriculum load

Time needs to be allocated in the project for the Enterprise Services (ES) group to test this

process and document the required changes in BANNER this conversion will require

The project plan needs a contingency in case of technical loading of curriculum cannot be 100%.

The colleges will have to dedicate staff to work with ES to both tweak the catalog auto load and

to perform the manual clean up that will be required.

Bottom line, either move the curriculum approval dead line back to March or move the

advisement goal to Winter or Spring quarter.

Policy Decisions:

Use of two levels – ALREADY decided by Nichole

Need to define the names used for parts of term need before my department can begin true

testing– Nicole is supposed to get us this information

Need to know the fee structure before my department can begin true testing– Nicole is supposed

to get us this information

Basically we can't move forward with functional development of this project until the above are

decided.

Misc:

Need support from the top-down to be sure this project is a priority with the registrars and other

staff that will be working on the catalog load and clean up

Need to be sure resources are allocated for CAPP setup of the quarter-system catalog and the

semester-system catalog

Colleges will need time to research, analyze and re-write where needed, local scripts and reports.

Andy Parsons, Data Planning and Research

Suzzette:  The Curriculum Database is being developed to replace the existing HTML pages that

contain the agency’s standardized curriculum.  The database is being developed in phases.  The

first phase, the Courses module, is already live and Academic Affairs has entered many courses

that will be used to make-up the programs.  The second module is the Programs module.  Within

the Programs module you enter all data elements related to the program, to include the

curriculum.  The Programs module his undergoing user acceptance testing currently and should

go LIVE (available to the customer) on January 29th, 2010.  Specifications for the next phase of

development are currently being developed.

Andy:  To the extent possible, DPR is prepared to assist with developing an automated way in

which to import Curriculum Database data elements into the Banner system.  We do not yet

know if this is possible, but steps are being taken to determine the feasibility.  Data, Planning,

and Research (DPR) will identify the data elements available within the Curriculum Database

that may be available for import or data entry into the Banner system.  DPR is willing to work

with Mark Ayers to determine shared data elements and identify any outliers that need to be

addressed before a decision can be made on importing data vs. manual data entry – or a

combination of the two methods.

Steve:  Once we better understand how the Semester system will be structured and tracked

within Banner, we will need to make changes to our MIS and Data Warehouse data collection

and reporting systems. 

Andy:  DPR will meet internally to develop the list of items from within DPR that need to be

addressed in accordance with the Q2S initiative.  Once the items are identified, a plan of action

will be developed and shared with the Q2S committees.

Suzette:  At this time, we do not anticipate any changes to the GALIS or PASSPORT systems,

but we will continue assessing those systems and all other supported systems (i.e. HOPE

applications, COC Banner tool, etc.) to be sure.

Sandra:  Once all Q2S timelines are confirmed, we will notify a few of our state, regional, and

national partners, such as IPEDS and SREB.  We’ll also be reviewing all state and federal

reporting requirements to make sure that no additional changes are needed.

Ken Kincaid, Budget

Subcommittee 2 of the Q2S Task Force had developed a 5-year estimate of the costs of conversion

covering the period FY10-FY14.

Using this cost estimate to build a budget for Q2S would require further input from the sub- committee.

The structure of the budget will depend largely on the fund sources available for the project, and this

may not be known until after the current session of the General Assembly.

Fortunately, Perkins funds have been available in FY10 for curriculum revisions and building the

curriculum database.

Randy Dean confirmed that although Perkins funds can be used for curriculum expenses, they cannot be

used for marketing expenditures or for financial aid.

Another issue in formulating the budget will be determining which of the expected expenses will be paid

by the colleges and which will be covered by the system office.

Marketing will begin in FY10. Mike Light will head the procurement effort to develop a master contract

for the statewide campaign.

Dr. Josephine Reed-Taylor, Adult Education

There is no impact on the offering of Adult Education when implementing Q2S. There will be a need

to coordinate the calendar..

We will work with Andy- Research; Suzette- Phase I- Data Base

Courses and programs nearly complete for testing- Phase II- Revision

There will be no change with Adult Education.

Victor Bullington, Accounting (Administrative Services) - Ken Kincaid responded

Ken Kincaid, Budget

Besides the task of converting the calendar and curriculum, colleges need to prepare for the financial

impact of the conversion.

Care must be taken in the advisement of students to minimize the number who are adversely impacted

and to alleviate student concerns about the change. Even with the best possible advisement efforts, we

still expect a significant reduction in credit hours after conversion, and a significant drop in revenue.

Although the revenue loss may be mitigated by increases in tuition in FY11and FY12, plus a proposed

statutory change to include tuition in the rollover of funds to future years, the reduction in credit hours

will cut formula funding in FY14.

Changing the calendar will also have another impact on college finances: because the summer semester

will straddle the June 30 fiscal year end date, colleges will have to prorate the revenue from that

semester across two fiscal years.

In addition to revenue loss, colleges will also have expenses. Even if there is a master contract for the

marketing campaign, colleges will have some expenses in tailoring the local campaign to their own

specifications.

Bill Gray, Instruction Technology

Banner is the big question?

Develop questions of need. The questions are as follows:

Ask President’s what is used on their campus for a degree audit. (CAPP or Degree Work, or other

Can CAPP training be put into place?

Where are we with the curriculum in regard to the transition from quarter to semester?

When is the curriculum ready for Andy’s Data Base?

Sandra Kinney, Planning, Research

No impact on IPEDS reporting. Schools must indicate when filling out the IPEDS Institutional

Characteristics survey that they are on a semester system.

Southern Region Education Board (SREB) surveys must also indicate that we are now on semester

system for proper FTE calculation. Notification would occur during the annual Data Exchange meeting

or at the beginning of the survey period in February.

College Board Survey, Petersons Survey, Wintergreen/Orchard Survey are updated by the Office of

Planning Research and Policy. Several of these surveys update public data sites on TCSG colleges.

Lori Burnette, Business Analyst- Data, Planning, and Research

Review TCSG HOPE reporting and tracking scripts for changes due to semester conversion.

Where do we go from here:

I will work closely with the Banner Enterprise and Student Affairs departments to ensure that any

Banner changes or new standardizations are incorporated into the HOPE reporting and tracking scripts.

As the process progresses I will help to identify and develop any new scripts or programs that will assist

colleges with the conversion concerning all areas of financial aid processing.

Mr. Norm Cherry, Accreditation

The quarter to semester conversion does not require a substantive change.

This conversion requires that institutions going through the COC application/initial accreditation process

must update their applications or compliance documentation at the time the system converts from

quarters to semesters.

COC accredited institutions must note the conversion of program data information from quarter to

semester when submitting their Annual Reports for the year when the conversion takes place. The data

given to them for inclusion into the Annual Report will come from the Data Center. Therefore the

change will originate there.

Marjorie Kuezi-Nke, Institutional Effectiveness

Review TCSG policies for correct language usage- Q2S conversion (use of semester). Revise

Inform college to perform institutional policy review and revision.