CENTSS - Online Student Services Innovations

Best Practice Profile – Broward Community College

Service area	Student Population Segments
Service Component(s)	The BCC Honors Institute Website provides Honors community with information and services most pertinent to them in a one-stop environment.
Institution	Broward Community College
Link to Service or Demo	http://www.broward.edu/honors/
Description
Summary Description	A unique and practical website designed for current Honors students, prospective Honors students and Honors faculty. The goals are three-fold: (1) to provide immediate and accurate information concerning Honors benefits, eligibility criteria, Honors events and breaking news; (2) to showcase talented Honors students and Honors faculty in terms of publishing their work online, to publicize the academic/competitive accomplishments of Honors students, and to publicize and archive awards presented at the Annual Honors institute Awards Celebration; (3) to provide online forms, surveys, links to resources regarding transfer and third party scholarships, as well as links to other Honors colleges and to Phi Theta Kappa, the international academic honorary society.
Major Characteristics	Date first available to students August 2004
	Number & type of students served annually The website is a subsection of the BCC Website, which has over two million hits annually. The Honors website has 1500 hits monthly (on average). The website serves Honors students at BCC (approx. 1200), Honors faculty, and prospective students at BCC (65,000 enrolled) as well as in-state and out-of-state visitors to the site.
	Growth in (student/staff/faculty) users annually Although there is evidence that traffic to the Honors Institute website has been increasing substantially over the past two years as new features were added and the information and usefulness of the website grew, reliable statistics are not available at this time. Several factors contribute to the situation, including severe disruption of internet service in South Florida due to major hurricanes this past fall and a lack of sufficient detail in BCC's current web traffic reporting system.
	Hours of availability for students 24/7
	Communication options between students & service (1) Bi-annual surveys (2) Campus and college-wide contact via direct email links and phone information.
	Types of searches The BCC website uses "Google" as a search service and the Honors website is integrated into the BCC website.
	User satisfaction feedback options Bi-annual online survey, direct email comment options, and online feedback systems in the Honors Student Showcase and the Honors Faculty Showcase
	Accessibility Navigation is primarily accomplished through CSS rather than roll-over images; pages are designed to be small for slow internet connections, and also have large font sizes and high contrast for text navigation elements. Further work is planned to improve the site’s compliance with ADA guidelines.
	Integration The Honors Showcases and the Student Hall of Fame act not only as recognition for Honors students and Honors Faculty but, by extension, also serve to showcase the overall achievement of BCC students in the community, at the state-level, and nationally; which enhances the image of BCC and promotes the quality of student achievement at the college.
	Support & help services In addition to comprehensive information assisting Honors students/faculty in all areas of the Honors program, the website provides access to three level of personal support for Honors students and faculty: -Online: Email addresses are provided for most Honors staff members and administration for the benefit of both students and faculty -Campus: Contact information is provided for the campus Honors Coordinators who run the Honors program on their respective campuses. In addition, Honors Advisors are listed by campus for students who need Honors related academic assistance. -Collegewide: Contact information is also listed for the collegewide Honors Institute for issues that cannot be resolved at the campus level, and for website issues.
Special Features	Aside from the general website features listed above, the Honors Institute website has four very unique features: (1) The Honors Student Showcase: designed to display the creative talents of BCC Honors students; including such categories as art, poetry, literature, photography and outstanding projects completed as part of the requirements for an Honors class. Honors students are featured with a photo, a brief bio, and a sample of their work. There are submission forms online, feedback options, and copyright protection statements. (2) The Honors Student Hall of Fame: designed to showcase the academic accomplishments of Honors students in a permanent archive. Features such categories as Brain Bowl Team and Math Team state/national competition winners/awards, national scholarship winners/nominees, transfer scholarship winners for local universities, Honors Scholarships for International Studies winners, and Campus Departmental and Deans' Award winners. This feature also includes event photos and PowerPoints from the Annual Awards Celebration, so that visitors may learn more about the award winners. (3) The Honors Faculty Showcase: designed to display the scholarly and artistic accomplishments of the BCC Honors faculty, such as published articles, book excerpts, artwork, poetry and prose, photography, etc. A photo and bio is included of the Honors faculty member as well as a list of other publications and external links to other websites which feature their work. (4) Honors Faculty Directory: designed to introduce students to the BCC Honors faculty; includes a photo and relevant information about their experience, classes they teach, teaching philosophy, personal interests, contact information and a link to the faculty website (when available).
Purpose
Goals of Service	(1) To provide relevant and useful information regarding the BCC Honors Institute in order to motivate students to join the Honors Institute. (2) To guide students through the Honors Institute so they can successfully complete their Honors courses; obtain the Honors Institute Certificate; enter academic competitions; take advantage of the many benefits, service and leadership opportunities available through membership in International Phi Theta Kappa; gain the skills and experience necessary to obtain 3^rd party/competitive scholarships and/or university transfer scholarships; and succeed in their continued studies. (3) To provide Honors Faculty, Advisors and the Honors Coordinators with information and resources to guide Honors students successfully through the Honors Institute. (4) To recognize and showcase the outstanding academic achievements and creative accomplishments of Honors students. (5) To publicize the outstanding quality of the BCC Honors Institute, its students, and its faculty at the community, state, and national levels.
Results
Performance Measures	(1) Results of Bi-annual survey which indicates 96.7% satisfaction with the website. (2) Email feedback which has been 95% complimentary and appreciative of the features and services the website provides.
Outcomes	Student Student satisfaction with the website increased dramatically after the initial website design was revised and improved upon by the addition of special features and more targeted information. Direct feedback from students states that they are thrilled with the recognition they have received in the Showcase and Hall of Fame sections and complimentary emails have been received from happy students, parents and relatives of the students featured in the showcases.
	Staff Positive feedback received from staff members (advisors, registrars' workers, counselors, Honors faculty, and the Honors Coordinators on each campus) who appreciate the access to information so they can guide potential and current Honors students. Also, Honors faculty members are very complimentary about the graphic presentation of the website as well as the showcase features.
	Institution Positive feedback received from high-level administrators and IT staff members who are complimentary about the attractiveness, usefulness and the graphic presentation of the website as well as the showcase features.
Development & Implementation
Executive Sponsor	Dr. Ken Ross, Vice President for Academic Affairs
Planned & Developed By	Internal Dr. Irmgard Bocchino, Associate VP of the Honors Institute; Ben Walker, Honors Institute graduate and Campus Technology Specialist who serves as webmaster; David Schulman, Instructional Technology staff member.
Planned & Developed By	External n/a
Technology Solution	Commercial software Dreamweaver
	External service providers n/a
	Program language & platform for in house solution Windows XP Pro, JSP/HTML
	Other Open source software was used including: the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) for raster graphics, Inscape for vector graphics, Filezilla and WINSCP3 for FTP access
Resources	Writing style guide n/a
	Design/programming standards guide n/a
	Formal project plan A project plan was developed by Dr. Irmgard Bocchino, the AVP of the Honors Institute, and Mr. Ben Walker, Honors Institute graduate and Campus Technology Specialist/Webmaster.
	Funding Source(s) Development costs: - Internal support from Mr. David Schulman, Instructional Technology paid for by the IT budget. - Part-time funding for Honors Webmaster, Mr. Ben Walker, provided by the Honors Institute Budget.
Costs	Development In-house budgets paid for initial design and implementation of website via utilization of BCC personnel as part of their job-related duties.
Costs	Annual Maintenance Part-time budget for the Honors Institute Webmaster, who has many other duties as well, is $10,000 per year.
Marketing	Internal Articles on the BCC website homepage, faculty development workshops, presentations to the faculty senate and at college-wide faculty meetings and advisors meetings, student orientations and presentations to student organizations, business cards, flyers, brochures, and articles in the student newspaper.
Marketing	External Presentations to local high schools and mailings to local high school students and B.R.A.C.E. Advisors in the local high schools, newspaper articles, distribution of Honors Institute brochures.
Training	Staff/Faculty n/a
Training	Students n/a
Lessons Learned	Planning/Creating Service After numerous unsuccessful attempts to create a usable, attractive Honors Institute website, I turned to the AVP for Instructional Technology to help me design and launch the website. One IT staff member was assigned to this project for six hours a week over the course of two semesters to assist me in developing and implementing the website. After launching the initial website, which was functional and attractive but not at the level needed to meet initial goals for the website, there was a problem in deciding how to maintain and upgrade the website. The solution was to hire a student as a part-time webmaster when other budgetary options were not available. This has proven to be a very successful formula which I would highly recommend to others needing to start a website or to redesign/update an existing website.
Lessons Learned	Implementing/Providing Service Over time and with feedback received from students utilizing the website, information was gathered concerning questions students asked most frequently and specific topics they requested. This information was used to enhance the structure and content of numerous pages ("Transfer Scholarship" and the "Graduation" pages in particular). We have also learned the importance of not nesting information in numerous levels of navigation, but instead to organize all of the information by sections, each having a limited number of pages which may be accessed within one or two links of the site homepage.
Future Plans for Improvements/Expansion	Current goals include: (1) To convert the main Honors Institute website to the WAM content management system to better integrate the Honors website into the main BCC website which is under-going conversion. This will also reduce the effort required to update and maintain the informational portions of the Honors website. (2) To market and expand the Honors Showcases to include more students and faculty as well as improve the visual presentation. (3) To implement fully online forms,(i.e., where students may submit information and completed applications via the website). At the present time documents may be filled-in online but must be downloaded and printed for submission. (4) To develop new Honors faculty sections which display best practices in Honors classes (including sample syllabi, sample projects, etc.) and to add/create additional resources for faculty who teach Honors classes. (5) To enhance the transfer scholarship information regarding planning for and successfully obtaining scholarships and to improve the section on third party scholarships. (6) To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Honors Institute this year by publishing student success stories as a new feature on the website. (7) To develop a targeted survey seeking student feedback on the major sections of the Honors website, instead of the website as a whole.
For More Information
License Availability	n/a
Contact	Dr. Irmgard Bocchino, Associate Vice President/Honors Institute, ibocchin@broward.edu Ph: 954-201-7645 or 7646
Date of Profile	August 21, 2006