Evaluation of ABC Community College using the Maturity Benchmarks Survey By Justin Keel

Demographics
ABC Community College (the college) is a rural community college consisting of three campuses in two separate states. The college has an average full time enrollment (FTE) of 3,500 students and 318 faculty(120 Full Time). The college has approximately 40 career and 30 transfer programs and has added numerous online courses over the last few years.

Administrative
Policy Behavioral - Integrated: Certain technologies like Microsoft products, a LMS, and a administrative system are embraced and required for many operations at the college. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Some polices exist including AUP for student, faculty, and staff, but many technology areas lack direct policy. Little policy exists for LMS and technologies other than Internet access. Planning Behavioral - Islands: Planning takes place on individual projects; however, there is little institution wide comprehensive technology planning. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: Planning is only for individual projects with little connection to other plans or projects. Budget Behavioral - Islands: There is a relatively small technology budget for the intuition that mostly serves the IT department to replace computers in labs and to maintain existing networks and the department of instructional technology with assists faculty with distance learning and technology integration. Both departments function with limited staff and little money for new or emergent technologies. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: The two budgets mentioned above are use for technology unless a specific project or grant is funding additional technology purchases. Administrative Information Behavioral - Integrated: A new administrative program has been implemented across the institution. This system reduces or eliminates paper processes and is required for all administrative offices and faculty. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: As stated above with the new integrated system, all faculty and staff are required to use the administrative software for administrative tasks (including payroll).

Curricular

Electronic Information Behavioral - Integrated: Students and staff are dependant on the Internet, the administrative system, and most use these resources regularly. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Students have access to technology in a variety of computer labs. The library and an additional computer lab have extended hours for students to access technology. We also provide wireless Internet for all three campuses for students to use there own equipment to access information. Assessment Behavioral - Islands: Some of the faculty use our LMSs testing features to evaluate student learning. Other than documents created by a word processing program, there is little technology used for assessment. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: Our current LMS has a testing feature that provides faculty with some measures of student performance. Curricular Integration Behavioral - Islands: Technology used in the curriculum is largely dependant on the individual faculty member. While some faculty overwhelmingly support and use technology in the classroom, most use very little other than posting handouts and quizzes on the LMS system. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: Technology related resources are available for our communication arts program and our computer science. Our allied health programs have some technology, but the remaining programs share technology resources. Teacher Use Behavioral - Integrated: Faculty are required to post grades and check rosters through our new administrative system. The approved method of communication with students, staff, and faculty is through college email. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: All faculty have a networked computer in their office. All students, faculty, and staff have a college issued email address. Student Use Behavioral - Integrated: Students widely use the Internet for most subjects, but most courses do not require it. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Students have access to technology in a variety of computer labs. The library and an additional computer lab have extended hours for students to access technology. We also provide wireless Internet for all three campuses for students to use there own equipment to access information.

Support
Stakeholder Involvement Behavioral - Integrated: With the new integrated administrative software, the committee

(one person from each administrative department plus a vice president and the IT department) meet once a week to handle the integration of this software. This is the only project with this amount of stakeholder involvement. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: In all other projects (then mentioned above) some groups such as IT and instructional technology are included, but not representatives of all of the stakeholders. Administrative Support Behavioral - Integrated: There are constant conversations with administration regarding technology. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: The president and some of the vice presidents sit on various committees that discuss technology for the institution. Training Behavioral - Islands: Training provided on LMS and several classroom technologies provided at least twice per month. Low percentage attendance from faculty. Resource/Infrastructure - Islands: Training is provided by a staff of three. Most training deals with the button-ology of how the technology works. Little time is allowed to explore pedagogy. Technical/Infrastructure Support Behavioral - Islands: Some staff and faculty use formal support for issues. Most try to figure it out alone as they have needed to do in the past. Resource/Infrastructure - Intelligent: The college has a help desk staffed with technicians to assist in solving technology related questions or direct the questions to the appropriate expert. Questions can be submitted by intranet ticket, email, or phone.

Connectivity
Local Area Network (LAN) Behavioral - Integrated: Faculty and staff have access to network drives to access files on any computer they log into. They also have access to the colleges intranet and administrative services software. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Network is high speed and wireless throughout all three campuses.

District Area Network (WAN) Behavioral - Integrated: See LAN Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: See LAN Internet Access Behavioral -Integrated: Faculty, Staff, and students use the Internet frequently for many

uses including research. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Although all areas of the college are connected to the Internet through hard wire and wireless, the college is hitting our ceiling on bandwidth during peak hours. With out enhancing bandwidth to the college, we will be unable to add additional technologies that utilize the Internet (including streaming video services). Communication Systems Behavioral - Intelligent: Email is an integral part of school communications. Email is the recommend communication method to get information to students, faculty, and staff when not in the classroom. Resource/Infrastructure - Intelligent: All students, faculty, and staff are issued a college email when they enroll or are hired.

Innovation
New Technologies Behavioral - Islands: When new technologies are purchased, most faculty members are accepting of the technology, but little effort is placed on training or experimentation. Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: When new technologies are adopted, the IT department and the department of instructional technologies quickly experiment and learn about the technology to provide some limited training for faculty before implementation. Comprehensive Technologies Behavioral - Integrated: Technology includes projectors and document cameras in most classrooms, 14 computer labs, 7 SMART classrooms (which include SMART boards, SMART podiums, projectors, speakers, and document cameras), 3 distance learning rooms (1 at each campus that connect all campuses for shared classes and meetings), and multiple simulation labs in the allied health programs (the simulation labs are supported by individual programs and not the college). Resource/Infrastructure - Integrated: Although the technology is available it is not used to its full potential. For example, the SMART classrooms are scheduled to have classes at least 6 hours a day. Most faculty use the SMART rooms simply to project PowerPoints or show streaming videos. Some faculty members use overhead projectors in the SMART rooms to avoid using the new technology.

Conclusion
Overall I would rank ABC Community College between Island and Integrated. The key to planning and moving forward in the area of technology will be adding support staff to enhance training opportunities for staff to utilize technology.