Hi, everyone, and welcome to today’s webinar, Georgia State’s Journey to More Efficient Field Education Management with CORE ELMS. Thank you all for joining us. And just before we begin, a quick reminder that you are in listen-only mode, so you can submit your questions via the Q&A tab, and we’ll address them toward the end of the session. Also, a replay of this session will be emailed to you within a week. Alright. So we’re just going to do some quick introductions. My name is Allie Gilday. I am a Senior Client Success Manager here at CORE, and I’m excited to be joined today by Dr. Dear. She is the Director of Practicum Education for the School of Social Work at Georgia State University. Dr. Dear, do you mind introducing yourself? Absolutely. Welcome, everyone. As Allie shared, I’m the Director of Practicum Education within the School of Social Work at Georgia State University. I’ve been in this role for seven years. I manage a small but mighty team of two practicum coordinators. So, Allie, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thanks for joining us. We appreciate your time. Alright, so we are going to get started. We’re going to walk through how Georgia State’s social work program has built a field education model that scales while staying student-centered. We’re going to focus mainly on field placements and coordination, evaluation workflows, and empowering students and faculty with greater visibility. We’ll highlight these processes, share lessons learned, and discuss how CORE ELMS supports their success. So let’s start with placements. The Georgia State team leverages our scheduling module, called Site Prospector, to manage the scheduling of BSW and MSW students. Each program has different rules that must be followed, which can be configured in ELMS. So, Dr. Dear, can you share more about how your team manages assigning students to field placements and how CORE ELMS has simplified that process? Absolutely. Before implementing CORE, our practicum education office relied on another competing software vendor for placement management. While the previous platform offered some basic tracking functionality, it created significant inefficiencies in our workflow. For example, the previous software made communication with our students and practicum instructors cumbersome, and it offered limited customization options, which often resulted in duplication of work through spreadsheets and a lot of emails. Basically, it hindered our ability to manage a large number of placements, as we place both BSW and MSW students. However, since transitioning to CORE, we have been able to streamline our processes significantly. Our placement tracking is now centralized, as CORE helps support placement matching for both BSW and MSW programs, allowing us to tailor to each program’s needs. For example, we are able to categorize agencies by population, location, practice area, as well as supervisor credentials. The matching process has also undergone some revisions since we joined CORE. Within CORE, students are able to submit an application. Once they are approved, they can submit placement preferences and upload any additional required documentation from the agency or internally. Honestly, this has been the best feature, as it provides real-time updates and visibility for both our practicum office and the students. I would say another great feature that my team really enjoys is CORE’s ability to enhance notification features, such as workflow automation tools. This has honestly been a game changer for us, as it has improved our ability to manage deadlines, monitor student progress, and maintain accurate records, all in one place. As we prepare for the fall semester, we are looking forward to practicum supervisors being able to submit evaluations, verify hours, and update compliance requirements within one system. Great, thank you. I know that the team also uses one of our favorite features across all program types called Pending Users, which makes it simple to retrieve account and agency information directly from the supervisor or agency. Pending Users is a custom form created in your ELMS with a link and a secure access code for the supervisor to access. This link and form can be sent out to the agency for easy capture of onboarding information. Some programs even include this link in their email signature, and I believe Dr. Dear and her team have done that, making it easier for supervisors and agencies to sign up in ELMS. Alright, next we’re going to talk about evaluations. Dr. Dear, how has your team leveraged CORE to manage required documentation and evaluations? Sure. As I mentioned, we will begin using the evaluation function in CORE this upcoming fall semester. However, we are especially looking forward to the system’s automated reminders and status tracking features, which will help ensure timely submission and reduce the need for follow-up with individual agency partners and supervisors. We are hopeful that CORE will allow practicum supervisors to complete both midterm and final evaluations directly in one place. Another great feature is that both students and practicum liaisons will have immediate access to evaluations for review and feedback. We are really looking forward to using the evaluation feature within CORE. Great, thank you. And how has CORE simplified your reporting, whether for CSWE accreditation, university reporting, or internal program management? Sure. CORE has simplified our reporting process by housing all placement information in one place. We can now quickly generate reports that previously required pulling from multiple spreadsheets and additional sources. Specifically for CSWE accreditation, we are approaching an accreditation year, and CORE will help us track and report on student placement hours, supervisor credentials, learning outcomes, and evaluation data required for accreditation reporting. For university reporting, we are often asked about student enrollment data, which we can now easily pull. Internally, CORE allows us to customize reports to track student placement progress, identify students needing follow-up, assess agency capacity, and send notifications to agencies that need to update compliance documentation. Awesome, thank you. And how has the system impacted your students’ experience? And how has it helped faculty manage and engage with the field education process? Sure. So far, CORE has had a positive impact on our students’ experience, especially when it comes to communication. Students now have a clear, centralized place where they can view available placements, submit preferences, upload documentation, track hours, and access evaluations. As a practicum director, having a system like CORE helps reduce student anxiety around the placement process and allows them to stay actively engaged in their practicum education journey. My favorite features are the automated reminders and real-time status updates. These not only help our practicum office, which manages over 300 students, but also help students stay on track with requirements and deadlines while creating accountability in the placement process. Yeah, that all sounds great. Thank you. Alright, next question: what advice would you give other social work programs looking to modernize their field education model with a system like CORE? I would say my best advice is to approach the transition as both a technical and cultural shift. While CORE offers many powerful features that we did not have with our previous platform, the real impact comes from aligning those tools with your program’s specific needs and goals. I recommend taking time to map out your current processes and gather feedback from students, practicum partners, and liaisons to understand what works well and what could be improved. One thing we learned is that CORE is highly customizable. Initially, we thought we had to fit into the system, but that’s not the case. Instead, think about your must-haves and tailor the system to fit your program structure, whether you are managing a BSW program, MSW program, or both. Start with your core needs, and then build from there. Also, no system is perfect from day one, but CORE allows you to make real-time updates and adjustments as your needs evolve, which is incredibly valuable for a practicum education office. All great advice. Thank you, Dr. Dear. So for a quick recap, we covered efficient placement coordination, targeted evaluation workflows, accurate accreditation reporting, and student and faculty empowerment. CORE ELMS is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is fully configurable to your program structure, terminology, and workflows. Whether you use terms like field instructor, agency supervisor, or practicum coordinator, the system can reflect your language and processes. For those not currently working with CORE, we invite you to learn more about how we can support your program. If you’re interested, please select one of the options in the pop-up that just appeared. Now we will move into the Q&A portion of the session. Thank you again to Dr. Dear for sharing Georgia State’s experience. Please feel free to drop your questions in the chat. We have a question: Is there a mobile app available for students in practicum sites? Yes, we do have a mobile app. It currently includes limited features such as case logging, hours tracking, messaging, and evaluations. It is designed primarily for student use in the field. At this time, the app is only available for students, not faculty, preceptors, supervisors, or admins. Next question: How well is CORE equipped for accessibility, especially for students with visual impairments? We are compliant with ADA accessibility standards. However, we do not currently offer built-in text-to-speech functionality. Next question: Do you charge a fee for students or sites? That depends on the contract structure. Dr. Dear, would you like to share how your program handles that? Sure. We pass the fee on to our students. We receive a single invoice, determine the number of students in the placement cycle, and incorporate that cost into tuition as a course fee. This allows students to use financial aid and avoids additional out-of-pocket costs. Thank you. Next question: Are you able to customize the learning plan so students can add their activities? Yes, students can enter their activities through different modules in the system. Dr. Dear, do you want to add anything? Yes. We built our existing learning plans directly into CORE. We customized them to capture the information we need for accreditation, including alignment with EPAS standards. This allows students and supervisors to complete and track learning agreements within the system. Learning agreements may look different across programs, but CORE allows flexibility while still capturing consistent data. Next question: How long do you retain records? Records are retained as long as you are using the system. You can deactivate users to remove access, but admins will still have access to historical data. Reports can also be exported if needed. Next question: How many schools of social work are you working with, and when did you start? We began working with social work programs about three years ago and have continued to grow in this space. Alright, I think that covers all of our questions. Thank you all again for joining us. You will receive a recording of today’s session soon, and thank you again to Dr. Dear for sharing your experience. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to continue the conversation about CORE ELMS. We are here to help. Thank you all.
