How Oklahoma State University Streamlined Student-Initiated Placement Requests

Thank you for joining this webinar today. We're really excited to talk about... Talk to you and to talk about this topic. So let's just go over a few housekeeping items. So this is going to be a thirty minute session. Questions are welcome. Please use the Zoom q and a section for questions, and the recording will be shared after the session as well. So today, we're going to be talking about how Oklahoma State University streamlined student initiated placement requests. So my name is Shannon Staton. I am vice president of campus partnerships here at Core by People Grove. I'll be, you know, moderating the webinar, but very happy to have Brandy Close, Close join us today. Brandy, would you mind introducing yourself, please? Yeah. Of course. I am at Oklahoma State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I am the director of curricular affairs, instructional design, and academic technology. So I get the awesome pleasure of exploring and bringing in new technologies to to the school. So love Core, and excited to speak about our our experience with it so far. Thanks, Brandy. Yeah. Before we dive into, you know, talking specifically about this topic, can you give us a little bit of background on scale here? Like, how many students you're placing every year just so that everyone gets a a quick idea. Yeah. Sure. So our our cohort size before taking in a a group of of co... Contract students every every three months is... It's about a 106 plus our contract students. So we're looking around, at any given time, a 145 to a 150 students that we're placing for this particular process that we're gonna talk about, placing up to seven external experiences throughout the year. So whatever that comes out to be, a 150 ish, you know, times seven. That's how many placements we're tracking, you know, throughout the year. So Absolutely. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So can you talk to us a little bit about, you know, what... How you are managing this before and where you where you started with this process and what you were looking for. Yeah. Talking to you earlier and talking about when I when I started years ago, I think we were trying to manage part of this process actually on paper. I know that's a it's a four letter word these days. So we... Some of it was tracked in one system. I think some of it was tracked through, like, maybe an Excel spreadsheet, a Google Sheet, actually, if I remember correctly. And then, you know, there was still a paper component to it. And so we were kind of mishmashing some processes together. I mean, we we managed and we were getting it done, but the left hand didn't always know what the right hand was doing at the... You know, and and and knowing where exactly something was in the process was kind of a struggle. So that's that's where we were. And so hence, our options and finding core. So The goal really was to help to create a more centralized student initiated process that you could still manage yourself. So those requests, like, the student initiated requests were coming in from many different channels, whether it be email, paper. There was limited visibility into where the request stood at any given moment. These different places, placement types really needed different reviewers and were handled more informally. And then your time and your staff's time was really spent tracking down details rather than moving those placements forward. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. It was it was laborious. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what, you know, what you needed from a better process. Yeah. So we were we were desperate for a better better process. I mean, I felt like we were managing it. We were doing okay. But you all know whenever accreditation reporting come... Time comes for, you know, interim reports and self studies and things like that, that trying to parse that data out is is difficult when you've got it in multiple systems and being able... And and knowing where students are, and it's our responsibility obviously to know where students are at any given time and who they're with and and and how long they're there. And so we just had this... We we just had this this need to find a product that was going to do these things, that was going to give our students a clear understanding of what their responsibilities were, a starting point, understanding their their part in the process, being able to, have the correct workflow steps, that we could track and follow easily and efficiently, based on where a student was going. And with with VetMed, we've got species to think about. So we have... That that plays into the placement type. Have an office of curriculum educational support that I'm the director of. And so it's our responsibility to know where these... This... Where we are in the process of each one of our students' submissions. So we needed a product that, could handle that well. We need release forms, you know, signed and completed by our doctors of veterinary medicine, our DBMs, before we could finalize their placements. And so we needed to make sure there was a process, that could be tracked and followed that. We needed something that we could, you know, feel very confident that it was correct at all times because of us being able to efficiently manage it. And so we wanted to make sure that the student knew exactly what they were supposed to do in the process. The site and the DBMs knew what they were supposed to do in in the process and that the administrators of the system also knew that. And we wouldn't... Of course, we need to be user friendly. So we did have a product previously that was very click heavy, and it was it was frustrating, especially for people who aren't in it every day to remember, okay. Now where do I go? What do I do? And and so we just wanted something that the students knew where their starting point was, what they what they needed to do, and what the staff or the... And the DBMs need to do on their end as well. And and we wanted it to be efficient. So so, we created this process with the help of of Core, working with us a lot on how we had, you know... Coming from what we were doing and being able to turn that into an efficient process within the product. So as of right now, and maybe keep improving upon it, which is so great because we... As we, you know, implemented this and I take you through the process, please know that we are still improving on this process as we learn more about the system or things change on our end and things like that. So that's another nice thing is that having a system that can be that adaptable has been useful as well. So, students, they have... They initiate their application, their internal, application for their, what we call, externships, in core. And, that captures all the information we need from the students. And that almost ends their responsibility at that point. Pretty much everything else is kinda set in motion from that. And so as they submit the application, that request comes in and we move through the approval process. We... There's a couple things we have to obviously verify and... Before that initial approval. And that initial approval, once that's given, it's put into a sub status of approved but not finalized so the students know that, yes, everything has been sent out to the DVM because upon that approval, there's an automatic workflow that was created in the system, which is very nice. And it sends that information out to the DVM where they receive information about the program, their responsibilities, the students' responsibilities, and the release form. And our release form actually exists in a third party platform called mock forms. So we were able just to provide that link in in the message that goes out. And the DBM receives that email from Core. They complete... They they click on the link, complete the form. And when that gets submitted, we get notified that that has been submitted. And now we can go in and we can finalize it, and that sub status changes to confirm. And that now the student schedule is completely finalized with where they're going, when... How long they're there, and who the supervising, DBM is. So it's a it's a very efficient workflow. And all those steps that I just mentioned, the... You can set up that workflow in the system so that when I click update submission after clicking my approval of that application, it's automatically sending. There's not another step for me to go. Now I need to send it to the to the DVM. It's an... It... The workflow that we set up, it's automatic once I get that update submission. So that makes it very quick and not click heavy, which is what we were trying to get away from. So it's the same process every time for the student, no matter where they're going, whether they're going to a zoo or they're going internationally or they're going to a clinic down the road, the same process, regardless of the placement. Excellent. I love that. The same intake, you know, the same form for every student, but it's different, you know, paths behind it depending on depending on the placement. Absolutely. So I did want to expand on that a little bit because for your program specifically, you you SiteProspector for... And renamed it actually to Yeah. We did. Externship application. But a lot of our other programs that use core as well use this process. So whether it is graduate nursing, counseling, teacher education, social work, pharmacy, we see this across many of our different program types where they're needing a student initiated process. So the student is, you know, going out and finding a site or they're looking at your site research center, they need to submit a submit a site for approval or whether it's an elective rotation, a specialty rotation, or even if it's an out of area placement. If I'm at a school in Massachusetts, but I live in Florida, and I'm going to go ahead and find my own site in my location. So we see this across all of our different program types where students are needing to go ahead and either find a site or just find a site in the system, but they need to submit that as a request to the team. So we can create that specific workflow that works for you. We talked about, Brandy's workflow where she has this five step process. Yours might have six steps, seven steps. Maybe it only has two steps. But those are configurable workflows within the system, and it all starts with kind of that one intake for the student, and then we can create the process based on what your needs are. Two examples where we see this a lot is a a nurse working at a hospital. They're going back for an NP degree, and they already know where they're going to be placed. They're going to be placed at their their place of work. So they submit their place of work, who they will be working with through the system. So very similar to what Brandy just explained, but for that type of program. We see this a lot as well in our teacher education programs too when they're doing more of an apprenticeship. They might be a TA in a school, and they just need to submit that that's where they're actually working and where they're placed. And now their university and their program knows and is able to approve that placement for them so that they can do all of the activities that they need to do on top of that. Since we're talking about, you know, different program types and things, something that has really, kind of stuck with Brandy is that the words within the system really mattered as much as the workflow. So could you share a little bit more about, like, the the difference that that's made, in in your role? Yeah. It's so... It's it's such... It seems like such a small thing, but it has made probably one of the... Like, one of the biggest differences in getting... Not just buy in, but making it user friendly for our users, both students and staff and and faculty. Our our previous... You know, the previous program we were, you know, making work, but it didn't have the ability to customize terminologies or or change, sort of the the master descriptions of certain things that... So being vet med, we were kind of... We're kind of on the outskirts anyway of of health professions terminology, not anymore, but at the time we were. And so there wasn't... That that was something that was such a refreshing thing to learn when we were onboarding with Core was our ability to customize the terms within our system to match how we spoke about them at our institution, how... What we called things. And so SiteProspector, the feature's amazing and we use it exhaustively, but it... That is not, the way that we talk about that that process here. And so I... The fact that we could turn it into the externship slash clerkship application process, that's the terminology that we use here. And it it seems so small and and and insignificant, but truly, I think it's an undervalued as a, you know, concept to look for when you're looking for a product, or using the product because, it has made a big difference. And so that goes back to sort of that that slide where one of our first things that we wanted to find was something that was very clear to the students on what their their process is and what their first step is. And by not having them try to figure out what site prospect or we don't... What is that? We don't know what that is. Externship is something they're very familiar with and they know exactly that's what they click on to begin their process. And so the... I like the the idea that making... Not just customizing a system to, like, how you do things at your institution, but also being able to customize the the terminology in it as well. So it just kinda enhances the experience, I think. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Brandy. Yeah. Of course. And that's not just Insight Prospector. That's for your user types and for, you know, other modules. It it kind of carries across the system being able to customize those those terms. Yeah. We did... Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, no.... Another example. We... I think, originally, in the system, it referred to, grad years. And so we... Since we take in contract students, we identify them by when they start, not when they finish. And so it was just easier for us overall. And we and we and we identify our students, you know, by their affiliation, which we we do by their class of, and it is the grad year, but there were other things that we didn't wanna have to create another, like, this doesn't make sense because it's not when they graduate. It's... So we just called it affiliation. So we were able to customize that terminology to better fit how we identify our students as well. So she's right. I mean, it's... There's other things that we've been able to change all kinds of things, titles and and names for different terms in there, not just the externship that has really helped make it better for us to use and not have to really think about what are we, like, what are we calling this? What are we doing with this? So Awesome. Love that. Yeah. Could you share some lessons that you've learned during this process? Yeah. I like number one because it is so true. Start with the process, not the platform. That was a big one for us because we were trying to take what we were doing and how we were doing things and make... And and originally, just making that fit into the core platform. And we quickly learned that... And and we... I mean, we quickly learned that the platform is continually being improved based on feedback from users, from other schools, and other programs. And so there's intentionality in why something is forcing you to do certain things the way that you do them in in core. And so we were like, okay. So this this makes more sense. Let's change our process. Let's not try to change the platform to fit our process. In this instance, it makes more sense to change our process. And not every instance is that way, but we we learned a lot about how we were doing things and how we could do them more efficiently by by recognizing the intentionality of why core has things set up the way it does most often. So that was lesson number one. Lesson number two, the student facing language. You get better buy in. You get better understanding of what their expectations are from from being able to customize that that language. Build around approval points. That was that was very, like, fun to to realize is that we can now... We now have the ability to identify... You know, we knew who needed to approve what and when those needed to be approval... Approved by. And we now have a system that is... We can build the workflow around those approval points and have the right people assigned to know when those approval points are being met and being able to track that. So that has... That was that was lesson number three. We we have this external tool called mock forms. I mean, we we we love it, but we're not married to it. And so maybe in the future, we can, you know, move that process into the system. But to get us going, it was really great knowing that we can still use this external tool just as seamlessly within our work flow within core, and everything still works really, really well. So that was something that we learned. And then finalization matters. So this is pretty cool. So there's... There... We we always had our process whether it was efficient or not, but there were times when we were like... Students were like, am I done? Have I done everything I need to do? Like, is it all done? Like, is... Or is there anything else? And we're like, I don't know. I gotta go find out. Let me go check. Let me look. And and the fact that you can... You have that final step whenever... In this particular instance, when we're talking about externship, application for us in this this feature, that whenever we finalize, that... Do that final step, which finalizes the the... It into the student's schedule, the students know that when they see the place that they're rotating and the DVM that they're rotating within their schedule, they know it's done. They know it's final. They don't have to do anything else. And we know it too on our end. Anybody on my team can go in and look at a student schedule. And if if it if it has the final place in it where the students... You know, if it has actual site and the DVM, they know that that process has been finished and finalized. And so that's really refreshing that anybody, any of our, you know, administrators in the system can go in and look at that and know that that is finalized. And so that was something really, fun to learn that that can be done. That that can be just... It's just that easy. It can just make it so so nice that you... Nobody has to be sitting and wondering, well, is there anything else that I need to do to make this finished? Like, am I ready to go? And so that's been really nice. Excellent. Yep. So... Yeah. So it's it's great to kind of wrap up that that is a clear, you know, student centered, approval aware, and then that schedule is created, and now they know the schedule is created. Yeah. Okay. So thank you so much, Brandy, for giving us Of course. That overview of your process and how you were able to improve it by using, you know, what you call the externship clerkship application or the site prospector module. But also wanted to share a little bit more information about core. So today, we spoke specifically about about student initiated placements and how do you optimize that workflow within Core. If that's not a process that you do, you know, don't worry. We have many different options within scheduling, whether, you know, you are going ahead and managing those placements yourself, you're asking for availability from sites, or whether you're using or wanting to use an algorithm to automatically schedule students. Those are all options within our system. We have a very robust scheduling and placements module. Once those students are placed, you know, then you need to track how are they performing. So the evaluations that need to be done, the assessments that need to be collected, any requirements or compliance documentation such as, you know, student, site, supervisor requirements can all be managed right within the system. Any agreements and contracts. So if you're needing to, you know, centralize your affiliation agreements, monitor contract status can all be managed within core, as well as the hours and case logs. So, you know, not just tracking your hours, but also being able to see, you know, are students actually clocking into the sites that they should be at, and then being able to, you know, track hours versus clinical skills time. You know, all of those are capabilities within the system and tracking those various assignments, whether they're case logs, field work experiences, really whatever you call those assignments, you know, we're able to track those within the system. And it is that database of record for your supervisors, your sites, your students, your faculty. And something new that we just launched, which is our any custom access role. So, really, any type of user that you need to have access to CORE can, and we can make that really specific to your program. And then, of course, once you're managing all of that information, you need to report on it for your accreditation. So we have a robust reporting suite so that you pull those reports for accreditation. And we also have some features within core for curricular mapping and competency assessment. So outside the experiential realm, but really being able to track those competencies for students overall, how are they meeting standards, competencies, identifying gaps, and really monitoring that progress? So now we are actually going to move to the q and a. We'd love to hear from you. Any questions that you have about about the the webinar today or any questions that you have about core, you know, we're happy to answer those questions in the q and a. And if you notice, a poll just popped up on your screen as well. If you could answer that poll, that would be very helpful too. Thank you so much for joining, and we'll hold here for any questions in the q and a. Alright. So seeing one question here about about student initiated placements for graduate nursing and if we're able to accommodate those. And the answer would be yes. So this process is very popular with our graduate nursing programs. So whether it's for compliance requirements that you need to approve or, you know, a new site that a student is going to, we can definitely accommodate that process for you. Getting another chat about another question here about, pricing for Core. So if that is something that you're interested in, we would just need to, connect after, and we can talk about your specific needs and kind of build a quote for you specific. Alright. Well, thank you everyone for joining. We really appreciate your time. Thank you so much to Brandy for joining. We really appreciate that. I enjoyed it. I'll... Please share my information with anybody that might reach out. I'm happy. I love collaborating. So I learn from others, and I love that. So I'm happy to to connect with anybody that's interesting. Thanks, Brandy, and thank you everyone for joining. Talk to you soon. Okay. Bye bye. Bye.