Training transition: Moving SIS training to an online format
The Student Information System (SIS) is widely utilized across campus for a variety of roles. Previously, the Office of the Registrar (RO) hosted instructor-led trainings and maintained PDF documentation and resources for campus users on how to complete tasks in SIS. In June 2021 the RO began a project to evaluate SIS training needs across the organization and transition to self-paced online training modules.
Over a year and a half, the team of Jeff Armstrong, Katie Block, Ellen Clark, Kate Kurek, Katie Paar, and Angie Rieves collaborated with Kim Alling and Leah Meicher (on SIS security provisioning) as well as an instructional design consultant from CTLM to complete the initial phase of this transition. The office now offers six Canvas courses to guide campus partners through how to use SIS: Getting Started in SIS, Advisor Assign, Building the Schedule of Classes, Managing your Enrollment, Service Indicators, and Student Groups.
Once partners request access to SIS they are invited to take the appropriate Canvas course(s) based on the role(s) they seek that require training. Each course offers information on how to get started in SIS, detailed information about how to complete tasks associated with the specific role, and provides linked or embedded KB documentation that they can reference after completing the course. Participants’ knowledge is checked along the way with various low-stakes quizzes to ensure they are retaining key information and have completed the course successfully. Once their authorization forms are on file with DoIT and they complete the training (which for curricular representatives includes a hands-on practice lab in SIS Test following the Canvas course), training-dependent roles are provisioned, and then they are off!
As needed, supplemental trainings can be offered by RO subject-matter experts on request, and team members are always available via email, phone and Teams to answer questions from new and continuing SIS users. In addition to transitioning training from instructor-led to online, we also transitioned and revitalized the supporting documentation from a prior combination of PDFs and KnowledgeBase (KB) documents to solely KB documents. These documents provide participants with information they can reference once they have completed the training. In total 20 outdated KB documents were deleted, 44 KB documents were updated, and 44 new KB documents were created. The refreshed KB documents are embedded within the Canvas trainings, which makes it easy to maintain the course content as subject matter experts can update the KB documents that then get automatically updated within the Canvas courses.
This transition to online self-paced courses has been beneficial not only for the RO team but for campus partners as well. It allowed the RO to re-evaluate the content that we were providing to campus partners and develop new content that was essential, efficient, and still engaging. Rather than being limited to when the in-person trainings were offered, new users can now engage in the Canvas trainings when it fits their schedules. Through the combination of online courses and KB documentation, this project has provided resources that can be continuously referenced based on the task or role of an individual, even after training. These updates have proven beneficial to those taking the courses, as demonstrated by the following user feedback:
“I thought the [demonstration] videos were extremely helpful. The step by step makes sense but seeing someone navigate all of the steps through video really helped me understand where to find things.”
“Great training, thank you for your hard work!”
“I really appreciated this style of training rather than a live and scheduled training.”
There will be an ongoing need to maintain the courses and KB documents, but the completion of the project marks a major milestone. The training transition was a large effort that accomplished a great deal even as those involved managed their other responsibilities (including offering one-on-one and small group trainings for more than a year while the Canvas courses and updated KBs were created and refined). This team saw the change as an opportunity to develop something to better serve our partners and is deservedly proud of all that was accomplished!