USC Early Alert Management System Presentation

On last August 4, 2011 Title V project presented USC Early Alert Management System (USC's version of EarlyIQ)  to some key faculty and student support services staff that are related to the pilot participant students. The main features were the list of at risk behavior alerts or trigger identified by USC and the communication structure for referrals or request for intervention known as action plans.  

At risk behavior alerts or triggers - are categories of student’s behavior that shows there is something wrong with the student’s ongoing behavior on Campus. 

Action plan- is model or structure for communication and collaboration of students at risk behaviors and early intervention support services between faculty, students and staff.

Actions plans identifies the Facilitator (type of service), Responders Name (person in charge to bring the service to the particular student or funnels the services on the dependency), Due Date (to track if the service was done) and the Action Required (mostly consist on reach and meet the student to start the intervention process).  The referals are communicated to staff, faculty and student by email. There are some required referrals (orange) and there are some others activates only if needed (blue) by trigger. Actions plans also include articles, self test and interactive modules that are sent to students by email in the meantime they are reach for some staff. This information is intended to empower the students in their particular situation and process. 

Both were design through a series of conversations with student support services staff like:  professional counselors, CPD Director, Student Affairs Associate Dean, Residence Director, First Aid Office Director, PAE staff, CSE staff, CFL, and Title V staff. Part of the process consisted on face to face interviews to know the services offered and how the students were usually access them.   Another step was get from Conect Edu models of action plans that other universities use in EarlyIQ. They provided a list of action plans by trigger or alerts. Then we share it with some key staff and discuss it on a meeting held on bottom of May 2011. The goal of that meeting was pre select some alerts that shown Sagrado's students reality and start the customization of the action plans according to USC existing resources.  After that several individual meetings were held with key staff in order to design the actions plans, and a close consultation with CPD Director and Student Affairs Associate Dean were established. Another important consultation were  made with CRI and Register Office Staff.  The participation of Title V Staff were very important to filter the structure and to select students support materials that form part of the action plans.

Also playing with a demo of EarlyIQ and meetings with Connect Edu Staff was part of it. By July Dr.Fraile, Dr. Fonseca and I identified the need of integrate EarlyIQ on the Institutional Protocol for the Attention of Academic, Personal, Psychological and Therapeutic Support Services on Campus.

Another feature presented to the audience was that EarlyIQ provides in just one student file all pertinent data about student development on campus, contact information and councelor assign to student, in order to facilitate the early intervention. This information have different access controls (Faculty, Issue Responder and Administrator), and only the administrator of the system can have access to the whole student file in EarlyIQ.  Each issue responder and faculty will have access only to a limited set of student information. Also we make a clarification that the System will be manage by a psychologist with a Master's Degree.

Issues concerning privacy and confidentiality of the student information in relation to the access of student file and referral notes were raised . Those preocupations were take into account to discuss controls of information and disclosure to assure student's confidentiality. Then those controls will be include in the USC EarlyIQ Users Guide and the Institutional Protocol for the Attention of Academic, Personal, Psychological and Therapeutic Support Services on Campus.

The, navigation, how to do and the interface of EarlyIQ operation was teached by Conect Edu Staff on the afternoon session of the training.