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EDUCATION IMPACT ON THE IMPROVEMENT MOBILE APPLICATION AND SYSTEMS OF THE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

November 21, 2016

November 21, 2016

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The purpose of this report is to review the current process and to include appropriate tools that will benefit the College of Business in the University of Sacramento. The institute will notice the improvements in advising as well as employment and student success from the new project implemented by Hornet Consulting Inc. The College of Business advising center asked for the following report to show the beneficial effects that the project can provide.

Our conclusion is that the benefits of the College of Business advising department improvement’s will be determined by the personal interviews with College of Business employees, and survey results of 39 students that are in business courses, along with academic journals, and budget costs estimates.

Analysis of the data shows potential improvement in these areas:

· Revenue: The college of business totaled an amount of $12,761,130.00 in tuition and other fees in the school year of 2014. According to the data, the projected amount by year 2020, is estimated to be $15,084,600.00.

· Employment: The college of business advising center currently employs 6 advisors while the IRT department has 8 web developers. The projected amount of advisors and web developers will increase with the rise of the amount of students enrolling in the college of business.

· Indirect benefits: By creating effective methods of communication, students will receive efficient guidance from peer business advisors.

According to the following research, technological modifications to the current application will improve the advising center of the College of Business by enabling students to have easier access to advisors, in turn improving education. The College of Business and the IRT center will generate job opportunities, while the number of students enrolled in the business program increases.

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The study and research was conducted to analyze the effect certain additions and improvements would make on the usage of the Sacramento State mobile application - namely features such as Video-Based Advising, detailed advising scheduling, easier appointment creation, and general information. In addition to this, the CBA requested analysis of its own system and possible solutions to problems as required. The focal points of this study were:

· What additions could be made to improve the College of Business?

· What are the current and maintenance costs of the mobile application and how will they change based on certain feature additions?

· How will the usage changes and feature additions benefit Sacramento State and the CBA?

The study was commissioned to find possible ways to improve upon existing resources and technologies within the College of Business and to an extent, Sacramento State university itself. This project was commissioned from the College of Business to find additional ways to increase ease of access with the Sacramento State Mobile Application. Currently, the Sacramento State Application (abbreviated as the SSA) has a number of useful features, such as the ability to access a campus map, enroll in courses, search for contact information for faculty, and the ability to read box scores from campus sports. The SSA integrates these functions fairly seamlessly and yet usage rates amongst the average student are quite low. In a survey done amongst three different business courses, only 7 of 39 students questioned used the application frequently.

The College of Business currently has roughly 4,000 students enrolled in the program - not counting those with expressed interest or those simply trying to gain acceptance into the

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program. The CBA Advising office, however, consists of only 6 advisors at this time - 3 student advisors and 3 faculty advisors. This disparity between number of students and the few number of advisors is a major flaw and as such a fix must be found. The CBA also only offers Drop-In Advising on Wednesdays currently, in 10 minute blocks - this also is another problematic factor that likely leads to students not being able to find the help they desire and should also be rectified immediately. The CBA recognized these issues and commissioned Hornet Consulting to find solutions to these problems as timely as possible

The results of this research shows the beneficial attributes that the new project will have for the College of Business advising center as well as the Information Resources and Technology department. The data presented will cover the following sections: (a) revenues, (b) employment, and (c) Indirect benefits.

University receives most of its revenue from student enrollment and the amount is shown in figure 1 below. The current and past revenues are shown along with a rough estimate of future projections of enrollment for the year 2020 after implementation of the mobile app.

Figure 1

Current and Past Revenues and Projections to 2020

Sales and Use Revenue

As shown in Figure 1, the largest amount of student fees is the tuition with each undergraduate student paying $2,736 and graduates paying $3,369 to enroll in the College of Business. According to the information gathered from the College of Business Administration we can see that number of graduate and undergraduate students in the business program has fallen by a large enough margin that, even after raising the price of tuition, has caused the revenue earned by enrollment to fall from $13,399,776 to $12,761,130.

Other Revenues

The revenue that is generated by student fees is not only for class tuition. The “other fees” listed on Figure 1 are fees paid by every student, in order to use the facilities . All students are expected to pay for the use of the Student Union, Library, Wellness Center, etc. All of these miscellaneous fees will total an amount of $588 per student and will go towards the maintenance of these facilities.

Projections

The revenue earned by student tuition for the business program is estimated to increase in 2020 by around $2.3 million even without factoring in future change in the tuition costs for students. So long as the number of students enrolling in the College of Business increases from the apps implementation, the business program will generate an increase in revenue.

An important area that will have to be acknowledged regarding the new project implementations, is employment. The amount of business students in the institution will continue to increase, therefore more students will seek advice from advisors and the mobile application will need web technicians for maintenance.

The College of Business of Sacramento and the Information Resource & Technology department have a total of 20 employees. The advising center has 6 advisors in total, 3 being faculty advisors and the other 3 being peer advisors. These advisors are both Sacramento State graduates and students who are currently enrolled in the business program. The other 2 employees work as front desk receptionist and work minimum hours since they are full time students. Meanwhile, the IRT department has 12 employees, 8 being web developers who manage the technological concerns and the other 4 are front desk employees.

The research above shows the current two employers in charge of managing the business advising project. With an increase of students in the business program, new job opportunities will arise for advisors as well as for web developers.

Wages

The employees of the two departments earned a total of $812,000 in wages this year and the highest paid salary belongs to the web developers, who individually average an amount of $62,500. The second highest paid employees are the advisors in the business advising center totaling an average of $40,000 per year, whereas the peer advisors are paid hourly. Since the rest of the employees are full time students they are considered part time workers earning a minimum wage of $10 per hour.

Indirect benefits

Figure 2

Usage of the mobile application

Current survey data from 3 business courses

This instant messaging function will allow students to have access to the advisors in the College of Business and will persuade students to use the mobile application, as seen in Figure 2. According to the instant messaging researcher, Fogel (2011), an experiment of 123 college students, average age being about 21 years old, was conducted to determine that the use of instant messaging was the most preferred method of communication.

Our idea will implement webcam access in the university’s mobile application to benefit students by allowing them to get in contact with an advisor in an effective, timely manner. The researchers of technology, Salas (2008) and Alexander (2008), claimed that in order to increase the level of meaningful interaction in and out of classrooms, institutions must enhance technology. Overall, technology will be an effective method of communication that Sacramento State implements, which will provide benefits to incoming students as well as students with an expressed interest in business.

Implementing a system to alert business students about business events and guest speakers, will create an efficient and convenient means of expanding these student’s knowledge. We have conducted surveys on 39 business students that shows 55.3% of students have never attended an event, and that most of these students heard of the events through posters, while only 8 % acknowledged them through the Sacramento State application.(Appendix C)

One way the university benefits, is that business speakers provide networking opportunities for possible internships and work-study programmers (Metrejean, Pittman, Zarzesk, 2016). With the application, students will be better informed of events that will lead to new experiences.

The mobile school application will be equipped with all the relevant graduation announcements and information on the MBA business program. Research has shown that those who undertake the MBA program through graduate schools are in a better position to take up higher ranks within the organization. These graduates usually take up higher position in business organizations due to their advanced knowledge in their fields of specialization. They are usually given higher responsibilities, which in turn increases their remuneration terms (Hardy & Everett, 2013). 

The employment of the business advising center and the Information Resource & Technology department currently employs 20 people and that amount is projected to increase to 30 employees by the year 2020. As of now the wages of the employees is totaled at $812,000 and will rise to $1.2 million due to employment increasing in both divisions.

The development of the implemented system will generate more job opportunities in the two divisions. Student enrollment into the college of business for undergraduates and graduates is expected to increase by 2020 as well. The college of business will then be generating more revenue due to this increase in enrollment. The revenue is estimated to increase by at least 2 million dollars. The other fees included in tuition would also increase and therefore bettering student services and their resource centers.

Analysis of revenues, employment data, business college student surveys, and directors from the university lead to the following conclusions and recommendations about the impact and the improvements that the mobile application will have on the College of Business of Sacramento State:

1. By 2020, the number of graduate students is expected to increase to 200 students, which in 2014 the total was 158, but with improvements on advising, 42 more students than the current amount are predicted to enroll in graduate school.

2. A survey conducted on 39 students showed that roughly less than 50 % have not attended a business event on campus. By 2020, it is estimated that more than 75% of business students will have attended a business event.

3. The Information Resource & Technology department and the business advising center employs 20 workers and the number of employees is projected to rise to 30 employees by year 2020.

4. After the project is implemented, the total number of students is projected to increase. The total amount of tuition fees in 2020 is expected to rise to $2.3 million.

5. In the year 2020, positions are going to be earning higher-pay to manage the mobile application and the College of Business advising center.

Based off of both the findings and the actual projections we have made, we strongly advise the Sacramento State IRT Division to adopt the changes that we have recommended and make the addition of the Instant Messaging (IM), Webcam Advising, and quality-of-life improvements such as the Frequently Asked Questions Section and the MBA information hub. These changes would benefit the University and the College of Business greatly in such a way that it would improve not only student retention rates, but also increase general information accessibility and bring more students into the fold of the Business Program.

With the App being improved in such a manner, the usage would increase, and this would open up even more potential revenue options such as the ability to use it as an ad space of desiring corporations as more usage would mean more exposure. This exposure may become very lucrative in the future - it need only be created and its potential realized.

CBA. (n.d.). Sacramento State. Retrieved November 3, 2016, from http://www.csus.edu/cba/factsandfigures.html

CSUS. (n.d.). CSU SACRAMENTO - 10 Year Fee History. Retrieved November 2, 2016, from http://www.calstate.edu/budget/student-fees/fee-rates/sacramento-history.shtml

Fogel, J. (2011). INSTANT MESSAGING COMMUNICATION: SELF- DISCLOSURE, INTIMACY, AND DISINHIBITION. Journal Of Communications Research, 2(1), 13-19. (time management)

In Hardy, G. M., & In Everett, D. L. (2013). Shaping the future of business education: Relevance, rigor and life preparation.

Metrejean, C., Pittman, J., & Zarzeski, M. T. (December 01, 2002). Guest speakers: reflections on the role of accountants in the classroom. Accounting Education, 11, 4, 347-364.

Salas, G., & Alexander, J. S. (2008). Technology for Institutional Enrollment, Communication, and Student Success. New Directions For Student Services, (124), 103-116.

Appendix A

Students Data

The data gathered contains the number of students who were enrolled in the College of Business in the past years. By showing this data, projections of revenue and student enrollment can be estimated to determine improvements. Overall, this helps illustrate the losses of prior years and possible gains for the College of Business.

Appendix B

The data above shows the result of the surveys conducted on the business students. The survey was directed to 3 different business courses and 39 students answered the questions. The overall data provides an insight of how many students would be affected to the new implementations.

Appendix C

We created a survey, on the website Survey Monkey and distributed them by email in blackboard to three Sacramento State Business courses: Management 102, HROB 101, and DS 101. Out of the three classes the overall sample size was 40 respondents, that helped us gather information for our project.

1.How often do you use the Sacramento State application?

Never 35.00% 14

Sometimes 47.50% 19

Frequently 17.50% 7

Total 40

2.What method do you prefer for meeting with an advisor?

Drop-in 51.28% 20

Book appointment online 48.72% 19

Total 39

3.How many Sacramento State business events have you attended? 

0 53.85% 21

1-2 38.46% 15

2-3+ 7.69 % 3

Total 39

4.How do you hear about business events?

Social Media 7.69% 3

application 7.69% 3

announcement (ex. Posters, billboards, flyers, etc.) 51.28% 20

Other 33.33% 13

Total 39

5.Do you prepare a mock class schedule before class registration sign ups every semester?

Yes 82.05% 32

No 17.95% 7

Total 39

6.Would the idea of implementing Instant message and webcam improve advising in the college of business of Sacramento?

Yes 71.79% 28

No 5.13% 2

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