West Texas Nursing Education Portal Project: Developing a Regional Centralized Application System

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WEST TEXAS NURSING EDUCATION PORTAL PROJECT: DEVELOPING A REGIONAL CENTRALIZED APPLICATION SYSTEM PATRICIA ALLEN, EDD, RN, CNE, ANEF,* LYNDA BILLINGS, PHD, MFA,† SHARON CANNON, EDD, RN, ANEF,‡ JENNIFER MAJORS, BS,§ SUSAN SPORTSMAN, PHD, RN,‖ PAULINE A. BALLESTEROS, MSN, RNC,¶ KIM BEZINQUE, MSN, RN-BC,# CATHY BOLTON, MSN, BSN, RN,** MARLA COTTENOIR, MSN, RN,†† CARMEN EDWARDS, MSN, RN,‡‡ JUSTIN LOUDER, MA,§§ CYNTHIA O'NEAL, PHD, RN,‖‖ JACKOLYN MORGAN, MSN, RN,¶¶ HELEN REYES, EDD, RN,## AND LINDA ROSS, DNP, RN*** Because of the nursing shortage and a demand for maximum enrollment, a group of five baccalaureate and seven associate degree nursing programs in West Texas first met in 2007 to form the West Texas Nursing Education Consortium (WTNEC). To emphasize the importance of scale and distance, the West Texas region is larger than all of the northeastern states combined. The founding group agreed that the first mission of WTNEC should be to pool resources in order to increase admission and graduation rates for WTNEC schools. Two years later, this mission is being accomplished by the implementation of a plan designed to increase participating schools' admissions, retention, and graduation rates. A grant proposal was written and funded to develop a central regionalization of the application process for entry into WTNEC generic programs (associates degree in nursing and bachelor of science in nursing), with the goal of decreasing and possibly eliminating student vacancy rates in member schools and perhaps reducing the resources needed by each school for the admission process. The implemented centralized application system allowed prospective students to apply online to the centralized admission portal. Students maintained the freedom to choose the nursing program(s)

*Professor and Director, Center for Innovation in Nursing Education, School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX. †Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX. ‡Professor and Regional Dean, Medical Center Hospital; Regional Dean Endowed Chair, Codirector, Center of Excellence in Evidence-Based Practice, School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Odessa, TX. §Project Coordinator, West Texas Nursing Education Consortium, School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Odessa, TX. ‖Dean, Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX. ¶Director Nursing Program, El Paso Community College, El Paso, TX. #Director AD Program, Midland College, Midland, TX. **Dean of Health Occupations Vernon College, Vernon, TX. ††Dean of Health Occupations, South Plains College, Levelland, TX. ‡‡Dean of Health Occupations, Odessa College, Odessa, TX. §§Instructional Technology Specialist and Lecturer, San Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX. ‖‖Department Chair Traditional Program, School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX. ¶¶Director Nursing Program, Cisco College, Abilene, TX. ##Department Head, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX. ***Assistant Professor, San Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX. Address correspondence to Dr. Allen: School of Nursing, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, TX 79430. E-mail: [email protected]. 8755-7223/10/$ - see front matter 140 doi:10.1016/j.profnurs.2010.10.008

Journal of Professional Nursing, Vol 27, No. 3 (May–June), 2011: pp 140–144 © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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they wanted to attend, but they were also made aware of possible openings in other participating schools. The admission portal also saved potential students time and money by submitting one centralized application, resulting in consolidation of the nursing school application process. Eleven of the 12 consortium schools participated in the centralized application system. (Index words: Application; Centralized Application System; Consortium; CAS) J Prof Nurs 27:140–144, 2011. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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RIVEN BY THE pressing issues of the nursing shortage in the region, faculty and administrative representatives from schools of nursing in West Texas came together in 2007 to form the West Texas Nursing Education Consortium (WTNEC). The first meeting was exploratory, which included brainstorming about universal nursing education problems such as admission, progression, and retention as well as strategies to address these problems. The group explored ways a multilevel nursing educational consortium could play a unique role in developing grant-funded projects to benefit all consortium members. The WTNEC is composed of five baccalaureate and seven associate degree programs in the West Texas region. This region encompasses an area the size of all of the northeastern states combined. The founding group agreed the mission of WTNEC should be to pool resources in order to increase admission and graduation rates for WTNEC schools. Two years later, this mission was accomplished by the implementation of a plan that has increased participating schools' admissions, retention, and graduation rates. One point noted at the first meeting of the consortium was even with a severe nursing shortage, some of the schools, for a variety of reasons, would begin the academic year with admission slots available. On the other hand, some schools would turn students away each application cycle. There was no practical way to inform students who were not accepted by their chosen school, even though they met the general criteria for admission or if there might be space available in another school in the same region of Texas. The innovative solution discussed was to regionalize the application process. This would allow the communication necessary among schools and prospective students to fill every available student slot in the consortium. This would also decrease the duplication of application activities by each individual school. As a result, the first step in completing the mission of the WTNEC was to increase admissions to consortium schools by establishing a centralized application system (CAS). Eleven of the 12 consortium schools agreed to participate, with one withdrawing from the project due to a commitment to another college grant, which the school officials thought was in conflict with the activities of the CAS. This service had not been provided to nursing schools in Texas. A centralized application service is used by physician assistants programs in Texas (Central Application Service for Physician Assistants, 2010) and by medical schools in Texas (Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service, 2009).

Developing a CAS The lead for project development was assumed by Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and the project was funded through a grant provided by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The grant proposed regionalization of the application process for entry into WTNEC generic programs (associate degree in nursing and bachelor of science in nursing), with the goals of decreasing, and possibly eliminating, student vacancy rates in member schools and perhaps reducing the resources needed by each school for the admission process. The proposed CAS would allow prospective students to apply online to the centralized admission portal. Students would maintain the freedom to choose the nursing program(s) they wanted to attend, but they would also be made aware of possible openings in other participating schools. The proposed admission portal would also save potential students' time and money by the development of a centralized application to consolidate the process of applying to more than one nursing program. One application would suffice for all nursing programs in the consortium. The student simply checks a dropdown box to have the application reviewed by more than one school. After the funding was secured, all schools' administrative parameters were gathered and sent to a selected vendor for inclusion into the portal. Each school required unique tailoring of their application for inclusion in the CAS. Outliers were weighed and discussed. The private vendor selected for development of the CAS met with project leaders to build a system that meets the application parameters needed by all schools. Centralized application systems should not be confused with the individual school's admission process. Each school's admissions process remained intact. The CAS simply pulled together the application steps for all consortium schools into one portal for ease of student access for applying to one or more consortium schools. Admission decisions remained with each school of nursing.

Benefits of the CAS The CAS provided a “one-stop shopping approach” to applications for WTNEC schools and provided a database to member schools for the following functions: (a) record and project applicant numbers; (b) pool demographic data of applicants applying to WTNEC programs;

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(c) track applicants for program placement and alert applicants not admitted to their school of choice of other school admission openings in the region. The CAS was launched in January 2009. A userfriendly Web application facilitates the process by allowing applicant's to (a) complete the application in multiple visits; (b) pay in real time (credit cards and debit cards were accepted on a secured site; therefore, there was no need to mail a payment later); (c) receive tips and help through application data validation by the CAS online support staff and the CAS computer system; (d) provide real-time online application status updates at the designated schools/programs through the applicant portal; (e) allow dynamic interaction with the applicants for every step of the process by the CAS online support staff. Applicants accessed only one portal to research and compare the different programs in a systematic and comprehensive way. If the applicant had any questions, CAS support staff were available online with a click of the mouse to chat with applicants. Additionally, the CAS support staff processed their application to multiple schools. The CAS was able to streamline student efforts needed to send credentialed documents to multiple schools simultaneously. An important additional feature of the CAS allowed member schools to obtain statistics on student duplicates in the application pool of WTNEC programs. This was an important feature for regional workforce development planning. Participating schools of nursing have found several benefits to using the CAS. The ease of selection of schools when filling out the application coupled by the small incremental fee for selecting an additional school enticed the applicants to add additional schools to their selections. This feature increased their chances of being accepted to one of the 11 schools in the WTNEC CAS project. Schools also benefited from the increase in the number of applicants selecting their schools, and ultimately, this increase in the applicant pool may provide each school with a diverse and more competent pool of applicants. The CAS streamlined the admissions process and reduced administrative cost for schools. For example, hours previously spent by the admissions department answering application questions were now answered through CAS support. Each school received standardized applicant information facilitating application reviews by each school of nursing. Ultimately, this reduced the manpower needed for compiling application documents for each school. Information received by the school was checked for authenticity through checks on letters of recommendation and stringent quality control measures by the selected vendor. Transcripts were meticulously verified by the vendor to reflect accurate grade point averages (GPAs). Each school posted their

applicant's status on the secure admission portal. At one school, this reduced support staff time needed to do clerical tasks of notifying students and allowed support staff to redirect their efforts to marketing and recruitment. At the end of each cycle, each school obtained some very important data. Each school in the WTNEC had (a) an accurate number of applicants applying, (b) the number of designations by each applicant, and (c) matriculation data at each school and the demographic profile of the cohort admitted (ethnicity, demographic, geographic, and economic). This comprehensive data served as a valuable tool to assist in applying for grants and support lobbying efforts for state and federal grant programs. Additionally, the CAS assisted the schools in developing workforce projections, future trends, and recruitment strategies based on an accurate set of data. The school played the central role for managing career development and minority recruitment and now had the ability to assess and compare statistical data on applicants with other health professions. The portal provided a platform facilitating information exchange on individual applicants. This project has provided many benefits to all parties, positioned the WTNEC to attract applicants, provided a broad service to all participating schools, and delivered key applicant data to school advisors.

Lessons Learned The WTNEC may have been too ambitious in the choice of a problem to address for this grant cycle. Although the nursing shortage in Texas calls for immediate action (Team Texas, 2008), the timeline for the creation, implementation, and evaluation of the CAS by 11 schools was very short. The grant cycle was 19 months. This project required finding a vendor, developing contractual agreements, developing the system tailored to the needs of all consortium schools, launching the CAS at varying times of the year based on each school's application/ admissions cycle, and evaluating the use of the CAS from the perspective of consortium members (including registrars and key faculty), applicants, and vendor. Therefore, only one admitting cycle was evaluated (Fall 2009). Although the raw data generated through this cycle was very telling, there are no comparison data at this time. Keeping in mind this is a pilot project, the content on the application was not able to complete multiple iterations. With the short timeline noted, enhancements were deemed necessary by the WTNEC for the next admitting cycle (Spring 2009). After the first round of admissions, WTNEC schools were able to weigh each question on the application and make decisions on the questions to keep in the application yielding valuable information and questions needing to be modified to yield more quality data from the application process. During the first round of project implementation, students were required to submit additional documents in several places if they were applying to more than one

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school. This activity was time-consuming but was easily streamlined, as suggested by the vendor. The participating schools agreed upon a shortened application with fewer questions. The WTNEC also recommended schools entering this group project should agree on needed/ required documents beyond the application document. Examples of the additional documents were letters of recommendation, transcripts, and required immunization verification. All students applying through the portal should submit the same documents and required immunizations. As previously stated, the CAS was an application site, not an admissions site. Each school participating in the CAS must understand their college/ universities retain the decision-making role in the admission process. The current admission process at each school, whether done by student services or by a nursing faculty committee, remained the same. Each institution was still able to make all admitting decisions independently of the portal. The portal was for the application process only. Another lesson learned involved each school's current admission system. Each admission system, regardless of the enrollment management system used by a college or university, should be investigated to ensure seamless integration and ease of movement of application data to the home school from the vendor CAS system. Prominent display of the link to the portal application on each institution's homepage was very important for students to have easy access to the application. Additionally, prominent display of contact information and a link allowing each school to look at applicants and rapidly send an electronic message thanking the applicant for applying to the school has also been suggested. In this acknowledgement, an e-mail from the school could note any missing prerequisite course information and offer the student assistance, for example, “I don't see that you have XXX. Is there any help we can offer?” Grade point average calculations must be considered when a CAS system is being developed. GPA calculations will vary depending on what courses the schools request in science and nonscience GPA determinations. Individual college's or university's grade replacement policies will impact GPA calculations. Each school's process needs to be investigated to yield a GPA calculation that each school can effectively use in the verification process for admission. An import script was required to upload the electronic file generated by the CAS system into the school's existing student information systems. An import script allows your school to import your database schema from an existing database. College/universities with few applications to their program would not necessarily benefit from having an import script written after weighing the cost of writing the script versus utilizing existing staff to manually enter in the needed data into the student information system. For those schools receiving hundreds or thousands of applications, an import script is worth the cost. The CAS vendor provided each school's technical staff with a detailed

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data dictionary that outlines every field, its name, description, length, and position in the file. The data dictionary served as a comprehensive map of the downloadable file. Each school should inquire internally to ascertain if in-house technical support can write the import script before looking for a third party to do the work for developing this import script.

Outcomes The WTNEC met the goal of developing a CAS for regionalizing the application process for consortium nursing programs. The WTNEC developed, piloted, and launched the CAS on January 15, 2009. All nursing applicant spaces were filled in WTNEC programs for Fall 2009 semesters. As of July 2009, there were 23 out-ofstate applicants and 842 in-state applications to the schools involved in the use of the CAS. As noted in the introduction, duplicate applicants in Texas were an interest of the consortium. Data were available to determine the number of duplicate applications in West Texas by July 2009. Only 215 applicants had applied to more than one school through the CAS. This number reveals 24% of the applicants using the CAS were duplicate applications. While it may be that students who applied to the portal also applied to Texas schools in other regions (or schools in other states), it has been interesting to note the number of duplications of applications. If this trend is confirmed across the state, it may impact workforce development policy. Currently, Texas estimates that more than 12,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools in Texas in 2008 (Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies, 2008). Many educators in Texas believe this number may be an overestimate, as there has not been a mechanism for determining duplicate applications across all schools of nursing in Texas. If the current data hold true on the second round of the CAS pilot project for 2010, then only 20% of the number of applicants will be duplicates. Extrapolating this percentage to the reported number of state applicants turned away would possibly mean only 9,600 of the 12,000 reported applicants were turned away in Texas. Additionally, as a consortium, enrollment numbers are up for WTNEC schools of nursing. However, presenting enrollment-increase data as an outcome of this project may be misleading. Texas as a state has been incentivizing schools of nursing to grow enrollments over the past 2 years in all 94 schools of nursing. This timeline for growth of nursing schools has coincided with the implementation of the CAS project; therefore, drawing any conclusions on the effect of the CAS on enrollments in WTNEC schools would not be sound. Nevertheless, enrollment of nursing students is at an all-time high in all regions in Texas.

Conclusion Eleven schools came together and formed a consortium to address one aspect of the pressing issue and mandate to increase enrollments and graduation rates in nursing

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schools in Texas. The CAS was the first step in addressing the issue of increasing enrollments. The CAS process allowed the student to “one-stop shop” for West Texas schools of nursing. Additionally, the CAS allowed schools to gather admission data about qualified applicants and assess “the true number” of duplicate applicants in this region. Although a short project timeline has been noted, the schools met multiple times to complete the project. The groundwork for a productive partnership for West Texas is now in place. The product envisioned in the grant is in place. The foundation for a lasting partnership in nursing education in the West Texas region has been established. This project has given the schools in the consortium a foundation for sharing, communicating, and exploring solutions to expanding enrollments as well as increasing graduate rates in West Texas. These are important tasks for the WTNEC in order to meet the need for nurses in

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the future in this region. To learn more about the West Texas Portal project, visit the following websites: https:// portal.wtnec.org/ and http://nursing.ttuhsc.edu/wtnepp/.

References Central Application Service for Physician Assistants (CAPSA). (2010). Retrieved on March 30, 2010, from https://portal. caspaonline.org/. Team Texas. (2008). Texas nursing: Our future depends on it. A strategic plan for the state of Texas to meet nursing workforce needs of 2013. Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies. (2008). 2008 Update on student admission, enrollment and graduation trends in professional nursing programs. Retrieved on March 17, 2010, http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/chs/cnws/2008_EnrlGrad.pdf. Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service (TMDSAS). (2009). Retrieved on March 29, 2010, from http:// www.utsystem.edu/tmdsas/.

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