New UA System project is one-stop collector for student info

FAYETTEVILLE — Later this month, the University of Arkansas System will begin rolling out Project One for students, which will place everything students need — from financial aid information to credits earned and required — in one spot.

Recruiting and admissions, academic foundations and advising, student records, financial aid, and student financials will funnel into a unique digital experience that provides a single cloud-based platform, said Beth Stewart, the UA System’s Project One Student records functional lead. It’s “a single source of truth” that provides access to real-time data.

Students in the UA System will have one login, one password, one spot for grades, etc., she said. This, combined with the system’s common course numbering system — which will be phased in over the next few years and makes transferring from one school to another easier, among other benefits — can shorten the time to degrees and lower costs.

Nearly 970,000 student records are being duplicated, validated, and loaded into Workday — an on-demand financial management, human capital management, and student information system software vendor — for active and historic students, who will have ready access to them, said Marla Strecker, the UA System’s student lead for workday enterprise management cloud. “This will be an answer” to the “completion” problem — students who begin college but leave without any degree or certification.

Common formatting of transcripts throughout the system is also part of the change, which benefits students and registrar offices, Stewart said. “The reality is our students don’t stay at one institution.”

In Student One, students can also allow family members to make payments for them, see their grades, and more, Strecker said. Family members “can support them on their journey,” which is especially important for first-generation students.

While students will be aided the most by this project, it also will be crucial for school and system administrators, who can see real-time information on student applications, which programs students are most interested in, what are the top “feeder” high schools for given colleges, where students are mainly

transferring to and from, and more, Stewart said. This will be “great for recruiting.”

That data will begin to “go live” Sept. 25, which is also when Student One begins for students applying to the system’s two-year institutions, Strecker said. It will roll out for students applying to fouryear schools next year, then eventually to students already enrolled; the final piece will be adding in noncredit courses.

That leads into another new UA System initiative, the UA System Workforce Response & Training Center, which is not a physical center, but an online resource that identifies occupation outlooks, job openings, and education and training opportunities to help Arkansans acquire skills necessary to meet employer needs through offerings of the system’s twoyear colleges — as well as the University of Arkansas at Monticello and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, which both have a technical-and-career-education focus.

Individuals will be able to find everything from comprehensive training portfolios to career earnings data to current job openings in the state, said Chris Thomason, the UA System’s vice president for Planning and Development. There’s also a “calibrate” feature, which allows the system to collect and analyze feedback on whether current skills required by business and industry are included in curriculum by having offerings evaluated by both industry experts and “teaching subject matter” experts at the colleges.

There will also be a sister website, UA Pro, targeted more toward current UA System students — the Workforce & Response Training Center will also be useful for students, but also any job seekers in the state — where they can search for job openings in their geographic area, find salaries and prerequisites, and learn about schools that offer the programs they desire, among other features, he said. And for the 300,000-plus Arkansans with some college but no degree, this will show them easy ways to complete degrees or certifications to improve their future.

“It’s important we do our part to advance education but also assist and benefit our business and K-12 partners statewide,” said Melissa Rust, UA System vice president for University Relations. Through the process of building these

Individuals will be able to find everything from comprehensive training portfolios to career earnings data to current job openings in the state, said Chris Thomason, the UA System’s vice president for Planning and Development.

programs, which has taken more than two years — the Arkansas Economic Development Institute, located at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has partnered with the UA System on this initiative — “we have learned the specific needs of business and industry” in various regions of the state, as well as identified gaps to be addressed.

Both websites are scheduled to be operational before the end of this calendar year, Thomason said. The campuses and their leaders came together for this project because they realized they can do more for Arkansas and Arkansans by working together, as “a statewide approach to workforce training and economic development” is necessary, and “as a former chancellor, I’m well aware of the role campuses play in economic development.”

The UA System board of trustees were briefed on the projects during their meeting Thursday at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the board’s chairman, Morril Harriman, called them among the “most exciting [ideas] I’ve heard in a long time” for workforce development. He added that project leaders ought to share these details with high school counselors statewide so they can inform students, because “the only way this is not highly successful is if people don’t have knowledge of it.”

With Student One, the Workforce Response & Training Center, and UA Pro, more students — and their families — will be able to “play ‘what if’,” examining numerous possibilities for their futures, said Donald Bobbitt, president of the UA System. It will be “transformative.”