Pacific U Puts the Focus on Student Learning and Internship Applications with Time2Track
The Challenge
Minimizing Busywork and Logistics for Stakeholder Success
Not all of Pacific University’s current PhD program leadership remembers how challenging their original experience management system was for so many years as it becomes a distant memory. But Michael Christopher, PhD, the program’s Director of Clinical Training, still vividly recalls those days of what sometimes felt like continuous inefficiency managing candidates’ experience. Today he marvels at the transformation of the program’s system functionality, and what that has meant for the success of all of its students and administrators alike.
“Back then, students had to (rather ironically) spend hours just to successfully log their earned hours and other experience data,” Christopher confessed. “Program staff in administrative positions would also spend countless hours tracking down evaluations and student hours and securing the necessary signatures.”
Old-paradigm clunkiness in the original experiential learning system included:
- Substantial time requirements for the creation and handling of data
- Endless back-and-forth emails
- Documentation getting lost in inboxes
The Burden of Manual Tracking…and Future Access
As a PhD himself, Christopher remembers firsthand the “incredible burden” that manual tracking creates. So, it’s no surprise that providing a better way that removes this barrier for his candidates has been particularly important to him.
And it’s not only old-paradigm tracking that creates serious inefficiency. When a Pacific U PhD program graduate needs to access their experience data later, Christopher advised, program administrators have historically had to jump through many hoops to find that information. It was not always online and certainly not in one centralized location.
“We might get a request from a student who got their PhD from us five years ago and needs this info to move forward in their career. This would typically look like a panicked e-mail from them saying, ‘I’m applying for licensure in Hawaii, and I need to provide my exact hours from when I was in graduate school at Pacific. Can you help?’ We would indeed help, but it was always very tedious to do a proper lookback for requested graduates’ data.”
Having gone through this process himself without the benefit of Time2Track, Christopher knows what disorganization around data handling means to candidates. “During this stressful time for our students, efficiency—or lack thereof—really matters.”
Results
With Time2Track, Pacific University Oregon found:
Dramatic global system upgrades that have improved all management aspects
The ability to go completely paperless and achieve a longtime program goal
Total visibility around hours tracking so supervisors see every logged session
Ease in accessing legacy data that saves time and eliminates stress for all parties
“It was always very tedious to do a proper lookback for requested graduates’ data.”
Dr. Michael Christopher
PhD Psychology Program
Director of Clinical Training and Professor
The Solution
Seven years ago, Christopher recounted, a Pacific director of clinical training outside the PhD program made the decision to upgrade the experience management platform. Then a supervisor at that time, Christopher was delighted by the news that Pacific grad programs would be implementing Time2Track. “I applauded her and continue to applaud her today—it was a great move. It certainly made things a lot easier for me as a supervisor, to be able to easily and seamlessly sign off on hours to complete evaluations and things like that.”
Checking all the Boxes
Since then, and as Christopher has been promoted within Pacific’s graduate school to DCT, he has observed across-the-board efficiencies gained through implementing Time2Track. His list checks off all the top-level improvement areas the Time2Track team is used to seeing. These include:
- Increase in ease of tracking
- Increase in real-time visibility into students’ tracking progress
- Increase in accountability for verifying hours
- Reduction in training time
- Reduction in file storage requirements
- Reduction in time required over manual tracking
- Reduction in paper use
- Reduction in administrative filing time of logs
- Reduction in logging errors
- Ability to aggregate data
The Rewards of Online Program Data
While all have provided dramatic updates, the most impactful in Christopher’s view is how each candidate’s valuable data is protected online so it can be effortlessly accessed. “What we really appreciate the most about Time2Track is the interface with the APPI at the internship level,” Christopher shared. “Our students use it all from day one in the program until they’re done.”
“They can track all their hours and we can manage their evaluations from their supervisors. Then when they’re in that very busy, complicated time of applying for internship, the ability to click a button and have everything populate for all their hours—everything they’ve done over the previous four or five years—is enormously helpful for them.”
This seamless workflow unburdens students in new but fundamentally valuable ways, Christopher explained. “It allows them to put more time into writing their essays and writing their cover letters…and in the things that that they’re going to actually be evaluated on.”
Doing a Lot with Ease
Christopher has been impressed with a platform that is robust without being too difficult to learn or to train in. “In addition to the other virtues I’ve been singing, Time2Track is very user-friendly,” he stressed. “It’s not a complicated system to learn, although it does a lot of cool complex things.”
Time2Track is so user-friendly for students, he added, that capturing the data and all the activities they’re doing at their field site is now fully optimized. “There’s a category in Time2Track for everything that students need to capture about their experiential learning. There’s a way to document everything they do when they’re on a practicum… and doing so is easy. This allows them to be laser-focused on their actual fieldwork while capturing excellent detail about their experiences.”
For staff, Christopher shared that their recently hired clinical training manager has picked up Time2Track quickly because of its intuitive interface. But equally important, “The Time2Track team is super responsive if we have questions when we’re getting up to speed with it, or anytime. Our CTM has already reached out to them a couple of times and gotten responses within the same day to her questions.”
About Pacific University
Founded in 1849, Pacific University is a diverse learning community offering a unique combination of nationally recognized undergraduate, graduate and professional programs in the arts and sciences, education, business, optometry and the health professions.
The University’s Outcome
Advancing the Mission
The program’s mission has been advanced by upgrading to Time2Track, according to Christopher. “By allowing students and staff to really focus on training and education without having to worry about organizing a system themselves, it’s another way that we are ‘striving for excellence’—which is the lead-in to our mission statement,” he explained.
Taking Away the Busy Work
In hindsight, Christopher reflected, “it’s hard to fathom the time and energy and thought that had to be put into the logistics of hours tracking back in the day. We’ve taken away the busywork with Time2Track and made life easier for everybody involved.”
“Our candidates are working so much smarter now. They’re reclaiming chunks of time for meaningful endeavors like more prepping for clients, more time connecting with supervisors, and more clinical work. And certainly, our administrators work smarter now as well.”
Christopher feels that the way Pacific is streamlining experience management helps candidates do their best and be their best. “Time2Track’s efficiencies provide the advantage of focused learning, which can benefit clinical mastery.”
Professionals Making Greater Impact
Thinking more broadly about his candidates’ contributions after graduation and licensure, Christopher sees how a focus on the most meaningful work creates a path for the program’s mission goal of “creating meaningful change.”
“When we can deliver training and learning without distraction, we better equip our students. Then their work becomes about doing good in the world and becoming change agents.”
About Pacific University Oregon
Pacific University is a small private research university in Oregon consisting of five campuses and five colleges offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. It began as a school for orphans from the Oregon Trail in 1848 and modeled after the best schools of New England. Over time, the university has grown into a unique combination of undergraduate and graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, education, business, and health.
Today, Pacific’s focus on teaching and learning in a close nurturing environment leads to genuine transformation in students’ lives. Distinguished by its inquiry- based curricula and interdisciplinary collaboration, Pacific offers students exceptional opportunities for experiential learning, leadership, and civic engagement.
A diverse and sustainable community dedicated to discovery and excellence in teaching, scholarship, and practice, Pacific University inspires students to think, care, create, and pursue justice in our world.
Time2Track Customization
Every program discipline has unique experience management characteristics and needs. That’s why our Client Success works closely with every new client to customize their Time2Track app.
With customization, stakeholders capture and manage the experience information that matters. Stakeholder confidence and compliance soars. And clients enjoy an even easier path to measurable success.