13040 Cornwallis Road ■ P.O. Box 12194 ■ Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA 27709

The View from the IPEDS Help Desk: Providing Practical Solutions to Practically Every Question

Jamie Isaac & Janice Kelly-ReidRTI International

May 8, 2006

Presented at the 2006 SHEEO/NCES Network Conference and IPEDS Workshop

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IPEDS Help Desk

- Operated since July 2000 by RTI International

- Help Desk agents are specially hired and trained to serve IPEDS customers

- Open weekdays 8:30am to 5:00pm Eastern time

- Open evenings and weekends during the final ten days of each collection

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What is the Role of the Help Desk?

• Typically, we have 16-18 staff, many of them seasoned veterans. We operate out of our Call Center in north Raleigh, NC.

• Respond to phone calls and emails.

• Make prompting (reminder) calls during the last 2 weeks of each collection.

• Review and migrate all survey data after locked and complete. At minimum, this means careful review of the edit reports and caveats.

• We can enter “special notes” for individual schools, so let us know if special treatment is needed for a particular reason.

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Meet the Help Desk

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Help Desk Activity – 2005-06 Collection Year

Fall 2005 Collection

Winter 05-06

Collection

Spring 2006 Collection*

Total

Number of Calls Received

7368 7973 7132 22,473

Number of Calls Made

8823 10,561 8031 27,415

Number of Emails Received

1734 1287 901 3922

Total

17,925

19,821

16,064

53,810

*Through April 28, 2006

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Inbound Call volume

8000

13000

18000

23000

28000

'00-'01

'01-'02

'02-'03

'03-'04

'04-'05

'05-'06*

Collection Year *Through April 28, 2006

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Outbound Call volume

8000

13000

18000

23000

28000

'00-'01

'01-'02

'02-'03

'03-'04

'04-'05

'05-'06*

Collection Year *Through April 28, 2006

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Communicating via Telephone

Inbound Help Desk Calls (44%)

No Data Prompt (24%)

Data Issue Follow-Up (14%)

Not Registered Prompt (9%)

Bounced Email Follow-Up (7%)

Responding to Voicemail (2%)

Help Desk Call Activity by Type

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Undeliverable Emails

Turning the tide?

As we increased our use of email prompting during the first few years of the web-based collection, undeliverable emails became a bigger and bigger problem due to the sheer volume of them.

In 2003 we converted our email systems so that they were no longer sent in “bulk.”

In the summer of 2004 we sent a letter to all Keyholders addressing email delivery issues.

We continue to educate keyholders, and see a steady decline in the number of undeliverable emails.

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Undeliverable Emails

0.00%

1.00%

2.00%

3.00%

4.00%

5.00%

6.00%

7.00%

Fall 2002 Winter02-03

Spring2003

Fall 2003 Winter03-04

Spring2004

Fall 2004 Winter04-05

Spring2005

Fall 2005 Winter05-06

Collection Period

“Bounced” Emails

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Undeliverable Emails

But have we really “turned the tide”?

Significant Changes in Internet Technology

Increase in SPAM filters– email is filtered out prior to recipient, and neither sender nor receiver is aware.

“Approved” senders lists used more extensively.

Fewer systems send automated delivery failure notices (e.g. “bounced email”)

If the domain is valid, but username doesn’t exist, email won’t be successfully delivered, yet it won’t “bounce” either.

Thus, while the number of Non-Deliverable Emails is declining, the “successful” delivery of emails is not necessarily ensured.

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Last Minute Submissions

• Still a big problem!• The collection system becomes

overloaded during the last few days of each collection, resulting in sluggish system response. It takes longer to enter data on these days.

• Call volume to Help Desk increases dramatically, resulting in “hold” time. We received over 1800 inbound calls during the last 3 days of the Spring collection.

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Typical Pattern of Response

12/ 7/ 2005

12/ 21/ 2005

1/ 4/ 2006

1/ 18/ 2006

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

Inbound Calls

Surveys Locked

Daily Volume of Calls and Surveys Locked - Winter 2005-06 Collection

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Data Review Issues

Data Review by Help Desk Staff prior to migration to PAS

Following completion of all locks, critical fields are reviewed, especially those that cannot be edited automatically.

We pay special attention to the caveats, since many of these are posted to COOL, and often have problems such as:

• Typos, grammar problems, run-on sentences

• Acting as explanations (and sometimes bad ones at that) or instructions

• Make no sense when compared with the data

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Data Review Issues

In summary:

Please know that edit explanations must explain the issue, otherwise the school will be contacted.

Thank you for your assistance in reviewing caveats and edit explanations to make sure that they are appropriate.

These efforts do seem to be making the data better, so hopefully it is worth the extra effort!

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From the past 5 years… some of our favorite lines...

Who are you and why are you sending me this email?

I have to collect the information from many different sources within our organization. This takes time and energy!

I saw that the directions were finally posted. I haven’t read them, but I’m sure they’re not clear.

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From the past 5 years… some of our favorite lines...

It is well known in the world of institutional research that federal answers take longer to calculate.

We registered but never got a User ID or password. Can we get one?

Forgive me for commenting…. but filling out IPEDS, or even thinking about it, is like going to the dentist.

Wow, you are really nagging this year!

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Just For Fun…

Top Ten Suggestions for Making IPEDS more interesting:10) Start an IPEDS blog where keyholders can write

about their hobbies and upload snapshots

9) Require that the president, provost, or other chief executive enter all data

8) Instead of just perturbing the numeric data, perturb the caveats too

7) Provide an all-expense-paid vacation to any keyholder whose data do not result in edit flags

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Top Ten Suggestions for Making IPEDS more interesting:

6) Allow submission of IPEDS data via telepathy

5) Ask Simon Cowell to develop an “American Keyholder” show to identify talented new Keyholders

4) Require all data fields to be in prime numbers only

3) Hire the GEICO Gecko as the IPEDS mascot

2) Offer IPEDS in lo-carb and high fiber varieties

Just For Fun…

IPEDS

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Just For Fun…

And the Number One Suggestion for Making IPEDS more interesting:

1) Randomly match keyholders to schools!

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In Closing…

Thank you for your assistance in making IPEDS successful!

As usual, we have an appreciation gift… but you will just have to wait until

later to find out what it is!

…and finally….