Proposal

Web Based Career Exploration & Student Check-in Module for In Office & Career Events

FAU’s President charged the Career Development Center with developing a robust structure for internships, tools for choosing a major, employability skills preparation and tracking the outcomes of FAU graduates.  Our center has identified several key resources that would support these efforts on behalf of our students. The Career Development Center is seeking to obtain funding for the Career Spots Videos software license and the Student Check-In Module from CSO.

In an effort to deliver career services to students in a digital age, one of the center’s goals is to continue to expand its online career resources. As the Governor’s metrics focus on the SUS retention and graduation rates and employment outcomes, these outcomes are now tied to our institutional funding. The Career Development Center focused its efforts on developing resources that would assist incoming students in identifying a major that closely matches their career interests. The Career Spots Videos supports this endeavor. Career Spots Videos serves as an online career exploration tool for students researching careers in relation to their FAU majors.  These online videos provide high quality information on topics such as how to land an internship or Co-op, using social media to job hunt along with a videos on various career fields.  They provide current information and include actual industry professionals and nationally known career center professionals who present informative information on various industries and actual careers/job titles. With the introduction of this software into the SLS 1301 career planning classes, career workshops and outreach programs, staff can move beyond static presentations and deliver interactive, dynamic hands-on learning approaches to effectively engage students in the career exploration process.

In addition, as we address the employability skills preparation and employment outcomes for FAU students, our focus has been on hosting a number of career events and job fairs across the campuses and colleges.  In 2012-2013 we experienced over 21,000 points of contact which is defined as the number of students/alumni who accessed a career center for services and/or attended programs and career events. This demonstrates a 40% increase over the year prior. We had over 3,500 attendees participate in career events during which we are capturing data on a manual paper sign in on a clip board.  This past year we implemented the student upload from Banner into the CSO job portal – OWL Careerlink so that every active student enrolled within the past three terms has an account created in the job portal. The purchase of the Student Check-In Module will enable students and alumni registered in the job portal to use their FAU OWL Card to swipe it in a card reader for immediate check in at career events and also have a name badge printed for them instantly upon check in.

The use of this technology will greatly reduce students/alumni standing in long lines at the Career Day job fairs to check –in. It will also eliminate the need to manually print named badges at the job fair and other career events.  Finally it will enable the Career Development Center to receive data in real time regarding who is attending career events, report demographic data based on the students profile in the job portal and at last enable staff to generate reports and provide data to the colleges for their academic program reviews, accreditation and rankings. The check in module includes 1 card swipe reader and 1 name badge printer. We would request to purchase an additional 3 card swipe readers and 3 additional name badge printers so that we could offer 4 lines of check in to accommodate our large scale career events.

Students will use the card swipe feature also when checking in for their on-campus interviews at the career center and when they attend other career events such as Resume Critique days, Mock Interviews, Etiquette Dinner, Carnival of Majors Fair, Career Day 101, Executive Leadership Forum and Dare to Be Prepared.

The Student Check-In Module will also provide capability for the Career Development Center to enable FAU students to use their OWL Cards and check-in when visiting the center’s multiple locations at Boca Raton, Davie and Jupiter. Currently, the Boca Raton center has a manual sign in kiosk, while Davie is using an in house created online check-in and Jupiter is using a manual check-in process. The purchase of this module will enable our center to offer a streamlined process and process student check-in data using a centralized platform.

One of the goals of the Career Development Center is to deliver career education and outreach programs in a state-of-the-art learning environment that fosters active learning in our students so that they become active participants in preparing for their job search.  As FAU students are tech savvy they would embrace the use of this new software and the student check-in technology as they use similar electronic tools to communicate, learn about and receive information in the digital age.  The proposal to purchase the Career Spots Videos and the Student Check-In Module is aligned with the university wide strategic plan goals below:

Goal I: Enrich the Educational Experience

D.3 Expand opportunities for experiential learning such as internships, service learning, study abroad and co-curricular programs. The software includes video instruction on how to search for Co-op’s and internships and also contains multiple videos on various types of internships etc. along with the benefits of obtaining this career related experience.

D.9 Increase support services and technologies that promote e-learning initiatives. The purchase of the software directly support e-learning initiatives by providing interactive access to career websites, employer videos which are all designed to promote career exploration, experiential learning and full-time job placement assistance and professional development.

Goal III: Increase FAU’s Community Engagement

A.8 Expand opportunities for experiential learning including internships/externships, service learning, and co-curricular programs. The Career Spots Videos provide guidance on how to research employers and prepare for job fairs in advance with online demonstrations and would expose students to various employers, career paths and industries.

Goal IV: Leverage momentum toward achieving FAU’s strategic goals by being good stewards of its human, technological, physical and financial resources.

D.1 Allocate adequate resources to build and strengthen the University’s technology infrastructure to ensure quality and responsiveness to address a digital age student population. Through the Career Spots Videos students would learn how to search, receive and apply information in real time as the software would be used in our career workshops, career planning courses and as an online resource located on our webpage. In addition, the Student Check-In Module would allow provide for improved check-in at all career events and upon entering the career center locations replacing a paper, manual sign in system. Vast improvements would be made in compiling and reporting out the user data to the FAU colleges.