Residency Decisions Made Easy:UW-Madison’s Automated Process

Presenter Info:Aaron Apeladapel@em.wisc.edu

• Existing processes for collecting student residency information. What works, and what doesn’t?

• Identifying potential solutions• Development and implementation of the

Residency Smart Application (RSA

Overview

EXISTING ADMISSION APPLICATION PROCESSESCollecting Residency Data

Office of Admissions and Recruitment – Undergraduate (UW System application)

Graduate School (Custom application)Graduate School of Business (Custom application)College of Engineering (UW System application)Law School (Vendor provided application)School of Medicine and Public Health (AMCAS)School of Veterinary Medicine (VMCAS)School of Pharmacy (PharmCAS and supplemental application)School of Nursing (UW System application)Department of Continuing Studies (UW System application)Various Department Programs (Custom applications)

Admitting Offices at UW-Madison

• Residency questions are sometimes built into the application. If not, applicants fill out a PDF Record of Residence

• No pre-population of existing student data• No automated decision-making logic. Applicants are required to fill

out the entire form even if the data is not relevant• Requires running and maintenance of a separate SQR load process

within PeopleSoft to import the electronic residency data• PDF Record of Residence forms are linked and stored in ImageNow

to meet data retention requirements• Residency counselors must evaluate all admission applications to

make an accurate residency determination

Custom Admission Applications(Grad, Grad School of Business, Professional Schools)

• Residency questions are included in the online admission application

• Automated decision-making logic built in to determine residency status based on the information provided by the applicant

• The system application is able to make residency determinations for approximately 80% of applicants

• Requires running and maintenance of a separate PeopleSoft Application Engine load process to import the electronic residency data

• Requires a set of customized records and pages within PeopleSoft to enable residency staff to review the applicant data

UW-System Admission Application

University of Wisconsin – Madison General Stats

Over 40,000 students enrolled annually

2012-2013 Academic YearTotal residency decisions: 64,099Automated Decisions: 51,350Manual Decisions: 12,749

With a residency staff of two, we needed to find a way to reduce the number of applications that require manual review.

The UW System admission application does a good job of making automated residency decisions, but it’s only used for undergraduate and non degree-seeking special students.

We needed to automate the residency determination process for the remaining applicants.

Identified Business Need

IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL SOLUTIONSFixing the Problem At Hand

A project team was formed to define requirements, document the process flow, and define residency determination logic.

Members included:• Two Residency Counselors• Admission office representative• Project manager• Residency staff supervisor• Java developer• PeopleSoft developer• PeopleSoft data specialist

Project Team

Build a web-based application specifically designed to collect and analyze residency data with the following features:• Accessible by a variety of applicants from multiple admitting

offices• Make residency determinations “on the fly”• Pre-populate with existing student data (when possible) to

eliminate redundant data collection• Present users with only the questions needed to make an

accurate residency determination…no unnecessary data collection.

• Integrate with PeopleSoft via web services to retrieve existing student data and to pass back applicant residence data and the residency determination (if made)

Proposed Solution

DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATIONResidency Smart Application (RSA)

The Residency Smart App (RSA) facilitates the entry of information by applicants to determine their eligibility for nonresident tuition exemption under Wisconsin Statutes. RSA draws from multiple data sources to reach a residency determination, including PeopleSoft SA, the system the student is being redirected from, as well as directly from the student.

Application Overview

• Application written in Groovy using the Grails framework• Runs in the Apache Tomcat servlet container hosted by UW

Madison DoIT• Data is stored in a DoIT hosted Oracle database• NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA IDEs, but the project is not locked into

any single IDE• Dependencies and build are handled by Apache Maven• Requirements and issue tracking using JIRA

Technical Infrastructure

Component Interface Web Services– One used to pre-populate the application with applicant bio-

demo data when available– Second web service created to allow for writing the collected

data back to custom staging tablesStaging records

– Temporary staging area for applicant data to be held until it can be matched with an admission application

App Match SQR– Recurring process used to migrate staged data to the permanent

Residency Record of Residence in PeopleSoft once an admission application is completed.

PeopleSoft Customizations

Data Flow

For maximum flexibility, the project team decided to allow entry into the application from a variety of other systems:

• PeopleSoft SA Student Center• PeopleSoft SA Reentry Customization• External Admission Applications

Applicant Entry Points

Required Data ElementsWhen redirected to RSA from an external admission application or from PeopleSoft, there are a two required fields:

• admissionApplicationNum• admitTermCode

Additional optional fields accepted:• Emplid• academicCareer• firstName• middleInitial• Birthdate• Citizenship• visaType• Addresses• residencyDecisionPostbackUrl• userRedirectUrl

If an applicant has previously attended UW Madison, and the student emplid is known, the residency application will call a component interface web service that is exposed from PeopleSoft to pre-populate the app with existing bio-demo data.

This eliminates the need for redundant data entry and reduces the total application completion time.

Imported Data Elements

Decision Logic

Logic- continued

Logic- continued

RSA IN ACTIONSo, how does it work?

Initial QuestionsIf an applicant indicates that they are not a legal Wisconsin resident and that they have not recently moved to the state for full-time employment, the application makes a ‘Nonresident’ determination and no additional information is required.

General InfoIf an applicant indicates that they are a Wisconsin resident, they are prompted to enter some additional information.

Answers to these questions determine which pages the applicant is directed to and what subsequent information is needed.

Parent DataParent/Guardian information can be a determinant of WI residency status for tuition purposes for all applicants regardless of dependent status or age.

Parent/Guardian details are required in order for an applicant to be considered a ‘Resident’ under a specific of the state statute.

Details include:• Citizenship status• State income tax information• Voter information• Occupation• Addresses

Applicant InformationIf the applicant does not qualify for ‘Resident’ status based on the parent information provided, then additional information is required.

Higher Education Details

All institutions of higher education currently or previously attended must be listed by the applicant. Dates of enrollment are important in determining residency status.

Employment

Similar to the Higher Education information physical presence in Wisconsin for the full twelve months preceding enrollment is an important factor in determining residence for tuition purposes.

e-SignaturePrior to displaying the residency determination, the applicant must first electronically sign the application. This is the final step in the application process.

Residency DeterminationAfter submitting the application, the final residency determination is displayed along with contact information for our Residence for Tuition office.

At this point the applicant can either be redirected to the external system that directed them to the RSA or they can simply close the app.

SUMMARY

Graduate School of Business – Fall 2013Law School – Fall 2013Reentry Applicants – Fall 2013School of Education – Outreach Programs – Spring 2014Graduate School – Spring 2014

Early Adopters

Referring back to the 2012-13 residency statistics, our residency counselors manually evaluated 12,749 residency determinations. When fully adopted, we estimate that the Residency Smart Application will be able to reduce that by 70%.

Applicants will no longer be required to submit information that has no bearing on their residency status which reduces the overall time to application completion.

Admitting offices will no longer need to maintain substantial customizations to their admission applications in order to collect residency information.

Measures of Success

QUESTIONS?

Aaron Apeladapel@em.wisc.edu