American Samoa Community College

III.C.4.  The institution provides appropriate instruction and support for faculty, staff, students and administrators, in the effective use of technology and technology systems related to its programs, services, and institutional operations. 

Each division assesses its needs for IT training. Requests are made through proper protocol when there are technology training needs within divisions. Divisions provide basic IT training for technology that is used within their divisions. If there is a need for a formal IT training on topics such as Colleague usage or E-mail orientation, requests are made to the MIS division, and such training is scheduled, usually during a specific event such as faculty orientation.

ASCC provides training in different ways. MIS has provided training as requested by faculty during faculty orientation. MIS coordinated off-island training, supported by ARRA funding, for faculty and support staff to receive training on the use of Smartboards. These users returned and provided training to ASCC. Training was also offered using distance education technology with the Smartboard vendors for faculty members who use this technology for their courses. ASCC divisions, such as Trades and Technology, provided in-house Smartboard training for all faculty.

Moodle online course training was provided for both administrators as well as faculty wishing to use this technology in their courses. Faculty and support staff participated in this training. These users in turn provided training within ASCC.

For the Colleague system, the Finance division provides training for the Leadership Team to view and manage their budget information online. Key divisions that use the system for data entry were trained by representatives from the company that owns the software. These divisions include Admissions, Records, Financial Aid, Finance, Procurement, Human Resources, and Management Information Systems (MIS). Employees who were trained provide training for the users within their division. New employees in divisions using Colleague are trained as part of their orientation.

MIS personnel are trained within the MIS Division on technology troubleshooting and maintenance, and on software usage. MIS has participated in off-island technology training supported by ARRA funding to update skills necessary for maintenance of servers and the network.

Admissions, Records, Financial Aid, Management Information Systems, Student Support Services, and University Center for Excellence on Developmental Disabilities have taken part in free Webinar training.

The Institutional Effectiveness division provides training for the Compliance Assist site that is used to access and upload reports and institutional data.

Training is provided within different divisions to student workers who require the use of technology to perform their duties. Students are also provided support in the computer labs by the Computer Lab Assistants should they need assistance with learning new technology. Students are provided guidance and support for wireless technology when they request to use this service.

All training described above provided by ASCC aids in the effective application of technology to benefit students and personnel. Currently, the training is not assessed using a survey tool; however, MIS uses a survey sent out with a completion confirmation email for each work order to assess the user satisfaction with the MIS technology support. MIS will develop a survey tool to assess the success of IT training that is provided.

Each division reviews and evaluates its own training. Technological and training needs are assessed during the Institutional Program Review and Divisional Assessment.

Training is offered upon request, and done within each individual office, supported by the MIS office. No separate instrument is used to assess training that has been provided for technology.