Cornell University ILR School Employment and Disability Institute With Support from the New York State Education Department, Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities TransQUAL Online User’s Guide Improving Student Transitions to Life after School Version 3.0 Updated September 2006 Author David Brewer September 2006 ADVANCING THE WORLD OF WORK TransQUAL User’s Guide Table of Contents Contents One Page Flyer 3 Log-In Page..4 Registration..5 TransQUAL Online Navigation..9 Assessment Tool .10 Navigation..10 Step 1: Date..11 Step 2: Planning Team Membership..12 Planning Team Leadership..13 Step 3: Preliminary Questions..15 Step 4: Complete Assessment..17 Quality and Compliance..18 Step 5: Select Work Plan..19 Step 6: Complete Work Plan..20 Step 6: Work Plan Development - Tasks..21 Step 6: Work Plan Development - NYS Education Reform..23 Create Additional Work Plans..24 Close Record..25 Create Progress Report for Work Plan..26 Progress Report - Current Information..27 Progress Report - Team Members..28 Progress Report - Tasks..29 Progress Report - Experiences..30 Progress Report - New Rating, Future Plans..31 Resources..32 People Search..32 Funding Sources..33 Links - Web Site Search..34 TransQUAL Forum..35 User’s Guide & Related Documents..37 Shared TransQUAL Work Plans..38 Assessment Tool - Related Resources..39 Our Account..40 Account Status..40 Account Information..41 Contact List..42 Messages..44 www.TransQUAL.org Improving Student Transitions to Life after High School TransQUAL Online is designed to assist school districts collaborate with others and continuously improve their transition practices for youth. Organizational Change TransQUAL incorporates New York State Education Department Transition Quality Indicators (TQI), based on the work of Paula Kolher from Western Michigan University. The TQI assesses program structure, collaboration, family involvement, student involvement and student development. Online Resources Team planning, implementation and reflection activities are supported by online resources. These include: links to helpful web pages, sources of funding, and a forum for discussions. Developing Community TransQUAL’s online community grows as teams post their work plans and reach out to each other to address common challenges and interests. TransQUAL Log-in Page If you have a user name and password: Enter your Username and Password into the log in fields. If you are a new user: Click where it is written Complete Registration Form. You will be taken to a registration area where you can request a Username and Password. Once your team has a Username and Password, the planning process can begin. If you would like to see what TransQUAL is all about: Click on Test Drive TransQUAL Online. This allows you to try out TransQUAL. Your results will NOT be saved. TransQUAL Registration To register a new member/team: 1. Select a Member Type. Teams who are using TransQUAL Online to improve their local educational programs should select District/Program from the top pull-down menu. 2. From the pull-down menu, select the Transition Coordination Site that serves your educational program. If you do not know this information, go to: http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/transition/tcslist.htm 3. Click on the Continue button for the next set of options. Note: To obtain a TransQUAL Online username and password, your team contact person will need to identify the type and location of your educational program. Your educational program may be a school, a school district, a department, an agency, a BOCES/NYC Regional Program, or some other type of service. To accommodate the variety of services and schools that exist in New York State, TransQUAL Online has a progressive registration form, allowing teams to stop at any point, complete their contact information, and wait for their username and password to arrive via email. It is important to continue this process until you have provided as much information as possible, so that we may provide future technical support. 4. Select your team’s BOCES/ New York City Region from the pull-down menu. 5. Click on the Continue button for the next set of options. 6. Select your team’s School District from the pull-down menu. If your program is regional in nature, spanning more than one school district, skip this step and complete the information at the bottom, clicking Process Request at the bottom of this page. 7. Click on the Continue button for the next set of options. 8. If your team represents one School, select which one from the pull-down menu, making sure the radio button is pushed next to the word School. If your educational program spans more than one school, or is an agency or some other Program, click on the appropriate radio button and type the name of your program in the adjacent text box. If your team represents your entire school district, click on the radio button next to the word District-wide. 9. Click on the Process Request button when all of your team’s information has been entered. Note: At the bottom of the TransQUAL Online Member Registration page are text boxes to identify your team’s contact person. Please fill these out completely, so that we know how to contact you, and to email a username and password to access your account. By clicking on the Process Request button, your team is indicating that the information is complete and accurate, although this information can be updated after the team logs in. Your contact person will receive a username and password via email after we’ve reviewed your information. This can take 2-3 working days, so complete the registration well in advance of your team’s first meeting. TransQUAL Online Navigation Main Navigation Buttons Home- By clicking on this button, the team will be brought to the Log-In Page, but will not be logged out. Assessment Tool- This button will bring the team to the current record. Our Account- This area provides basic demographic information, including the name of the team’s coordinator. Teams may edit their contact information and username. Teams may also post work plans for others to view and contact for more information. Resources- Click on the Resources button in the main menu bar to view helpful links, discussion and shared planning documents. Log Out- Click on this button to exit the TransQUAL Online website. Note: When your team enters its Username and Password in the Log-In page, you will be brought to your team’s TransQUAL Home Page. Before entering data, it may be helpful to note time saving navigational features of TransQUAL Online. These buttons will appear on most of the web pages of TransQUAL. Assessment Tool Navigation Tabs- By clicking on the numbered tabs, teams can move back and forth through the assessment process, editing previous work as desired. As your team progresses through each step, more and more buttons will become active, indicated by the darkened colors. All Records - Teams can quickly switch between the current and previous records through this pull-down menu. Click the GO button once a record has been selected. Note: TransQUAL Online was designed for use on multiple occasions. When a team opens their TransQUAL account for the first time, they will see a new record, ready to be started. A collaborative planning team may develop a TransQUAL record over several meetings, by saving their work and logging out, and then logging back in at a later time. By looking at the tabbed numbers at the top, a team can quickly identify where they are in the planning process. Step 1: Date To begin your assessment: 1. Use the pull-down menus to indicate the Month and Year that your team is meeting to create this survey. 2. Click on Save & Go to Next Step to save your work and proceed to Step 2. Note: TransQUAL will automatically select the current month and year. However, teams are free to select a different date at their discretion. Step 2: Planning Team Membership To enter your team member(s): 1. Type one Name and select the Role of one of your team members. 2. After your team enters a name and a role, click Add new member to create a new window for entering additional team members. 3. Click where it says Delete member to remove a member from the list. 4. Click on Save & Go to Next Step when all of your team members have been entered. Planning Team Leadership Your next set of directions will begin the survey itself. This requires a planning team to collaboratively make decisions about indicators and priorities. The quality of your discussions and results for students will increase in proportion to the diversity of your planning team membership. Reach out to people both inside and outside of the school building! TransQUAL Planning Teams may include: • special educators • general educators • guidance counselors • work experience staff • transition coordinators • parents or family members • student leaders • employers • administrators • VESID counselors • CBVH counselors • Independent Living Center staff • Workforce Development(One-Stop) staff • community agency personnel • Other: (specify) A letter or email to each potential team member, followed up by a verbal invitation, in person or by phone, is an effective recruitment strategy. Don’t ignore this important step in the planning process! In most instances, designating a team coordinator will enhance the quality of the collaboration. Some coordinators like to take charge and make most of the decisions for the group. However, for this process a facilitative approach to leadership is recommended. In other words, the team coordinator should: • Establish team meeting times and locations • Distribute copies of planning documents to all team members before each meeting • Share responsibilities for gathering district information and data • Actively listen to team members’ concerns and ideas during the planning process to build consensus • Incorporate language provided by team members into the narrative of the Work Plan • Share responsibilities for implementing and monitoring activities to support any Work Plans created Team members should consider themselves individually and collectively responsible to maintain a productive and open atmosphere for discussion. Complements paid to each other for work completed can only move this process forward. If you are fortunate enough to have a computer available that is connected to the Internet, identify a person to perform data entry “live” into TransQUAL during team discussions. Note: It is always a good idea to keep notes on paper, just in case technology fails! Step 3: Preliminary Questions To select topics for Work Plan development: 1. Check the Focus Area(s) boxes next to the questions where your team believes a Work Plan may be necessary to support further development. This is a time for careful group discussion. When group consensus is in doubt, or for a more thorough, baseline assessment the first time through, it is recommended to check all of these boxes. 2. Click on Save & Go to Next Step when each of the preliminary questions has been carefully considered and one or more boxes have been checked. Link to Resources - Click on the web links below each question to jump to the Resource Links (see page34). This will provide your team with immediate information about each preliminary question and an opportunity to pose questions to a larger Internet community for ideas and suggestions. To assist school districts with their SPP 13 self-review: Click where is says Save & Go to Indicator 13 instead of selecting any of the other five TransQUAL topic areas. A set of Transition Quality Indicators that closely relate to SPP 13 have been selected to assist with your team’s SPP 13 self-review. Note: Under State Performance Plan Indicator 13 (SPP 13), all New York State school districts will be required to review a representative sample of student IEPs, determining if each student’s educational program contains the elements necessary for post-school success. To learn more about the relationship that exists between SPP 13, the Transition Quality Indicators, and TransQUAL Online, go to: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/edicollect/1228/ Step 4: Complete Assessment To complete the TransQUAL Assessment: 1. Select a rating, 1 - 5, from the drop down menu for all indicators on this page. 2. Check the box Change Desired? if your team wishes to consider this indicator for later Work Plan development. Note: These are the Transition Quality Indicators (TQI) developed by the New York State Education Department, for your planning team’s group discussion and careful rating. Your planning team must rate all of the Transition Quality Indicators presented on this page. The ratings are as follows: 5 = Exemplary, can educate others about this issue 4 = Indicator evident across all situations 3 = Indicator evident across some, but not all, situations 2 = Indicator not evident, planning is underway 1 = Indicator not evident, no planning has been initiated Important: It is best to use objective data assembled by your planning team when determining these ratings. This could include student academic scores, VESID reports, Post-School Indicator Study reports, school district report card and student “PD” information, or any other measurements conducted by your educational program. To keep the system from timing out: Click on the Save Progress button whenever it appears in your list. Save Progress at the bottom of the page will move the team to the next step, to select indicators for development. Quality and Compliance Quality - By selecting this indicator for Work Plan development, your team is creating an effective practice toward enhancing student transition outcomes. Compliance - By selecting this indicator for Work Plan development, your team is addressing an area covered by New York State regulations. Notes: As your planning team completes the ratings on the TQI portion of the survey, you will notice that indicators are labeled either Quality or Compliance. These labels will help you to determine which indicators to develop into Work Plans for improvement. Selecting a Quality indicator does not preclude work on issues of Compliance. Depending on the nature and scope of the Work Plan, compliance indicators may be addressed as a result of work on a broader topic. For instance, strategies for developing student self-determination (4a2, above) may include inviting students to participate in transition meetings (4a3) as required by regulation. Proceed through all of the ratings to the bottom of the web page. The subsequent sections of this guide concern the development of a Work Plan to improve the practices and outcomes of your transitioning students. Step 5: Select Work Plan To create a new Work Plan: Click on Create New Strategic Work Plan for 4c4 to create a new Work Plan for this indicator. Note: After your planning team has selected one or more indicators to improve, each indicator selected will be gathered onto one screen. Your team must now review each of these indicators to decide which one(s) should be chosen for Work Plan development. Return to this web page to prioritize and develop more indicators, or edit existing Work Plans. Step6: Complete Work Plan Note: The Strategic Work Plan is divided into boxes. At the top of the Work Plan is the topic area, reference number, and indicator your team has selected, and the current rating your team has assigned this indicator. Your Work Plan should directly relate to and support the improvement of this indicator’s rating. The Current Status and Desired Outcome boxes expand to include your teams planning narrative. Whenever possible, refer to actions or conditions that can be observed or measured. Each box can best be explained by answering the related questions contained in that box. Current Status: How would your team describe this issue as it currently exits? What, exactly, is the issue? Desired Outcome: Overall, how would your team like to see this issue improve? What is your team’s vision? Work Plan Development- Tasks Overall Strategy: How will your team go about achieving the desired outcome, in general? What is the framework within which your team will operate? To enter tasks into the Work Plan: 1. Type an observable Task that a team member(s) will take to complete the Work Plan. 2. Type the names of People who will be primarily Responsible for completing the task. 3. Type the month, day, and year that the task will be accomplished. 4. Click the Add Task button to add the task to your team’s task list. 5. Click the Edit button to change the task, person(s) responsible, or date. 6. Click the Delete button to delete a task from the list. Note: This section includes a tool for creating a task list, organized in order of the Due Date. Funding Sources: How will your team pay for the tasks indicated above? What sort of in-kind contributions can your team identify? How results will be measured and documented: How will your team know if your Work Plan was successful? Are there people or things that can be counted or observed for signs of improvement? How results will be used to revise strategies: What is your team’s reflective process? When and where will your team meet again to discuss your progress, change tasks and/or develop a new TransQUAL Work Plan? How results will be shared internally and externally: How will your team celebrate the results of this Work Plan? Who will be informed of your team’s accomplishments, and how? Three Key Questions to Ask Your Team: 1. Does your team’s plan support improvement in your chosen TQI indicator? 2. Is your team’s plan measurable? 3. Have you involved the school district administration (e.g., building principal, superintendent) in the development and implementation of the Work Plan? Work Plan Development – NYS Education Reform Connect your Work Plan to New York State Education Department goals and key performance indicators: 1. Check the boxes that relate to your Work Plan. Your planning team can use these key performance indicators to structure your measurement tools and give weight to your plan. This will also help your team to obtain funding, by linking your efforts to New York State policy and initiatives. This document will become part of a general movement in the state to improve student performance and outcomes. 2. Click on Save Progress to save your work and stay on this page. 3. Click on Save & Return to Workplan List to save your work and return to the Select Work Plan web page. Create Additional Work Plans To edit an existing Work Plan: Click on Edit Strategic Work Plan for 2b3. To create a new Work Plan: Click on Create New Strategic Work Plan for 4c4. Note: When all of the Work Plans are finalized and your team has completed its planning, these selections will be saved in a “View Only” format and cannot be revised. However, the next planning team may find it useful to look at this page in years to come to discover what your team was concerned about, but chose not to develop into a course of action. Close Record To implement a Work Plan and close the record: Click where it reads Yes, close the record now, saving the work in a printer-friendly, read-only format. To complete a Progress Report: Click where it reads Progress Report. Note: Once a team closes their record, they are now free to implement their Work Plan. The next time that the team logs in to their account, they can either begin a new TransQUAL Record, or they can complete a Progress Report. Create Progress Report for Work Plan To measure progress for a Work Plan: Click on Report Progress for 4c4 Work Plan. To view a Strategic Work Plan: Click on View Strategic Work Plan for 4c4. Note: After clicking where it reads Report Progress, the team will be brought to the Progress Report section of TransQUAL. Teams can either view previous work plans, or complete a Progress Report to measure the progress of their efforts. Click where it reads Report Progress for 4c4 Work Plan to begin your teams reflective process for that Work Plan. Progress Report – Current Information Note: At the top of the Progress Report is information about your most recent TransQUAL Record, including the Work Plan date, the Transition Quality Indicator addressed by the Work Plan, and the 1-5 rating that your planning team assigned to that Indicator when your team developed this Record. Progress Report – Team Members To begin filling out your progress report: 1. Enter the Names of team members and select their Role from the pull down menu. 2. Click Add Member after each name and role is entered. Progress Report – Tasks To report your team’s progress: 1. Click No Progress, Partially Completed, or Fully Completed to indicate the current status of each task from your most recent TransQUAL Work Plan. 2. Enter information about any additional tasks, accomplishments and/or changes to your most recent TransQUAL Work Plan. Progress Report – Experiences To reflect on your most recent TransQUAL Work Plan: 1. Make a list of what was successful, easy, and/or fun. Agree on the top three and enter those in the positive experiences text boxes. 2. Next, create a list of what was unsuccessful, difficult, and/or unpleasant about completing your most recent Work Plan. Agree on the top three of these, and enter those in the negative experiences text boxes. Progress Report – New Rating, Future Plans To assign a revised rating for this indicator: 1. Pull down the current 1-5 rating your team has assigned to the indicator listed at the top of the Progress Report. 2. Then type into the boxes detailed evidence to support your team’s revised rating, future plans and any further assistance needed by your team. 3. Click on Save Your Work. Your team can come back to the progress report at any future date(s) and edit the contents. Note: At this point, the Progress Report asks for information regarding the current status of the Transition Quality Indicator. From the pull-down menu select a 1-5 rating that describes the current status of your educational program in relation to the Transition Quality Indicator at the top of the Progress Report. In the next field provide observable details about why your planning team has chosen this new rating. What, exactly, has changed? Be specific! For example, your team could describe a new work experience program, and indicate the number of students who are receiving this service, who would not have been served otherwise. Next, enter your team’s future plans, building on your experiences with TransQUAL. Also indicate the assistance your team anticipates it will need to continue the improvement process. People Search Resources - Click on the TransQUAL Resources button to explore web links, discussions and ways of connecting to other TransQUAL users. These resources will contribute fresh ideas, assist in work plan development and problem-solving issues and barriers. Note: Your team may find it useful to connect with other TransQUAL teams to learn from their experiences or to extend your collaborative efforts. To locate TransQUAL team contact people, click on the People tab. Your team can search by name, by entering a contact person’s first and/or last name and clicking the Go button. Or, a team can browse through team locations until the correct Transition Coordination Site, BOCES Region, or school district is found. Funding Sources Topics - These are the five preliminary questions found in TransQUAL Online. Note: The Funding web page is organized around the five Preliminary Questions to help planning teams learn more about potential sources of funding related to each area of transition. This is not a complete list, but can be a place to start your exploration for funding as your team considers project ideas. Links – Web Site Search Resource Links - Click on the link below the title of the resource to go to the page described. TransQUAL Forum Topics - Click on a topic to pose a question, make an announcement, and view previous postings. Note: Similar to the Resource Links, the Forum web page is organized by the five Preliminary Question topics. By clicking on one of the underlined topics, a Discussion Forum participant can pose a comment, question or concern related to that topic. Note: A response will be posted by the Transition Coordination Site, or by others who frequent this web page. Each of these postings are closely monitored and archived, so that others may learn from these interactions. User’s Guide & Related Documents Note: All of the TransQUAL-related documents are downloadable from the User’s Guide web page. These include the complete User’s Guide, the Transition Quality Indicators, Work Plan and Progress Report templates. For teams who choose to enter their information into TransQUAL after their planning meeting has occurred, these documents can be useful for collecting information in a format that will make data entry easier. Simply click on the title of the document, and the requested document will download onto your computer. Shared TransQUAL Work Plans Note: TransQUAL collaborative planning teams can view the Work Plans that have been posted by other teams in three ways. 1. The most direct way is to click the Shared Work Plans tab and scan down the list of posted work plans, organized by Preliminary Question and the Transition Quality Indicator addressed by the Work Plan. To view the Work Plan itself, click where it says View Work Plan. To view the contact information of the planning team that created the Work Plan, click the name of the team and you will be taken to their contact card, where an email message can be sent. 2. The second way to view a posted work plan is during completion of your assessment, within the Transition Quality Indicators themselves. Click just below the Indicator, where the number of shared Work Plans are indicated. 3. The third way is through the Related Resources pull-down menu, described on the next page. Related Resources Note: The Related Resources pull-down menu provides teams with a more refined list of resources, based on your team’s previous selections. Once your team has selected one or more Preliminary Questions, this menu will bring up TransQUAL resources that relate to those checked Transition Quality Indicators. For instance, if your team selected Student Development from the list of Preliminary Questions, the pull down menu will bring up only those teams, funding links, resource links, threaded discussions, and shared work plans that relate to Student Development. By selecting User’s Guide from this pull-down menu, your team will be able to view the directions out of this User’s Guide that pertain to the current TransQUAL web page. Account Status Note: On the Account Status web page, teams can look at any of their closed records by selecting one from the Select Record pull-down menu. If your team would like this displayed in a printer-friendly format, click the Printer Friendly check box. To share any of your team’s Work Plans with other registered TransQUAL users, select one from the Private Work Plans box and click the Make Public button. To remove a Work Plan from view, select it from the Public Work Plans box and click the Make Private button. Account Information Note: A team can edit their contact information by selecting the Account Info web page and clicking where Edit Member Information is written. It is important to keep this information up to date so that TransQUAL administrators can stay in contact regarding changes to the website. Accurate contact information will also make it easier for other teams to communicate with your team to learn of your efforts or to collaborate on a project. Contacts Note: The Contact List contains the names of contact people from other teams that your team has chosen to communicate with. By clicking Add Contacts your team will be able to search for other TransQUAL teams by name, Transition Coordination Site, BOCES Region, or school district, and add search results to your Contact List. By clicking the name of a contact person, your team will be able to send that person an email message from within TransQUAL. By clicking Remove, your team can remove that contact person from your Contact List. Note: By clicking on the name of the contact person, your team will be able to send him or her an email message from within TransQUAL. By clicking Add Contacts, your team will add that team to your contact list of teams. Important: It is important that your team review your own account information (p. 11) to make sure your contact person’s name and email address are both accurate, so your team can be contacted by others. Messages Note: Your team can view Messages sent to, or received by, other TransQUAL teams. Click on Outbox to view messages received by other teams. Click on Inbox to view messages that were previously sent by your team to others. Click on Delete to delete individual messages from either your Inbox or Outbox. For more information about TransQUAL contact: David Brewer, TransQUAL Manager Employment and Disability Institute Cornell University 201 ILR Extension Building Ithaca, New York 14853-3901 Tel 607.254.4696 Fax 607.255.2763 TTY 607.255.2891 Email drb22@cornell.edu Web www.edi.cornell.edu