Talking Stick - May/June 2018 - 29

crossed-out words where mistakes
were made, and arrows pointing to the
column they meant to write in. Similar
to the mystery of why we always seem
to be missing one sock after a load
of laundry, paper reports can oddly
vanish, leaving staff scrambling and
residents doubting our competence.
Stacy Oliver-Sikorski, associate director of residence life for student success
at Lake Forest College in Illinois, says,
"The electronic process means we
always have the most current version in an easily accessible format."
Unlike paper ones, electronic reports
are readily available, editable, easy to
read, and more accurate. Additionally,
a considerable amount of time, energy,
and resources can be saved by implementing electronic room condition
reports. "Gone are the days of carrying
paperwork to the room and shuffling
it back to the main office where it
can be processed," says Scott Shields,
assistant director of operations at
Northwest Missouri State University
in Maryville. "Processing checkout paperwork at the end of the year used to
take a couple of weeks. Now it's just a
couple of days to process any billing."
Although electronic reports will
save a great amount of time and
energy, the implementation process
can be extensive. The initial creation of
the room inventory and the electronic
room condition report formatting is
time consuming. As Whitney Arbaugh, assistant director of residence
life at Northeastern State University in
Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reports, "It took
us two months to get all the information into our system." Keep in mind
that the people building the electronic
report database will need to know the
specific details of every hall. Since
this could be someone who works on
the administrative, operational, or
technical side of the department, they
may not have spent much time in
the residence halls. Arbaugh recommends that the implementation team

ELECTRONIC ROOM CONDITION REPORTS
HAVE BEEN INTEGRATED INTO MANY STUDENT
HOUSING SOFTWARE PLATFORMS SO THAT
STUDENT STAFF AND PROFESSIONAL STAFF CAN
KEEP RECORDS OF ROOM INSPECTIONS ON THEIR
PHONES, TABLETS, OR LAPTOPS.

do a thorough walk-through of each
residence hall. Once the electronic
system has been created, the initial
inspections will take more time than
usual, as none of the inventory items
have been assessed yet. However, since
the inventory items are editable and
the room condition can be rolled over
every semester, every successive room
condition report should require significantly less time than starting from
scratch with a paper report.
Another benefit of electronic
reports is the positive impact on
the department's relationship with
students, who have noted that they are
simpler, quicker, and easier. Specifically, students have indicated that when
they are filling out their portion of the
report online, the drop-down menus
make them simpler to use because the
wording remains consistent across
campus. Additionally, students appreciate the transparency of the process.
They are able to approve or contest the
condition of their room and have a record of their past reports readily available on their housing accounts. With
some software platforms, students
can even upload pictures of inventory items at check-in and check-out.
Oliver-Sikorski notes that this transparency and access to detailed room
information online "has changed the
tone of the initial check-in conversation with a student or family because,

by the time they arrive on campus, the
link to the form and instructions has
been sent to them. It has improved our
initial contact with families because
they feel more prepared coming into
the space for the first time and understanding how they need to spend the
first 10 or 15 minutes."
In addition to setting up the
electronic reporting process, supervisors and administrators will be relied
on heavily in the initial implementation
for training purposes. Supervisors will
need to develop new ways of keeping
their staff on task and on time. Reports
can be created in the housing software
that allow for accountability, but it will
be a change from simply requiring that
paper reports be completed and handed
in. Shields says, "We've had to up supervision and tracking efforts to make
sure the job is getting done right."
Student communication will
also need to be adjusted. Though the
response has been positive overall,
students at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion noted that it is easy
to forget to fulfill room condition
report requirements since they aren't
responsible for turning in a physical
form. Students will need recurrent
reminders to go online and sign off
on their room condition report or
view any health and safety inspection
violations. The resident directors at Indiana Wesleyan have created an email

MAY + JUNE 2018

Talking Stick - May/June 2018

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