Academic Complaints
Table of Contents:
- 2 Walking through an Incident/Complaint
- 2.1 Step 1 - Review the Incident Report
- 2.2 Step 2 - Case Creation
- 2.2.1 Type and Access Restriction
- 2.2.2 Incident
- 2.2.3 Involved Parties
- 2.2.4 Assignment and Status
- 2.2.5 Issue
- 2.2.6 Notes
- 2.2.7 Tasks
- 2.2.8 Files
- 2.3 Letter Generation
- 2.4 Step 3 - Case Resolution Form (CRF)
- 2.5 In short....
This page outlines the procedure when working on academic related complaints within Maxient. Maxient Conduct Manager software is the program SDCCD uses to centralize our reporting and recordkeeping of both on and off-campus student complaints as well as other conduct and mandated reporting. Whether it’s student discipline, academic issues, concern, Title IX or 504, Maxient is used to document all things related to conduct and well-being.
Maxient Security
Maxient is a secure platform that requires authorization and approval before access is granted.
Much of the information contained in Maxient is private and/or confidential. Therefore, access
is controlled and ONLY granted to individuals who meet the following criteria:
Accessing Maxient
Once you receive confirmation that your account has been activated with Maxient, visit https://cm.maxient.com/sdccd and login using your SDCCD network credentials:
Once you login, you will be brought to your Case Manager screen as shown below:
Effective August 1st, Maxient will be updating the user interface, if you are seeing this prior, you can switch to the new look by clicking here:
Maxient Interface Walkthrough
The Case Manager screen is divided into three sections:
The sidebar - This is where you’ll navigate through the different sections of Maxient. Depending on your level of access you may see more/less than the example shown above.
Main Window - This is where you’ll be interfacing and will display the page you selected from the sidebar to the left.
Top Menu - This is where you can view your profile, visit help guides, log out, or other important notifications.
Walking through an Incident/Complaint
When walking through an incident/complaint in Maxient, users will follow the flow on the left hand navigation. Typically there are three steps when working with complaints:
Incident Reports - This is where users will review the case and make sure the information and content is complete. Most of the time the form will require a minimum amount of information needed for you to address the complaint.
Creating/Update a Case - This is the bread/butter of Maxient. Here, users will create a case file which will contain one more user case files (specific people involved with the complaint). In most cases, you’ll just create one case for the complaintant.
Case Resolution Form - This is where you document the outcome of the case. This is important to help “close the loop” and helps drive analytics you can use to help improve student outcomes.
Step 1 - Review the Incident Report
Users will be notified by notifications@maxient.com of any new submission that gets sent to them. You’ll typically see the subject read “Reporter Name (via Maxient)” and will receive an email like below:
Everything about the case will be contained in that email. To act on the complaint login to Maxient and when you login you should see something appear in your “Pending IRs (#)” queue:
From here you can view the incident report again as well as any attachments (1). When you’re ready to act on the incident report, you can click on the drop down menu (2).
There will be several options for you to choose from:
Option | Description/Purpose |
|---|---|
Edit | Edit the incident report, this should typically only be done when you are notified that the reporter needs to update something on the original request. Otherwise you would make any modifications/additions to the incident on the Case file itself. |
Create Case | Takes you to the first step in the Case Creation process |
Create Case (Classic) | This function will be deprecated and will be removed. |
Reassign to: | If you notice that this case should fall to another Dean, please select this option and select their username. You may add in additional comments and it will assign the case to the new user and notify them via email. |
Merge with IR for Case | This option is to merge multiple/duplicate IR reports to a single case. One example would be if several students are submitting a complaint for the same professor in the same class around the same incident. If there are different incidents but for the same professor/class it should be assigned it’s own case. |
Move into EFC | This just moves the incident report to the Electronic File Cabinet (EFC). This is typically only used for historical purposes or when archiving records. |
Set Aside | This is typically used for other types of Maxient reports and is not applicable for Academic/Instructional related complaints |
Discard | This removes the IR from the system. This is only used when the student chooses to withdraw their complaint. |
Step 2 - Case Creation
When creating a case in Maxient, you will be putting all the pieces together regarding the incident/complaint you are reviewing. Here you will be adding your own notes and observations and include any conversations, documentation or other important information to help you try and resolve the case.
When creating a case, you will be given an overall case number and a File ID. Case involves everyone involved in the case. File involves one person involved with the case (e.g. complaintant, professor, etc.)
Type and Access Restriction
This page you will define what sort of case it is and who has access to review the case. In this scenario both will be “academic” but in the future there may be different case types such as “Grade Challenge”
Once you select “Academic” go ahead and click on Save and continue
Incident
This page you will be documenting who referred the report (1) (in some cases a referral may be by another staff person):
Here you will make sure the information pulled from the incident report is accurate. This includes making sure the reported by, email, location, date are all accurate. The only field you will need to enter here would be the Referred By and the Incident Summary (2). Once completed hit “Save and continue”
The Incident Summary is your interpretation of the incident and complaint. This will be used in the Maxient letters and other reports.
Involved Parties
This section is pulling information from the Incident Report submitted by the reporter. Here you will see all involved parties associated with the complaint. In the example below the reporter (complainant) submitted both their names:
Maxient will try and see if the person exists in the database, students with the same name will be flagged with a “prior cases” where you can see if the person is referenced in another case. While making sure the other information is correct, the key field is SID or Student/Empl ID. This is the same 10-digit number found in Campus Solutions.
If the ID number is not known, or if the person is not associated with SDCCD, then enter in the person’s drivers license or state ID number. If that information is not available, add in a prefix of “NA” (for Not Associated) along with other identifying numbers. (e.g. NA00001)
When you open cases in the future for non-students, it is best to look up priors on that name first to see if you have had a case for them before. If you have, then be sure to use the same ID number.
Assignment and Status
This section is used to assign a person(s) to work with the individual identified in the case. Normally this would be the person who will reach out to the individual to get more information if needed or for the person to reference in the event the individual has questions.
You may also use Maxient to help organize appointments, if you have the calendar sync setup with outlook it will also create an invite on your calendar. At this point you can save and create the case (if you’re not ready to complete the full case yet) or you can save and continue:
Issue
The issue section allows you to indicate what sort of issue is in effect. Currently there will be three options under the ACADEMIC section:
Course Content - The complaint is regarding the content of the course, this may include course materials or other components of course curriculum.
Facility - The complaint is regarding the facility or classroom. This may include quality, odors, accessibility or other items. Please note, if the complaint is regarding a physical barrier to access, it may be a 504/ADA complaint.
Instructor - The complaint is regarding the instructor.
You can apply the issue to all person(s) in the case by clicking on “Everyone” under “Add to” and click add, or you can assign it to each person tied to the case individually.
Notes
This section allows you to create and access notes. This is purely for your documentation and record keeping purposes. Reminder: Anything entered here is tied to the student’s record.
Now that you know the Notes fields break downs, there are three questions to ask yourself to determine where to place a note:
Is this note student specific or case specific?
Should this note be something only I should edit or should anyone be able to make changes to it?
Is this note for my personal knowledge only?
Tasks
Tasks are basically a "to do" list in the system. They can help keep your process both consistent and on-track. They can also be a wonderful training tool for hearing officers who are new to their role. Tasks can be assigned to anyone, even if they are not the person to whom the case is assigned. This increases your ability to work collaboratively on cases. Let’s take a look at a task so you can see what goes into it.
Task | The thing you need to do. Remembers what you have recently entered and suggests those items (ex: Call student, Schedule hearing, Send initial letter). |
Category | Some kind of grouping (ex: Initial steps, Meetings, Communication). Defined on the configuration screen, meaning this is set by the institution. |
Due date | When it is due. |
Description | Details about the task, might be left blank. |
Applies to | When building the task you can decide if it should apply to an individual, the case, or every individual in the case. The last option will copy the task for each individual in the case. From that point, each task will be managed independently. |
Assigned to | The user responsible for handling the task. Can be a specific user or set to the "person case is assign to" which insert the user to whom the case is assigned at the time of task creation. |
The rule is: If you can see the case, you can see the tasks. There is no further hiding tasks within a case. The one exception to the rule is if a task is assigned to you, but you do NOT have access to the case. You will still see the task on the Homescreen and the Manage Tasks screen. However, if you click to view the case, you will still be locked out. It would create a black hole of tasks if folks could assign tasks to other users that they couldn’t see, leaving the assigner to wonder why the task wasn’t being completed. This way, the person who has been assigned the task can communicate with the person who assigned it to them about whether they need access to the case, if the task can be done without case access, or if the task needs to be reassigned to someone else.
Files
This is your Electronic File Cabinet or EFC. This is where you can attach any documentation that you want associated with the case. Common document types include images, emails, screenshots, videos, etc.
Finally! You can go ahead and save and create your case by clicking on the button below:
This will lead towards the confirmation that the case was created successfully:
Letter Generation
Maxient is able to send letters/memos to individuals within the system. One of the benefits of using this function is that you have a record that an email as sent, additionally you would be able to track if the student opened the email.
Link to instructions: Generating Letters in Maxient - mySDCCD Info Hub - mySDCCD Wiki
Emailing using Outlook and Sync with Maxient
You can still use Maxient to automatically sync any emails you sent via outlook. While you won’t be able to see if the recipient accessed the email, you can have email correspondence sent from outlook automatically saved in the case’s EFC. To do so:
Pull up the case by going to “Update Case” in the left hand nav and go to your EFC:
Click on the “Copy case email address to clipboard” button
Paste that email address in the CC field in outlook
In order for this to work, the email address given to you by Maxient must be in the CC field. So if the recipient replies and you don’t see it, be sure to add it back on.
If done correctly, you should now see it your EFC:
Step 3 - Case Resolution Form (CRF)
The Case Resolution Form (CRF) is a summary document that ensures resolution data is properly and consistently entered into your system. It also provides a one-page summary of a decision (helpful for appeals process)". The CRF has required fields to ensure consistency, and allows your users to complete detail fields for sanctions on one screen, which ensures that any automatic sanction alerts include all of the relevant information. In short, it is the most efficient and effective means for resolving a case.
You can access the CRF via the "Complete CRF" button on the left-hand navigational menu or for a specific case under the "Action" menu on the "Today's Schedule," "Unheard Cases," or "Overdue Cases" tabs on your Maxient home screen.
When you access a CRF, you will see some demographic information regarding the individual and the Resolution Information section. In this section, you may view documents in the Electronic File Cabinet (EFC) as necessary. Just under this section, you will select the Resolution Type, Hearing Officer/Administrator, and Resolution Date. *Please note that some of the titles of some of the dropdown menus through the CRF may be modified based on the case type.*
II. Issue and Finding
Section II displays the Issues and Findings and allows you to select a finding (if applicable).
III. Outcome, IV Additional Sanctions and V. Rationale
In Section III, you will see the option to select the appropriate sanctions, but can also view the individual's prior cases for other relevant information.
For academic complaints, there are no conduct pieces so outcomes won’t be needed. This is usually done in Policy 5500 student conduct cases.
Section IV - If you have additional conditions that apply to your sanctions or sanctions that apply for a specific, unique situation, you can add them in the following section, along with selecting any individuals who should be copied on the outcome letter.
Options
Prior to reviewing the CRF, you choose to display CRF Resolution options (if present) and signature blocks on the CRF review screen. If not being used, you may simply select "No/No, skip the signatures.”
For Academic Complaints, you would select “No” and “No, skip the signatures”
After clicking "Review this CRF", you will be brought to a summary. Reviewing the CRF is an important step to confirm that you have completed the Resolution information correctly. The yellow box at the top of the next screen reminds you that this CRF is not yet finalized and still needs some attention. This will display all of the information that you have selected on the previous screen.
Finalize Case Resolution
When the resolution is confirmed, and the information in the CRF should be transferred to the Update Existing Case screen, the user should select the "Finalize" tab from the bottom of the CRF Review screen.
When finalizing the CRF, the user has two options:
Option 1 - The case can be resolved, which will transfer the information into the Update Existing Case screen and send associated automatic sanction alerts. The data is then available for analytics and letter merge fields. The decision is now also ready for your appeal process, if appropriate. More information about hearing an appeal can be found here.
Option 2 - If the information associated with the CRF is not yet the final decision, you can save a copy of the CRF in the EFC by selecting the "No" option. In selecting this option, the resolution information fields are not updated on the Update Existing Case screen and a new CRF can be completed at any time. None of the information that had been selected will be available for analytics or for letter merge fields.
In addition to finalizing the CRF, the user can also reassign the case, add or remove tags, update the status, deadline date, and reason, and send a Ping. Don't forget to click Finalize CRF, regardless of the option you select under the question "Has this case been resolved?".
At this point the case is resolved. If you need to send correspondents be sure to do so at this point.
In short....
The CRF is a critical step in any workflow that includes information about resolution type, date, findings, and sanctions. It allows you to update your case with resolution information in an efficient manner and allow you to send your sanction alerts with all of the relevant information. Consistent use of the CRF ensures consistent information will be retained for your resolutions and will result in better data populating your analytics in the long run.