How to Avoid a Scandal Using Higher Ed Case Management Software

Colleges and universities are bustling with activity. Classes and events fill campuses with students, staff, visiting athletes, prospective students, and members of the public. These activities make campus life vibrant, but they can also lead to a wide array of incidents at any time of day, any day of the week.If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the volume and variety of cases your institution needs to manage daily, consider switching to a dedicated case management system. In this guide, we’ll outline the types of incidents you could encounter, explain the investigation process, and demonstrate why higher ed case management software is the best option for handling incidents.

Types of University Incidents

Whether your institution has a few hundred students or tens of thousands, one campus or many, is online or on campus, you have to deal with a wide variety of high-profile risks. The sheer number and size of college investigations can make it tough to keep up, especially at schools with few investigative staff.Taking too long to address incidents not only adds stress to investigators but can also lead to a lawsuit from the alleged victim, if they feel that they were harmed further by the delay. To reduce your institution’s risk, make sure you have investigative teams in place to handle:

• Title IX complaints (discrimination and sexual harassment)
• Employment discrimination complaints (age, race, disability, religion, etc.) under Title VII
• Student conduct
• Faculty and staff conduct (human resources/employee relations)
• Residence and Greek life issues
• Disability accommodations under the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
• Academic integrity violations for both students and faculty
• BIT/CARE/TAT cases
• Campus violence (including Clery Act reporting)
• Health and safety incidents
• Data security breaches
• Other ethics and compliance concerns

To reduce risk and conduct successful investigations, you’ll need to have procedures in place to receive complaints, triage those complaints, gather information and evidence, conduct interviews in person and virtually, write final reports, and analyze incident data to prevent future issues.

Higher Education Investigation Steps

Before you can investigate any incidents, you need to know that they occurred. That’s why a robust intake system is essential for every college and university. Your intake system should be easy for students, faculty, and the public to use and offer multiple reporting options (e.g. phone hotline, email, online form). The faster you receive and address complaints, and the more information you can gather before you begin, the lower your risk of fines and lawsuits.Next, your institution should use an incident triage protocol. Not every complaint or report warrants a formal investigation. For example, the complaint might be unfounded or could be resolved through informal conflict resolution methods. You might also need to prioritize a new report (i.e. a sexual assault) over existing cases in your backlog (i.e. a first plagiarism offense). Triage your reports by categorizing them into threat levels based on potential harm to the complainant and to your institution. Then, tackle them in threat level order, from most to least serious.If you’ve decided to investigate an incident, you'll need to gather evidence and information, as well as conduct interviews with the complainant, subject of the complaint, and any witnesses. Be sure to keep each party up to date with the investigation’s progress to ease their minds. This is also the stage where you should consult external experts or members of other departments (such as lawyers or IT) so you gain the most thorough understanding of what happened.You’ve gathered all the information you needed and reached a conclusion. Now it’s time to write a final investigation report to share your findings and recommendations with stakeholders. Many investigators find this to be the most tedious yet stressful step, as reports must be compliant with relevant laws, thorough, and error-free. Your case summary will be used to justify disciplinary actions or policy updates, so it should be easy for stakeholders to understand (i.e. free of jargon). In Title IX cases, share your report with both the complainant and the accused person to give them the opportunity to appeal.Finally, conduct analysis of your case data. Have you seen a spike in campus violence? Has one dorm experienced more incidents than the others? Have you received multiple reports of discrimination against one professor? Identify patterns and risk areas to inform your institution’s policies, procedures, and safety measures to help reduce issues.