Autism and Neurodiversity

Introduction

Incoming college students with diverse backgrounds, challenges and academic needs are on the rise and the request for additional academic and non-academic support in college has increased substantially. In addition, students with learning disabilities, psychiatric disabilities and attention deficit disorder are also entering college and are the largest group of students with disabilities entering college (Koch et. Al, 2018). With this increase in need for student support, it is imperative that the proper student services at an institution enhance outcomes and reduce the costs to the university (Blum & Jarrat, 2014).



The Need

The Center for Autism and Neurodiversity (CAN) is one of the leading college autism programs in the United States and a major draw for many students to attend Drexel University. CAN currently supports over 150 students and continues to grow each year. However, the program presently uses Excel spreadsheets to keep track of their students, and the spreadsheets are manually and sporadically updated. Once a quarter, an email with a list of student ID’s is sent to the research team to update the information in Tableau. CAN is in dire need of an automated system to keep accurate records and CAN student notes. In addition, CAN has a relationship with the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) in Pennsylvania. Another spreadsheet is used to keep record of student’s eligibility, approvals, and status with OVR. Combining all of these components into one system would be ideal for the efficiency of the program, enhance outcomes, and reduce costs to Drexel.



The Project

This project involves the design and implementation of a secure, HIPAA compliant, software system that integrates with the Banner Student Information System to support the unique needs of CAN for niche advising and program‑level analysis. The application will retrieve, normalize, and organize Banner data without modifying institutional records, emphasizing data integrity, access control, and secure system integration, while allowing CAN to maintain up to date records and notes for their students. It only needs a one way communication from Banner to CAN.



Data retrieved from Banner will include student demographics, enrollment and academic status, advisor assignments, program and major information, co‑op and graduation timelines, consent and compliance indicators, meeting and engagement milestones, attributes, and structured advising notes. The application will store this data in a secondary application database optimized for querying, filtering, and longitudinal analysis.



From a Computer Science perspective, the project emphasizes API‑based system integration, relational data modeling, authentication and role‑based access control, backend service design, and frontend data visualization. The software will provide a web‑based interface that allows authorized users to search, filter, and analyze student records by term, advisor, academic program, participation status, and compliance indicators, while preserving FERPA‑aligned read‑only access constraints.



The final system will demonstrate applied software engineering skills including requirements analysis, modular architecture design, schema mapping from an enterprise system, secure data access patterns, and performance‑conscious querying. This project aims to reduce manual data reconciliation for advisors while serving as a technically rigorous example of real‑world institutional software integration.

‌References



Blum, A., & Jarrat, D. (2014). Using student services to enhance outcomes and reduce costs. InsideTrack, “Stretching the higher education dollar” American Enterprise Institute conference, October 2014, p. 2-4, http://www.insidetrack.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/using-student-services-to-enhance-outcomes.pdf. View in article



Koch, L. C., Lo, W. J., Mamiseishvili, K., Lee, D., & Hill, J. (2018). The effect of learning disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and psychiatric disabilities on three-year persistence outcomes at four-year higher education institutions. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 48(3), 359-367.