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Summary of SITS Development Progress: 03 Sep 2013

Summary of SITS Development Progress: 03 Sep 2013. IT PROJECTS. Initiation. Requirements. Design & Build. Test. Implement. Closed down. Executive Summary. 1 - PBI and Enrolment – Lynne Campbell.

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Summary of SITS Development Progress: 03 Sep 2013

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  1. Summary of SITS Development Progress: 03 Sep 2013

  2. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 1 - PBI and Enrolment – Lynne Campbell • The developments will support compliance requirements for the issuing of CAS and tracking students. Achievements so far Amendments have been made to the staff enrolment, the pre-enrolment and re-enrolment tasks The pre- and re-enrolment tasks were made live in mid-August and are currently being used by students Final amendments made to staff enrolment task following testing at the end of last week Work is progressing on a MySIS task to manage/monitor in country visa applications and student reporting requirements Benefits Summary Supports compliance with the Home Office for issuing CAS and reporting students to the Home Office, with better data and applicant/student management. Activities planned for next period Proceed with the build of the MySIS visa monitoring task Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) The Home Office and the UKBA can change aspects of Points Based Immigration with very little warning and time to implement and test the necessary changes

  3. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 2 - Paperless Registry - Brendan Hewitt Students wanting to change their study status, i.e. change programme, interrupt studies or withdraw, must do so by submitting a request on paper to their department. Once the request has been approved by a departmental representative, the form is passed to the Academic Registry Office for processing. This project's aim is to replace the paper-based process with an online process using the Student Information System's web-portal, MySIS. Achievements so far Benefits Summary • A review was carried out of existing processes. The first paperless registry forum was convened. A Proof of Concept development demonstrating an online withdrawal process was presented and well received. There is scope to increase efficiency and improve student satisfaction, the extent of which can only be quantified at the end of the requirements analysis. Possible increase in retention owing to early warnings. Activities planned for next period Project Milestone Tracker Meet with departmental representatives to map what each department's current process is. Record how the current status change processes update tables. Risks and Issues (with mitigation) Understanding the variety of unique processes for each department and finding an acceptable common ground may affect the timeline for requirement definition and specification. This would impact on the delivery date and budget.

  4. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 3 – Results Processing & Reporting – Brendan Hewitt • Problems occurred last year around the results release period whereby hundreds of students attempted to log into MySIS to view their results. The system struggled with the increase in demand and a need to communicate this information to students more efficiently was identified. Achievements so far A development was put into place before this year’s results release period which emailed students with their provisional and confirmed results respectively. Benefits Summary Improve and standardise the viewing of results Provide breakdown of previous year’s results Provide the ability to e-mail results to students thus reducing excessive load on SITS when exams results are published Activities planned for next period None – project has now closed but will be subject to review and continuous service improvement. Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) N/A

  5. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 4 – Student Information Reports – Jason Bunning Improved access to information for staff and students. Achievements so far The prioritised list of developments have been received and appropriate people within ARCS identified as the contacts for exact requirements and criteria. It has been identified which reports will be produced by the SITS team, the Development Team and which will be delivered by the new Reporting Services tool. Reporting and BI team now appointed within ITS Developments made have increased exam board report performance by a factor of 10 since last year. Benefits Summary Module Choice / Confirmation / Assessment Report Improved SEB and DEB Reports Provisional Board Report Finalist Awards Report Emailing advisees Student Self-Serve Reports View Student Module Results Report Displaying year averages in transcripts Viewing student resits by student as well as by module Council Tax Exemption Notification View enrolment by Dept / Scheme Activities planned for next period The ARCS contacts identified as the report owners will be contacted and a more detailed specification will be agreed upon. SQL development work will begin on producing the raw data sets and discussions will be had about the best way of delivering this information via self-service mechanisms Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) The new college BI tool will not be ready for use for a number of months and newly appointed members of the Development Team may require training to use the enterprise reporting tool. In the event of the new Reporting Services tool being delayed, it is possible to use the current bespoke in-house report delivery vehicle managed by the Development Team

  6. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 8 - Enterprise Service Desk – Jason Bunning • Main Deliverables • To deliver a student focused electronic service desk where enquiries and requests for information can be submitted 24/7 • To provide a repository of information to prospective and current students to assist in any enquiries • To monitor service level agreements are being met and enhance the student experience Achievements this week Prepared Executive PID. Liaised with TRIBAL regarding specifics on the project deliverables and timelines. Agreed a discount of ~£2.5k if we commit by 27th September. Benefits Summary Ability to gather enquiries and have them automatically logged and allocated to relevant department/team leader. Any file attachments will be uploaded to the new enquiry Email responses containing an enquiry number automatically added to the enquiry history Support telephone and email bookings and enquiries Provide greater electronic interaction with target groups Allows prospective students to make enquiries via the web, upload documents, track progress to resolution, and communicate with helpdesk staff Enquiries automatically allocated to the appropriate team based on enquiry categories Automatic creation of service level agreements support student experience A searchable database repository for common enquiries or recurring issues. Standardised approach to service delivery Metrics / management reports to identify most common enquiries, letter requests, meeting of service level agreements, etc. Activities planned for next period ESD proposal to be made to the Student Systems Steering Group for assessment. If agreed, a PO will be raised with TRIBAL and escalated through the procurement process. Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) We have been offered a discount on the new software and consultancy work which will expire by the 27th September. Procurement costs will increase if a commitment is not made in sufficient time. This proposal will be submitted to the Student Systems Steering Group on the 5th September and then to the Technical Design Authority. To address the deadlines, this proposal will be escalated through the procurement process. As this is a hosted solution and one which requires consultancy, our timelines are dependent on the resource availabilities within TRIBAL. This is outside of our control.

  7. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary 12 – SITS Upgrade & Migration – Jason Bunning Annual upgrade of SITS software necessary for continued vendor support Upgrade of Oracle database from 10g to 11g Migration of systems to DC1 & DC2 in keeping with the ITS Service Change Programme Achievements so far ITS have provided a sandbox environment running SITS 8.5.1 on Oracle 11g. The team have been using this development environment and have identified some issues with the database upgrade which are being resolved. A project plan has been produced which details the steps and timelines needed. QM’s two data centres are now online and able to host the various SITS environments Benefits Summary Greater resilience Efficient Disaster recovery processes Increase in performance from a user perspective Ability to quickly add extra resources/servers during times of heavy load Easier systems administration Overall cost reduction in hardware and support Activities planned for next period ITS will provide the various 8.6.0 and 8.6.1 environments to allow the Student Systems team to begin analysing the software upgrades. UAT testing by ARCS for 8.6.0 is due to commence in November following the oncoming busy business period. Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) It has been reported that our current physical production database is running out of disk space, which can not be expanded owing to limitations with the hardware. Should the migration and upgrade project become delayed, there is a real risk that our current live system may run into difficulties with insufficient storage capacity. A solution to this would be to truncate some of the major logging tables on the database.

  8. IT PROJECTS Initiation Requirements Design & Build Test Implement Closed down Executive Summary Progression, Award and Classification (PAC) Rules Concerns were raised by External Examiners about the lack of equity in progression, award and classification criteria. The Quality and Assurance Agency has also been critical to such practices in the sector, and for these reasons a Task and Finishing Group was established by Senate to make recommendations for the harmonisation of QM Regulations. This project’s main objective is to model the changes to the academic regulations in the Student Information System, SITS:Vision. 13 - PAC Rules - Elaine Ellul Achievements so far • A significant number of rules have been changed for consistency • The new awards “MSc Gastro” and “MSc Marine Ecology” were defined • Late Summer progression rules for Law built. • Commenced planning ‘weighted’ average calculations. Benefits Summary • This will standardise the progression and award rules, which will simplify the maintenance required annually. • Equity for students across programmes within the same schema, e.g. UG programmes • Knowledge transfer to ARCS to address single points of dependency Activities planned for next period • Focus on completing ‘weighted’ average calculations. Project Milestone Tracker Risks and Issues (with mitigation) • Only one expert in this particular area. • Non-completion would mean students cannot be progressed and/or awarded automatically. In this event, records could be manually updated.

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