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Case study in institutional/supplier partnership; communicating timetables to student. ARC/JISC Timetabling Group University of Westminster, London. Leon Smith, Head of Timetabling Services, MMU Tony Vicente, Business Development Manager, Scientia. Overview. Who we are Context The project
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Case study in institutional/supplier partnership; communicating timetables to student ARC/JISC Timetabling Group University of Westminster, London Leon Smith, Head of Timetabling Services, MMU Tony Vicente, Business Development Manager, Scientia
Overview Who we are Context The project Benefits of collaboration Lessons learned
Who we are – MMU Number of students 34,595 Number of staff (all) 2,150 Number of campuses 4 Timetabling operation Centralised Active Modules 5,106
Who we are – Scientia Leading provider of HE Scheduling Solutions 400 + Global user base 55% UK market share
Context A League table rankings Marketing & RecruitmentProcesses Reputation C B Learning, Teaching, Assessment & Personal DevelopmentProcesses, Facilities & Resources Student Intake (Aspirations, Attitude& Abilities) Student RetentionSuccess & Satisfaction Resource allocation 2010 NSS Where to intervene? All Year Numbers A C B Inform decision-makers Recruit to target Improve satisfaction, retention & success
EQAL In the current climate • New Curriculum • designing new units, … • A coordinated strike for step-change improvement but • New Admin Systems & Processes • personal timetabling, … Diminishing unit of resource Programme Board chaired by DVC Student Experience but but • New Virtual Learning Environment • Moodle & myMMU web/mobile, Talis Aspire… Everything depends on everything else • New QA & QE Processes • facilitating curriculum transformation but but We are large and risk averse
Context – who collaborated Timetabling Services Learning and Research Technologies IT Services Scientia
The Project: Objectives Key deliverables for the Timetabling project strand: Individual student timetables supplied from the timetabling system Earlier publication of timetable information to staff and students Improved shape of timetable to better meet student expectations Enhanced systems support for timetable design, delivery and related services This required: Process redesign New technical solutions System upgrades and extensions A phased approach, with timetable deliverables building up year-on-year over the lifetime of the project
The Project: Process Curriculum available from SRS by beginning of January Staff availability submitted by end of February Returning student options available end of March All taught delivery structures delivered by beginning of April Draft timetables issued beginning of June Individual induction timetables (applicants and returning students) published mid July Final course timetables published end of August Individual student timetable conversion complete by end of induction week
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence news, eventsdeadlines, reading The Project: The Technology email, storage past exams, digitizations deadlines, enrolments resource lists timetables moodle.mmu.ac.uk
Challenges Standardising process and development cycle Ensuring data correctly structured for accurate individual timetable information Accommodating interim arrangements where some students received individual information and others didn’t Combining data from different sources into a single unified individual calendar view Keeping student statuses up to date
Systems design and configuration • Develop SWS templates which enabled content to be scraped programmatically • Build lookup table to record student statuses • Ensure token passing for single sign-on was in place • Validate student against SRS (QLS)
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence The Output Student ID Timetable Sync to personal device
Areas of collaboration Look-up for contextual individualisation Integrated attendance monitoring database Self registration web portal Bespoke change notification framework Remote technical support
Benefits of collaboration Shared understanding and knowledge exchange Taking advantage of relevant expertise Shared costs for commercially desirable developments Improved continuity planning and risk management
Lessons learned Ensure there is clarity over roles Make sure requirements and specifications are clear on all sides Have robust forms of both formal and informal communication