BAG Meeting

The third Business Action Group (BAG) for student engagement systems (SES) meeting owas held on 3rd October 2012.  Items discussed included a technical update which outlined the new features available on the system.  There was a comprehensive dicussion concerning the new attendance monitoring project and how it superceeded the SES in all things attendance at the university.  The system user manual draft was accepted and the first version is now available online to all system users.  Also Yanging Duan provided a SIMIE project update and the four new Student Engagment Monitors were introduced to the meeting.  As the system was now moving to a business as usual phase it was announced that in the future the chair of the BAG (SES User group) would be the new Senior Student Engagement Adviser and that an End of Project report would be tabled at the next Student Information Systems Project Board.

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

The JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 27 November 2012, focused on deciding the next course of action. Considering that the Student Engagement System (SES) has now been implemented and will be managed by a new User Group with around 100 direct users, the project team decided that it is time to focus on the evaluation of SES use, impact and key issues. A questionnaire survey will be developed to conduct an internal audit of SES, which will be sent to all users in electronic format. In addition, the project team will approach ICT managers to discuss the possible use of JISC tools for the purpose of evaluating UOB strategic IS development.

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

The JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 30 Oct 2012, focused on updating the university wide IS development and deciding the next course of action.

Update of University wide IS development

·         Student Attendance monitoring project is still ongoing. The project is generally on target. Most of large lecturer theatres have UHF-REFID device installed. Data are submitted to faculties. There are some technical issues to be solved.

·         Student Attendance monitoring data are still not linked to the timetabling system.

·         ISD is now called “ICT”. Two new directors have taken their role. One is responsible for ICT infrastructure, and another for corporate information systems (CIS). The new CIS director should be informed about the JISC project and, if possible, invited to attend next monthly SIMES meeting.

·         The university SES project is formally finished and the system is business as usual now. The end of project report has been signed off by the student information systems board. SES is now being dealt with at the high level management board (VCMG).

·         The second phase of SES has started. Currently two distinct user groups in the university: faculty administration staff and student engagement monitors. Each faculty has one student engagement monitor in place. BAG (SES business action group) meeting is replaced with SES user group meeting that is scheduled in Jan 2013.

Update on project progress

·         BAG meeting attended by all team members. JISC project manager Vincent One (BI project) and Yanqing Duan (Transformation project) contributed to the discussion on SES functionality and use.

·         SES BI project (JISC) has been successfully completed. Case study report is distributed to relevant staff members. The project showcase video is circulated widely in the university to raise the awareness of the SES system and its potential impact on the strategic use of the system. The video has been well received among colleagues.

The project team members will work with the SES user groups for the most effective use of SES and maximizing the system impact at the operational and strategic level.