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.

The third meeting of the Student Engagement System (SES) Business Action Group (BAG) was held on 3rd October 2012.

Items discussed included:

• Technical update - new software features added - filter tab - requests for changes
• A discussion of the UoB aattendance project - supersedes SES attendance functionality
• Update on attendance equipment installations
• Draft user manual was accepted - now live for all users on the University intranet
• SIMIE project update by Yanqing Duan
• New Engagement Monitors introduced to the meeting
• Now that the SES was in a business as usual phase the chair of the BAG/User Group would pass to the new Senior Engagement Adviser
• End of Project report to be submitted to the next Student Information Systems Programme Board

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

The JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 19 June 2012, focused on updating the university wide IS development and deciding the next course of action. The main university IS development includes the appointment of two new deputy IS managers responsible for IS and infrastructure, the planning of the integration of SES and SITS, new BI tools and other devices to be used to better support SES, and new software licence to be purchased to allow more users to access SES. The team decided that the evaluation matrix for appraising the current status of the project and the needed change will be circulated at next BAG meeting for comments.

Yanqing attended the Business Action Group (BAG) for student engagement systems (SES) meeting on 26 April. She provided an update on two JISC projects: Business Intelligence project and transformation project. The revised EA questionnaires were distributed to the meeting participants. Yanqing introduced the six key enablers for strategic use of student engagement systems in the university and drew BAG meeting participants attention to the importance of considering the long term use and impact of SES.

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

Our monthly JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 25 April 2012. University wide IS updates included: SES is to be integrated with Personal Tutoring Systems,  SES monitoring equipment will be installed in every teaching facility, and data-warehousing system will extract data from SiTs (student record system), Timetabling, and attendance databases.

Other University IT announcements includes the opening of the University Repository Service to direct submission by staff. Training sessions have been arranged throughout May but direct support will be available for staff if large scale data enty is required.

It was agreed that the terms of reference for the Steering Group is to drafted to clarify the membership, objectives and planned meeting of the Steering Group. It was agreed that the key function of the Steering Group will be to review the SIMSE project progress and implementation against the original objectives of the project application.

We had our first Steering Group (SG) meeting on 30 April. Six people attended the meeting representing key stakeholders of student engagement systems in the university (Senior management.(academic and student experience), planning in registry, ISD). Project Leader introduced the JISC transformational programme and the UoB's transformation project SIMSE. Terms and references were discussed and accepted. The draft SICT implementation plan was discussed and approved. It was agreed that the project should focus on three key strategic ICT enablers: ICT governance, commnucations and engagement, and ICT shared services.

Next SG meeting will be in six month later (Nov/Dec).

Student Attendance Monitoring

I am presuming as a response to the value being attached to the Student Engagement System (SES) data warehouse a new project is to be undertaken to introduce a student attendance data warehouse alongside the SES.  This is at the initial planning phase but quick progress is being made.  The project will be in three phases.  UHF RFID equipment will be installed at University entrance/exists.  This will be of great benefit to the SES as there will then be full coverage of people onsite so that those requiring further support, as they have not been on the premises, can be quickly contacted and any problems can be rapidly resolved.

The second Phase will be to install monitoring stations in all University classrooms and last but by no means will least be a data warehouse project to link the attendance data with the student record system and the timetabling system.  Although, this will be a large scale development it will provide a crucial role in supporting several prominent business imperatives that are in the new draft strategic plan.

Student Engagement System

On Friday 20th April the revised Student Engagement System was presented to the Monthly Head of Department meeting.  There was a live demonstration of the fully functioning system and an explanation of how the system worked, how it was being used and future a related projects.  It was explained that the original concept of the system remained the same as back in 2009 and all the technical issues had been resolved.  The positive influence on the system of the JISC BI project was discussed and it was explained that a second section "Dev Tab" of the system was available to all users and they had been tasked with evaluating enhancements that had come about because of the project.

Concept: A system to automatically identify students who are starting to disengage but not impose any extra administration by using data that is already being stored in University systems and then analysing what has happened in the last few days, while recognising the patterns will vary from course to course

SIMSE project meeting on 20 March 2012

SIMSE project team members met on 20 March 2012. The project team shared information on university wide IS development and updates on the current project development. Below is an outline of project development and issues discussed in the meeting:

• Draft implementation plan was made ready for discussion.
• The original BAG participants questionnaire was revised based on the initial feedback. The revised questionnaire was sent to BAG members again. Six responses have been received so far.
• · The first SG meeting was scheduled on Monday 26 March. The agenda and documents to be sent were ready.
• Reminder emails were circulated to all faculty managers regarding the use of tracking devices in class rooms. This was to remind students to swipe their ID card when attending lectures.
• The team members had extensive discussion on how best to implement JISC’s Strategic ICT Toolkit for the strategic use of SES. They shared their understanding and views, raised questions, and challenged their current thinking. For examples. what is the wider context of making the best use of SES, should the data be managed by the university’s planning department in the register office? Should the SES outputs be integrated directly with DVC’s student retention dashboard? Would our project benefit from an institutional level ICT maturity audit to know where we are now even it may be beyond the scope of the SIMSE project?
• It was agreed that all six key enablers in the Strategic ICT Toolkit should be considered in the implementation plan. Some of the key enablers, e.g. EA, may needs more attention and in-depth investigation. The revised implementation should be sent for approval by the SG meeting.
• The team had useful discussions on the purpose of the next SG meeting. It was agreed that it was to review and approve the implementation plan. SG members serve as the critical friends to evaluate the progress and outcomes. Two formal meeting were planned, but the SG members will be regularly updated with the project progress and milestones for their feedback.
• Marcus offered to showcase the SES to SG members on Monday morning 26 March.

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

The JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 21 February 2012. After providing feedback about cluster online meeting and updating on new development in university wide IS projects, the project progress was reviewed and further actions were identified. The questionnaire survey, which had been piloted on BAG members, will be further developed and redistributed to the BAG members. The steering group members are confirmed. A number of JISC tools that had been reviewed by the team were felt to be developed primarily for improving high level strategic alignment rather than a specific project. The need for adapting JISC tools to this specific project was highlighted and more JISC resources will be reviewed.

Student Engagement System Business Action Group 9 Feb 2012

Last week I attended the Student Engagement System Business Action Group.

The student engagement system is a piece of software that monitors individual student’s engagement with the University.

It does this by collating information from a number of sources as follows.

1. Records of assessments received and those that may be overdue.
2. SiD activity
3. Logins to Blackboard
4. Logins to e:vision
5. Novell logins
6. Library – taking out of books.
7. Swipe / auto-readers in lecture rooms

The system has just been updated and we now want to encourage all students to swipe when they encounter a reader. Could all course leaders please make sure that their students are aware of the importance carrying their cards and of swiping as standard.

We currently have two types of reader, first the standard swipe reader, but also a small number of auto-readers where students do not need to swipe, the reader picks up on the chip in their cards, so they only have to be near enough for it to trigger.

The Polhill readers are as follows.

P0.32 – auto reader
P0.33 – auto reader (thus the students do not now need to swipe when using these rooms – the swipe readers are redundant)
D1.01 (theatre) - swipe reader
P0.50 – swipe reader
P1.01 – auto reader
P2.04 – swipe reader

The Business Action Group would like to receive any suggestions for other locations that would improve the chance of recording a student’s presence on campus. Currently, if students do not enter any of these locations they will not be recorded. Suggestion can be passed directly to me.

The card readers are not attendance monitors and so it is also important that normal attendance records are also kept.

The software calculates an overall engagement factor. It would be helpful to have any opinions from course leaders on how this data might be used. Again, please contact me by email with suggestions that I could pass onto the group.

Phil Wright 13th February 2012.

JISC SIMSE Project Meeting

The JISC SIMSE project meeting took place on 25 January 2012. After updating on new development in university wide IS projects in general and the student engagement system and JISC BI project in particular, the potential application of relevant JISC resources in the strategic use of SES in the university is discussed. As a result, two main JISC resources, Enterprise Architecture and IT governance, are considered to be the most pertinent.  It was also agreed that a systems thinking approach -“The Critical System Heuristics (CSH)” will be used to operationalise Enterprise Architecture and IT governance for the SIMSE project.

Project meeting at Bedford Campus 3pm on 3 Feb

Another SIMSE meeting was held at 3pm today in Bedford Campus. Team members discussed the questionnaires to be used for SES (Student Engagement System) Business Action Group (BAG) meeting.

The purpose of the Business Action Group is to determine how the Student Engagement System (SES) can be best used to support the student experience. The group will ensure that a consistent approach is taken so that duplication is avoided and produce the necessary support documentation including:

• Triaster process maps
• Training requirement specification
• User documentation
• Communication plan - user instruction, advertisements and posters
• Equipment monitoring specification

The group will also input into the feasibility of expanding the current placement of attendance equipment and web based analysis software to interrogate the attendance monitor unit data.

BAG membership consists of the representatives of the key SES stakeholder including Registry, ISD, faculty managers, faculty administrators, UKBA compliance offer, Academic staff, International office, etc.

Based on the Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) framework and JISC EA guidelines, the questionnaire asks respondents to reflect their thoughts on the “as is” (current) state and the “to be” state of SES in the following four basic boundary issues: source of motivation, decision making and governance, source of knowledge and guarantee, and source of legitimacy. To each basic boundary issue, three categories are assigned: stakeholder, concerns and difficulty.

This is an exploratory exercise aiming to examine stakeholders’ understanding of SES and their sense of directions.