Funded by the: Jisc e-Learning programme.
Lead Institution: University of Exeter.
Learner Provider Type: Higher Education
Project Duration: January 2012 - March 2013
Key Words: Course Data
Case study tags: course data, stakeholder engagement, process improvement, course information, university of exeter
Note: This is an abridged version of this project's final report. The full version is available here.
Course Related Information AT Exeter (CRIATE)
Project Summary
CRIATE extends an existing, concurrent project internal to the University of Exeter, which itself builds upon a previous Jisc project – iPaMS http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/flexibleservicedelivery/ipams.aspx – to further develop the iPaMS course information database system and fully implement and embed its use at the University. The extension of scope and budget that CRIATE brings has brought to iPaMS an online approval system for the development and amendment of module and programme information, an alignment of the course information with the XCRI-CAP standard and facilities for storing information about the full range of education available at the University, such as CPD, short courses and postgraduate courses.
What did we learn?
The work to produce a system such as iPaMS has been a long held ambition of the University of Exeter, so many of the benefits have been well expected. Many of our lessons learned have been relevant to undertaking a large software development project over a long period to produce a key business system that will replace existing systems.
Learn the customer’s deadlines
One such lesson is to work closely with colleagues in our Colleges to anticipate important dates in the academic calendar that require certain data sets to be readily available. As a result, we now meet on a regular basis to discuss the medium term plans for work with each other, so any issues can be forecast well in advance.
Check data and processes before planning the work
Another lesson has been that a more thorough audit of data and business processes should have been undertaken before the project start, so as to more accurately predict the work needed and level of improvements that could be made. We found that data was of a much poorer quality than expected, or not as consistently presented as the published regulations would have had us believe. Corrective work on this data took time and effort that detracted from other work we would have like to have done. Our evaluation of the iPaMS system has been based upon feedback from users that has been fed in to our development process. Fortnightly upgrades over the last year have enabled us to respond quickly where necessary to feedback. Our system Trainer has also spent lots of time with users showing them iPaMS and listening to feedback.
Immediate Impact
Flexible, centralised database
While the University has, for quite a number of years, prescribed a format for course information to be held, the application of this format has not been easy to enforce, and has not been all that useful as the data has been stored in a number of systems, depending on the college/discipline. For the first time, all course information is held in a single system which gives senior academics and professional services staff easy access to the data for analysing – for example, to look at word counts in descriptions, search for inappropriate jargon, look at average number of Intended Learning Outcomes (and see those with very many or very few) – and then taking corrective action to descriptions that don’t fit the desired criteria. Furthermore, the database is flexible and uses templates to describe the data fields in a programme or module description. If the list of fields changes from year to year, iPaMS can cope with this in a way a non-template based database would struggle to do... Online approval workflows iPaMS still has some way to go to become fully embedded in the University. Currently it is only used to power a small number of websites, although this will change over the new few months with the introduction of the production-scale web service. Furthermore, until Version Control and Approval Workflows are released, only a small number of key College staff have access to the system so as to secure and control the data within. When these features are released, any staff member will be able to propose changes to a module or programme, but only designated staff can take part in the approval process to publish the changes. This means that the old working practices of passing paper module and programme specifications around can finally end and full electronic data management with audit and workflow will be the norm. Details of how the approval process has been built in iPaMS are included... in the form of the poster that was presented at Jisc’s Course Data Programme meeting in January 2013 in Birmingham (see above). The system was designed separate from the logic of the business rules, so that it could carry on being used should the rules ever change. (we anticipate that when the system is embedded in the University, the concept of managing course information will change in people’s minds and changes to business rules will follow – e.g. manage by exception).
Academic data as marketing data
The link between academic and marketing data is much stronger now, despite the two areas having largely separate fields on the specification templates. There is a real desire to bring the two even closer; as academics are encouraged to write in more marketable language to attract students, this negates the requirement for the Marketing office to re-write every description for publication.
Future Impact
This project, and the internal project which it extends will have a lasting legacy at the University of Exeter. Countless hours are currently spent tracking approvals for amendments to course information, all of which will be brought online. Colleges and central departments can start managing the processes by exception, such as seeing which teams are bypassing approval workflows and auditing the reasons given, or spending some time focussing on programmes with low numbers of Intended Learning Outcomes. Previously there was no possibility to do this as the data was not held centrally and actions on it were not recorded. The iPaMS system will continue to be managed and monitored through the creation of two groups –The iPaMS Operational Group will consist of ‘Super Users’ from each college and central division who are the experts in the use of iPaMS within their teams. This group will discuss the use of iPaMS and the quality of the data within, proposing developments and initiatives to progress. The iPaMS Management Group will consist of members of the current CRIATE Project Board who will receive recommendations from the Operational Group and consider against the strategic requirements of the University to set a direction for further development and management of iPaMS.
Conclusions
General Conclusion
The CRIATE project has been successful in achieving a large number of objectives in a project that uncovered more work than was anticipated. Further development of the iPaMS system will continue at Exeter, who will continue to improve their course management techniques and tools.
Implementing XCRI-CAP (relevant to Jisc and the wider community).
There is clearly an opportunity for the sector to exploit to turn XCRI-CAP into a ubiquitous standard, which would maximise the return on investment put into the work done thus far. It is true, however that even if XCRI-CAP is not implemented, all institutions (certainly Exeter) who have participated in the programme will have improved their management of course information simply by having to align the descriptions to a common format. Business processes have been fixed, data quality improved and stakeholders engaged in course data like never before. However many of the anticipated benefits of better facilitation of course data sharing between providers and aggregators can only be realised through XCRI-CAP (or similar), and the opportunity must be seized.
Recommendations
Using data from disparate systems (Relevant to the wider community)
From having migrated our course information from several sources into a central database, we would conclude that you should be careful when making assumptions about the data you plan to inherit. Different legacy databases can (and probably do) support different business processes or conventions which can make the data very difficult to combine into a single template. Check that statuses mean the same across all systems; check that naming conventions are compatible with each other; check that further business systems don’t rely on these legacy systems continuing to operate (as this makes it harder to retire them). If your new system doesn’t support the same business processes as the system you are replacing, consider how the department(s) asked to use the new system will adapt, and check that they didn’t have a better idea to start with.
Make the most of external funding (Relevant to Jisc and the wider community)
The University of Exeter had long wanted to develop and programme and module database and were already bidding internally for funding to do so when the Course Data Programme was launched. As it was not certain we would be successful, our internally-funded project was centred around the production of a database to hold undergraduate programme and module information that could be used to drive our internal and external websites. The bid to Jisc was to extend this database to other programmes (such as postgraduate), to produce an XCRI-CAP compliant feed and to implement a workflow-based approval system for changes to data. Without the Jisc funding, the project could still succeed, but the Jisc funding ensured we developed the system we really wanted. If you can tie in an external (e.g. Jisc) project to existing internal work, then you have the opportunity to deliver way beyond what the institution was prepared to fund. Although you have more stakeholders then to deliver to, both the external funder and the internal stakeholders benefit from the dual-funding to receive a more advanced product. The project is harder to run due to multiple Project Identifier:reporting regimes, deadlines, budgets and expectations must be managed with all stakeholders, but we would argue the results are worth it.
Further details: email and contact names etc
Project Director Ian Tilsed
Project Manager Samuel Daly
Contact email s.daly@exeter.ac.uk
Project Web URL http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/criate/
