Project Name: JISC Transformations Project – Attendance Monitoring

Lead Institution: St Marys University College 

Project Lead: Annette Metcalf (following staff changes in summer 2012)

See the full Transformations programme playlist

 

Background

St Mary’s University College Twickenham was founded by the Catholic Poor Schools Committee in 1850 to meet the need for teachers to provide an education for the increasing numbers of poor Catholic children. Catholic teacher education remains at the heart of its mission today but it has diversified significantly. There are four academic schools: Education, Theology and Leadership; Arts and Humanities; Management and Social Sciences and Sport, Health and Applied Sciences. There are now around 5,000 students and together with the staff they form a strong and supportive community with an emphasis on both academic and pastoral care.

 

Similar to many HEIs today St Mary’s now finds itself in a highly competitive market place, to which it needs to respond with a new level of agility. 

 

Aims and Objectives

The UniversityCollege made a bid for funding under the JISC Transformation Programme in order to secure support for St Mary’s to take a more holistic view of the Student Experience, the first element of which was the introduction of a systems-based Attendance Monitoring functionality, in order to support the following:

 

• The instant recording of registers as students enter any teaching space (students will swipe in by holding their ID card to a card reader as they enter the room, with each swipe taking less than a second);          
• a means by which to identify students who may benefit from pastoral care, and support their attainment and retention; 
• the provision of accurate space utilisation data and information regarding  timetabling requirements. 

 

Context

The Project has taken place in the context of a higher education institution that underwent some restructure of Registry prior to the current Registrar coming into post; in addition, the previous Registrar left St Mary’s in May 2012, resulting in a lack of a senior lead and champion for this Project until the beginning of 2013. The lack of senior leadership for a significant part of the Project (and particularly at its critical starting point) explains the delay in moving this Project forward – as the original completion date for the JISC-funded elements of this work had been noted as May 2013.

 

In addition, as a small institution we face the same key requirements as larger HEIs (albeit dealing with a smaller gross number of students) but with limited resources to call upon. We do not have the benefit of efficiencies of scale and therefore it is of critical importance that we continue to review the way in which we operate, and continually seek out improvements for both the Student Experience and internal efficiencies.

 

The Business Case

This Project directly supports two of St Mary’s institutional Strategic Aims of the Corporate Plan for 2011-16, namely:

 

“To offer our students through excellent teaching and learning the opportunity to achieve their full academic and career potential”

 

and,

“To manage our resources effectively and imaginatively to ensure a sustainable future and to provide maximum value for our students”.

 

St Mary’s continues to consider improvements to the student experience in an era of increased tuition fees.  It is conscious that with a student profile of over 38% of students coming from homes where income is less than £25K, it needs to ensure high levels of student achievement in order to be able to continue to attract and retain such students, in addition to being competitive in the market place as a whole.  As there is a correlation between attendance and achievement, the UniversityCollegeidentified an automated attendance monitoring system as a cost-effective and equitable means of early identification of non-attending students. 

 

Key drivers

Student expectations in a climate of high fees and ‘consumerism’ mean that small institutions can no longer use size/intimacy as a USP if it is to the detriment of their expectations of their Student Experience, and although the primary driver for this Project was the student experience, it is clear that the University College will also achieve more effective use of staff time. 

 

Linked to the above is the need to make the most efficient use of the critical resource of Learning Advisers – who came into post in September 2012, and who are tasked with providing learning and pastoral support to students, through helping them to develop academic skills and literacy, and providing information and advice on both a one-to-one and group basis.

 

In addition, although our student numbers have grown over the years we do not now have the resources (of money or space) to simply continue to grow the staffing numbers in order to deliver more of the same – we have to recognise how to do things differently, and hence we had no choice but to proactively seek out efficiencies and improvements in order to deliver all the required outcomes.

 

JISC resources/technology used

Although the original intention within this Project was to draw upon various resources and existing work from within the HE sector and the JISC community, unfortunately this has not been possible in practice. This is because significant staffing gaps and changes have been the reality within which this work has been carried out. 

 

The work itself has in its totality progressed well, but the key technology that has been used in this Project to date is limited to that of Enterprise Architecture business process mapping.

 

Outcomes

 

• A systems-driven Attendance Monitoring system across the University College 
• An improved and aligned student pathway to Learning Advisers for academic advice and guidance 
• Improved links and sharing of (appropriate) information between administrative and academic staff to enable holistic support and pastoral care for students 
• The ability to link students to the ‘events’ in the timetabling software has automated the previously manual space utilisation surveys and has thereby resulted in improved efficiency through improved business intelligence 
• Business Process Mapping 
• A clear pathway into the development and rollout of bespoke student timetables.

 

Achievements

The key achievements at the current time arising from this Transformations Project are as follows:

 

• The key achievements at the current time arising from this Transformations Project are as follows: 
• The continued commitment by Registry staff to piloting the Attendance Monitoring system during 2012/13 has reaped significant rewards in terms of learning, understanding, and the identification of issues/gaps. 
• The successful installation of ‘card readers’ and upgrade to Celcat software in advance of the 2013/14 academic session. 
• Increased levels of understanding and cross-functional working across St Mary’s. 
• The removal of the need for taking manual registers during academic sessions, enabling academics to concentrate on actual teaching and learning rather than this type of underlying administrative task. 
• To provide colleagues with accessible reporting for student attendance both for the individual student and the cohort. 
• The provision of seamless links into student support and Learning Advisers. 
• Achieving parity and equity of treatment for students within a diverse institution.

 

Looking ahead, students will all benefit from a web-based provision of their individual timetables – the implementation of which will continue after the conclusion of this Project itself. This will be a huge boon to students and again will go towards improving attendance in general. It is also arguably to be expected in a 21st Century institution.

 

The provision of accurate space utilisation data to inform future developments of the estate.    

 

Benefits

The saving of staff time previously taken up by more resource-intensive manual processes. 

The student body as a whole will benefit by their attendance being recorded in real-time by using their Student ID card to ‘swipe in’ to teaching spaces – but in particular it will enable swift follow up of students who are not attending, facilitating their early referral to Learning Advisers and other forms of Student Support as appropriate.

 

Although the work to implement an integrated timetabling solution is on-going, Attendance Monitoring is already recognised as providing a cost-effective solution to monitoring student attendance and space utilisation - which is of key importance to a small institution like St Mary's, and will hopefully be of use to other HEIs of a similar size and/or structure to ours.

 

The Attendance Monitoring system provides immediate, accurate data so that we can respond to student needs in a timely manner and have up-to-date and specific information when planning space utilisation and timetabling.

 

In addition, our involvement in this Project is already informing our approach towards the forthcoming scoping, procurement and ultimate implementation of a new Student Records System.

 

Drawbacks

There are still some challenges remaining which we will have to conquer as we move into September and beyond.....the accuracy of room bookings being the main one. In order for the system to work and registers to be produced, the students’ names must be allocated against the relevant room booking in the timetabling system. The software will allow this and the structure is in place, however the data itself (i.e. the student names) still have to be allocated in good time. In some cases, especially for new students, this information may not be available until just before Registration.

 

Within Registry the biggest hurdle has been to revise the timetabling system to enable us to collect and reflect the data that is needed to make the system run. This has been done successfully, but takes time and a few ‘dry-runs’ to develop an accurate and efficient process.

 

Although the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, the latter are very much in existence and link closely to some of the “lessons learned”.

 

The lack of a consistent Project sponsor, and indeed significant changes in staffing at senior level overall, has taken its toll on both staff and the Project itself – as evidenced by both the delayed timeframe of the Project and the limited engagement of staff in reflective practice due to operational demands always taking precedence.

 

The staff training and up-skilling required for Registry staff  - for both their own learning/use of the system, but also in order to be able to cascade to School colleagues in September – has not been inconsiderable, and particularly when trying to balance the immediate needs of the Project with the ever-present operational demands on Registry. 

 

Key lessons

On the whole colleagues have welcomed the idea of automated AM. However there has been some initial misunderstanding as to the main purpose of the Project – namely that is it to be a ‘big stick’ for students who are not attending, as at first sight it can appear to be a case of “Big Brother is watching you” – yes this has never been the main aim of the Project. Thankfully this was a minority view and has changed over time, as through clear and regular communication we have made colleagues fully aware of the benefits and they are now realising the opportunity Attendance Monitoring will offer to provide holistic support to students in difficulty at the earliest possible opportunity.

 

Similarly we underestimated the amount of time it would take to gain consensus on issues such as what should constitute ‘lateness’ – as the software can only be programmed with one figure, from which the reports are then generated re late/not late. There was at times a sense that administrative staff were seen to be straying into academic territory, although this has now been overcome from increased communications and discussion. In hindsight, these decisions should have been made sooner to allow for consultation – however, short-staffing at a senior level plus the competing demands of other tasks did not readily allow for this.

 

Although the original intention/thinking had been that we would automate the process of initial contact to absent students using centrally generated text and email, in collaboration with academic colleagues we have now reconsidered as we recognised that such an approach would not allow for more personal communications, nor be able to recognise factors such as authorised absences, and overall could be misinterpreted by students as a ‘heavy hand’.

 

There have been ups and downs along the way, but as the project is reliant on the work of colleagues from other departments outside of Registry (e.g. IT for the implementation of the software and Estates for the installation of the card readers), the greatest challenges for the Project Lead were to factor in their existing commitments and negotiating compromise to move the project forward. That said, it has also been very beneficial to work closely with these colleagues as the project will benefit us all, so we have a shared enthusiasm to see it succeed and the relationships that have been built will stand us in good stead for future projects.

 

The timelines within the Project have differed from what was first planned, and there are elements within the original Project Plan which have moved quite significantly – for example, the training of staff and the implementation of new AM procedures. However, these changes have been made in an informed and directed way - for example, staff training across the institution has been revised to early September 2013 to ensure that it is fresh in colleagues’ minds, and that they feel confident and ready for the start of the new academic year.

 

Projects should be fully resourced prior to initiation – with Institutions fully considering all the costs, tangible and intangible, associated with entering into any Projects.

 

More attention should be given to Project Risk Assessments – as the mitigations identified in the Project bid proved insufficient to keep this Project on track when key risk factors became a reality.

 

Staff shouldn't be expected to subsume Project work on top of their substantive roles, as in addition to the impact on the staff themselves, some of the ‘richness’ of a Project is lost. For example, due to resource limitations we were not able to actively participate in the JISC blogs, which looking back now has disadvantaged staff in their ability to reflect and further develop their thinking.

 

The granularity of detail involved in existing business processes which can be easily overlooked as they often form part of staff’s tacit knowledge – undertaking process reviews and sanity-checking the same within different parts of the team usefully highlighted gaps in advance of the full “as-is” process mapping.

 

The significant amount of time and concentration required to fully consider any business process should not be under-estimated when embarking on this type of Project – it is immense! (To note: the original time allocated in the Project plan for this was only 2 months!)

 

The impact of a lack of a senior-level champion to drive the Project forwards was significant during that period of time – both in terms of gravitas/influence and continuity of staffing.

 

Looking ahead

The skills gained from this Project can be transferred to looking at other business processes across the institution, and support our ongoing commitment (within St Mary’s IT Strategy) to longer-term systems integration in order to achieve single sources of authoritative data for students and staff (which in turn will also assist in streamlining our external reporting requirements). In addition, Registry staff now feel more confident about moving forwards into developing an outline Project Plan for a new Student Records System, as a result of having benefitted from the lessons learned during this Project.

 

Although not achieved within the JISC Project time span, the benefits arising from the implementation of Attendance Monitoring will now be carried through to further improve the student experience – via the development of individual student timetables, to be issued through a user-friendly web interface.  This is of key importance to us, as although the UniversityCollege currently scores well on teaching satisfaction, it consistently underperforms in Organisation and Management – in which the provision of bespoke timetables is a consistent issue.  Although students can currently find out when the time of lectures online, the interface is unwieldy and they do not know when allocated seminars are; plus the manual collation of information by departments to then be provided on notice boards or through a manual email system is not the level of ICT functionality expected by students today. 

 

The accurate space utilisation data arising from the work of this Project thus far will enable the University College to continue to focus on improving systemic issues (such as overbooking of space), and on driving through College-wide cultural change to improve room utilisation. 

 

Sustainability

The benefits of business process reviews and business process re-engineering will continue to be cascaded across St Mary’s.

 

The sector as a whole is moving towards being more agile and efficient as a result of ever-improving technologies and hence St Mary’s thinking and aspirations are congruent with other HEIs, and as such offers high sustainability.

 

In addition, the ability to now collect robust data on the utilisation of space across the institution means that any future expenditure on teaching spaces within the estate will be fully informed by identified need, and underpinned by efficiencies. 

 

Appendices – please see below

 

Appendix 1 - Transformations Project – Attendance Monitoring, St Marys University College

  

Work Plan: 

Task	Date	Person Responsible	Success criteria
Form Steering Group	April 2012	Registrar/ Head of ISA/ Director of Estates	To have group capable of overseeing projects
Implement new modules of Celcat software and ensure we have IT capability to deliver project	May 2012	Registrar/Head of ISA/ Director of Estates	Ensure we have the technical requirements to deliver project
Review data transfer issues	May 2012	Registrar/ Head of ISA	Ensure we have appropriate data to deliver requirements
Plan process review	April 2012	Registrar	Well planned process which engages stakeholders
Undertake review	May2012	Registrar and those trained in EA	To have identified efficiencies and documented new process
Review IT against new process and undertake any further development work	June2012	Registrar/ISA	Fit for purpose software for the revised processes
Train staff on new procedures and how to use software	June-Sept 2012	ISA/Registrar	Staff who are able to use the software to its full capability
Roll out new web interface for students	July 2012	ISA	Ensure students have access to personalised timetables
Introduce new attendance monitoring procedures	Sept 2012	All	Automated attendance monitoring in place and being implemented by academic staff
Implement space utilisation reporting	Sept 2012	Director of Estates	Automated reporting on room usage
Identify issues of non usage of rooms	Nov 2012	Director of Estates	Identification of the systemic space problems
Evaluation of monitoring system	Nov2012	Steering Group	Successful strategies and lessons learnt
Undertake further process review of room booking system	Dec 2012	Registrar	More effective system for room bookings for better use of space
Evaluation space utilisation and room booking system	May 2013	Steering Group	Successful strategies and lessons learnt

 

 

Appendix 2 - Transformations Project – Attendance Monitoring, St Marys University College 

 

Risk Assessment:

Risk	Likelihood	Impact on project	Mitigation
Key staff trained in the use of JISC resources will leave	Medium	The project will not be delivered if staff trained in the JISC resources leave.	Sufficient staff will be trained in the resources to ensure that the project is resilient to staff turnover.  There will also be cross project membership.
The IT capability is not sufficient to deliver the project	Low	The project will fail as it will not deliver required improvements	Careful specification of IT systems at outset of project
Staff will not engage in process review methodology	Low	If staff do not engage with the process review there will be no process gains and therefore no efficiencies.	Ensure the benefits of project are clear and ensure that staff are engaged in reviewing their own processes and thereby develop ownership of the project at all levels.
That key lessons are not learnt	Low	There will be no process gains and therefore no efficiencies if staff cannot learn lessons from implementation and process reviews	Use staff outside the area to undertake process reviews to ensure some objectivity in the process.  Ensure cross project membership to ensure issues are picked up.
Lack of delivery of reporting	Low	Impact on resources for the project	Ensure that ongoing documentation is maintained by the Steering Group for each project.  Ensure senior members of staff are engaged and can deliver reports.
Lack of institutional support for the project	Low	Inability for staff to engage in Strategic Information Practice Group and Learning Sets	Ensure that senior management are supportive of the project from the outset and that the resources for the project are set out from the beginning
Slippage of projects	Medium	Failure of University College to deliver service improvements	Realistic appraisal of the work involved, and ensuring sufficient time in the project plan to allow for some delays.