Overview
Executive Summary
The Office of Lifelong Learning (OLL) offer a number of credit bearing and non credit bearing course to University staff and students as well as external customers.
The existing administration platform "OLLIE" is a number of years old and in places doesn't exactly fit the business processes for the unit. This has led to the development of multiple manual procedures with a reliance on recording information outside of the main administration platform, resulting in information not being readily available to users and staff.
This combined with the risk to the existing OLLIE system of it residing on old infrastructure has led the University to replace the administration platform completely.
Although OLL are replacing the administration platform, the project scope extends to reviewing the lifecycle for OLL staff and students and removing any redundant processes.
The scope of the project includes:
- Replacing the current OLLIE system used by OLL with a bespoke system developed by the University’s Information Services Applications Division
- Migrating any information required from OLLIE to the replacement system
- Defining the current end to end business lifecycle
- Reviewing the business processes and removing any that are redundant
- Providing an enhanced customer experience by automating where possible and enhanced presentation
The priority of the project is to replace the functions within the existing OLLIE administration platform, additional features will be prioritised and delivered within the available budget.
The project is scheduled to run over academic year 13/14 and 14/15 with a view to replacing OLLIE in 13/14 and enhancing the replacement and integration with other University system in 14/15.
Business Objectives and Project Deliverables
No | Description | Priority | New or Changed (Y/N) |
O1 | Build a stable, supported administration system to replace OLLIE | Must |
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D1 | Provide the infrastructure to support the system |
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D2 | Develop a platform that best suits the needs of the business and is supported by IS Applications |
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| D3 | Transition to the new administration platform | ||
| D4 | Decommission the existing OLLIE platform once transfer and migration have completed | ||
O2 | Removal of redundant processes and reduction of manual or paper-based ones | Must |
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D1 | Define the current full end to end process used by OLL staff |
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D2 | Identification of any redundant processes |
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D3 | Establish a new Lifecycle for OLL Staff and Students |
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O3 | Ensure that any existing or legacy information in the current system is migrated/ retained or accessible as per the business need | Must |
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D1 | A migration strategy and implementation of data transfer to the replacement platform or storage and access area (for reference information) |
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O4 | Provide a method of interfacing with other university systems | Should |
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D1 | Establish which university systems that the OLL system needs to interact / exchange information with |
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D2 | Investigate if any interactions with other systems can be automated and implement in the solution |
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D3 | Establish manual processes for those systems that cannot be automated |
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| D4 | Adoption of University terminology to align with other areas (for example moving from "Course Offer" to "Course Instance" aligning to EUCLID terminology) | ||
O5 | Enhance the customer experience by automated confirmation and enhanced presentation | Could |
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D1 | Identify areas for improving the current system features (such as publishing and course search facilities) |
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| D2 | Prioritise enhancements and include in the development where budget permits |
Success Criteria
The success of this project will be deemed as providing a new administration platform that allows OLL to transition away from OLLIE while maintaining the ability for OLL staff to continue to offer the full range of services. While not all of the processes will be automated the imperative is that minimal disruption to the business processes occurs.
Scope
The scope of this project is to design, develop and deliver a system that replaces the current OLLIE system. The scope however is more than just a replacement of the system, OLL are also keen to remove redundant processes and the project will therefore establish a new lifecycle for OLL Staff and Students.
The current lifecycle includes:
- Course Approval and Creation
- Course Offers (equivalent to EUCLID Course Instance) and management of teaching activities
- Fee-Setting
- Room Allocation
- Communication
- Course Offer cancelations and withdrawals
- Course Registration
- Handling credit bearing students (including assessment)
- Accommodation management for Courses will accommodation available
- Attendance Monitoring / Certification / Completion of Courses
- Reporting
- HR, Payroll and Finance Reconciliation
Along with the varied business processes the associated University system must also be considered in terms of providing information and also receiving information, these include:
- EUCLID - for Courses, Credit Bearing Students their assessments and completion
- HR - for payroll information and potentially contracts for casual staff
- Finance - for payments and reconciliation
- SMART - for assessment and exam board management
- Enterprise - for timetabling and room allocation
The scope of the deliverables for this project is limited by the funding available and the priroritisation of each individual feature. A prioritisation group will be established as part of this project that will inform what requirements will be tackled in the available budget. Once the budget has been exhausted no further features will be delivered. Although the essential functions to replace OLLIE will be delivered first allowing a transition away from the current platform.