Overview

Background

The purpose of this project is to develop system  tools within EUCLID to address two separate business requirements in respect of administering the PGR student lifecyle.

The tools developed will provide a solid foundation for the implementation of the PREP project in 2015/16 if funding is achieved and a model for additional functionality to be built in the same way in the future. The prioritiy of these changes within the PGR lifecycle was confirmed by the Researcher Experience Committee (REC) on 3/3/15.

The two areas to be developed are:

1)  A centrally delivered Annual Review Process for PGR students in line with the form currently required centrally. This was identfied as an a area which would provide the most benefit across the university in terms of the administation and monitoring of progress of PGR students. The requirement was raised duing the PGR mapping exercise by multiple schools and colleges.

2) Moving the functionality and data which is currently held within the Postgraduate Progression Monitoring Database ( PPMD ) into EUCLID so that all of the centrally delivered PGR administration  functions are being administered in one place and removing all duplication of data and processes.

Scope

Using the online annual review form developed in PPLS as an example of best practive develop an online form and the associated processes within EUCLID. Aim to deliver a unified process across the origanisation which can be used by all schools.

Analysis of the data and processes which are stored and actioned in PPMD. Move all the process which are specific to PPMD into EUCLID. Migrate any data required from PPMD to EUCLID. Project will also be required to make a decision with the business users as to how long they need read access to PPMD.

Areas already identified as requiring to be moved to EUCLID are as follows:

1) Set-up of Examiners including monitoring the progress of feedback on Students Thesis 2) Improved supervisor maintenance screens 3) Thesis Events to monitor progress from intention to submit to completion. 4) Progress and Outcomes (one of these overlaps with the Annual Review Process) 5) Formal Letters to student allow to be produced and saved against the students record. Allow full access to all parties to the data and processes (Students/Administative Staff/Academics)

There are no policy changes associated with this project the software tools are supporting the Code of Practive detailed at http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Codes/CoPSupervisorsResearchStudents.pdf

Objectives

• To remove the use of the paper based annual review form across the university and to produce an online process which students/admin and academic staff can interact with. To reduce the amount of effort required to circulate and complete the form.
• To increase the visiblity of the process so all parties can see where the form is and what is left to have the form complete. 
• To pull all of the PGR administation into one system, removing duplication of data and processes reducing effort across the organisation.
• To provide a solid foundation for the PREP project from a systems perspective.

Deliverables

The deliverables of the project will fall into the following areas.

Annual Review Form

1. Schedule Event for the annual review process to start based on the start date of the student (12-3 months)
2. Access for Student to Fill in the form from Student Self  Service on EUCLID (Part 1 of the form)
3. Access for  Supervisors to fill in the form from EUCLID (Part 2 of the form)
4. Access for admin staff to see who had the form and what has been completed
5. Student to sign-off
6. Supervsior to sign-off
7. Access to the answers to analyse the answers which have been returned on screen and in BIS
8. Access for the colleges to montitor the process across all schools.
9. Expose Data in BIS in the ESSMU Universe
10. Training 
11. Online Documentation

Move from PPMD into EUCLID

1. Examiners
2. Progress and outcomes
3. Thesis Events
4. Allow Generation of Official Letters for the student.
5. Expose Additional Data in ESSMU Universe
6. Data Migration
7. Archive PPMD making it read only.
8. Change to EUCLID online documentation for PGR
9. Agree a time schedule for removing read access to PPMD for the business

Benefits

The benefits of the tools delivered by this project are as follows:

Annual Review Process - Savings in terms of staff time per Annual Review processes. (up to 50% - saving of 2hrs per student) - Savings in terms of the time taken to monitor the annual review process and chase the reviews to completion.(up to 50%  - saving of 0.5hr per student) - Visibility of the process to all parties (Student/ Academics / Admimistators - Schools/Administrators - College). This will be on screen and in BIS.

PPMD replacement - Savings in terms of staff time trying to reconcille the adminstation systems.and look in multiple places.  - Improved tools which moving to EUCLID provides - notes/documents/lettters/workflow.

Going Forward Framework on which PREP project can be built on within EUCLID

Success Criteria  

A single online annual review process which is used across the university. PPMD can either be decomissions immediately or within a specificed period of time to be agreed with the business and dependant on the scale of the data migration. Confidence that EUCLID as a system tool can be used to support the PGR lifecycle going forward.