October 19, 2015, by Ryan Neal
Project Transform Academic Staff Survey
Earlier this year Project Transform conducted a survey amongst Academic staff regarding administrative tasks related to the student journey. A significant number of responses were received, providing detailed information that will be of substantial use in the design of new processes, team structures, the physical layout of the new premises, and communications between staff and students. The responses demonstrated how much administrative staff are valued by their academic colleagues and the close relationship that exists.
With this in mind, there were a number of key, recurring concerns that came to light through the survey, and these are outlined below along with the resolution that will be adopted during implementation.
A large number of responses emphasised the need to have administrative support available locally to academic staff to assist them with a wide range of student journey processes.
- Project Transform will eliminate much of the administrative work currently undertaken by academics, so the need for support will decrease
- We will work closely with academic staff to ensure that no essential processes are overlooked
- APM staff will be retained in Schools where a close relationship between APM and academic staff is required
Many of the survey responses highlighted the importance of having clarity as to the individual administrator who should be contacted with regard to particular matters.
- The new organisation will make clear who should be contacted for particular matters. In addition, the management team will hold responsibility for managing the relationship between the administrative teams and each School, providing a direct personal route for any issues.
A frequent comment arising from the survey was the need for administrative staff to have knowledge of the school and its provision.
- The retention of certain administrative staff within schools/faculties/buildings will ensure that local knowledge is preserved and available to academic staff and students
- The allocation of duties within service centres will be undertaken with respect to the prior experience of staff within relevant Schools
- Service centre staff will be enabled and encouraged to spend time in the Schools they are serving to reinforce and update this knowledge
Many survey responses pointed to the important role of locally-based administrative staff in providing advice to academics on course and University regulations and administrative procedures.
- The enhanced functionality of the new systems being installed will enable many regulatory and procedural steps to be automated within the system, therefore reducing the need for such queries
- Advice on regulations and procedures will still be accessible to academic staff and will be signposted by the management team mentioned above
A number of survey responses highlighted the importance to students of receiving a personalised service and felt that this could best be delivered at a local/school level.
- A sense of community will be preserved in schools by retaining discipline-specific support within schools/faculties
- The new software will provide staff with high quality information so that they can offer students a personal service, e.g. by giving academic staff much fuller and more readily accessible information about their tutees
The survey also demonstrated some concern from academic colleagues about the way in which specific processes will be managed. The level of detail offered in these responses highlighted the need to consult with individuals who have relevant expertise on how best to optimise these processes within the new model. The survey was a valuable tool in demonstrating the areas in which the collaboration of academic staff will be required during the implementation phase.
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It’s telling that each highlighted item is always following by a rebuttal / “we think this won’t be a problem”…. and there is nothing that outright agrees with the approach you are intending to take. By optimising for cost only, you are going to lose a lot of the other benefits which grease the wheel of running a school and delivering a professional quality experience to paying students – though I don’t think you’ll recognise the value of these until they’ve gone. In the meantime your cost targets will have been met, and the lack of quality KPIs will ensure that drop in quality will remain anecdotal until you get a new generation of upper management.
Hi David,
Thanks for your comment.
The concerns raised by the survey are all legitimate ones and in explaining how they are being taken into account and the measures being adopted to address them it is hoped to provide some degree of reassurance to colleagues. It is certainly true that concentrating on reducing costs at the expense of other considerations would inevitably damage quality. A further reassurance we would want to give colleagues is therefore that the quality of the student experience remains of paramount importance in our work: the fact we anticipate that efficiencies will result from the implementation of streamlined processes supported by better IT should not, in itself, compromise quality.
Thanks,
Ryan
Could you please explain exactly how “Project Transform will eliminate much of the administrative work currently undertaken” by myself in my capacity as Admissions Tutor. My role involves: participating in open days, mini open days, visit days; dealing with correspondence and telephone enquiries from potential and actual applicants, teachers, careers officers, etc; liaising with the Central Decision Making team to advise them of the School’s entrance requirements; liaising with CDM regarding any non-standard cases; making decisions at confirmation and Clearing/Adjustment in August; liaising with Course Directors in the School regarding admissions matters. I will still do all of these under the new system. Some of the details may change a little (I will respond to queries from the Central Decision Making team by typing into a box on that bit of my screen instead of this bit, web page versus email), but the essential administrative task will remain the same and will be carried out with either exactly the same or largely the same effort. Where exactly in my list of duties is “much” of the admin associated with being Admissions Tutor going to be “eliminated” by Project Transform?
Hi Stephen,
Thank you for your comment. We do appreciate that there are many tasks that academics do which may fall under the administration part of their role but are not paper/document driven (the meaning of admin tasks used here) and they will not be affected by the new systems as they relate to recruitment activities direct with enquirers/applicants that are an essential part of the recruitment process.
From an enquiry/admissions perspective, it is hoped that having all the information in one system will mean that you and other colleagues within your School will be able to see the full picture of interaction with an applicant, whether by the Admissions team or someone in the School, and this should reduce the time taken to deal with any query.
It is also anticipated that the easy availability of comprehensive information about current students will have a significant, beneficial impact on the workload of academic staff e.g. staff having improved information about their tutees. In addition, the detailed design work on new processes and systems currently under way for GoLive 3 has an explicit design principle of restricting the work of academics to those parts of each process that require the application of academic judgement; it is anticipated that this approach, when combined with the additional functionality available in the new system, will again lead to a considerable reduction in the administrative work undertaken by academic staff.
Thank you again for your question and I hope this helps to provide more information about what is meant by the comment in the post above.
Best wishes,
Ryan