The Distance Education Initiative (DEI) programme will develop high quality Online Distance Learning (ODL) postgraduate programmes for a significant student cohort, and provide a high quality and flexible approach to study off campus.

Currently, the card application process is entirely paper-based. Paper forms are sent to the students’ home address. Students check their details, add a photo to the form and then return it to the University. Card Services print all the cards in bulk over the summer, and students collect their card at the start of semester.

There are many disadvantages to this approach for ODL students. The current method relies on a mail service and this can be sub-optimal in some countries. The current method gives a poor impression of the University especially for students who are expected to complete their studies fully online.

This project will make changes to the Card System so that

• ODL Students can send photos electronically. To be extended to non ODL, staff and visitors later.
• Card Services are able to identify which students are ODL to ensure their student cards are posted out to them, rather than expecting them to be collected at the start of semester.
• Card Reporting and Card Front Office are enhanced in a second phase.

Phase 1 to provide an ODL flag to card services went live on 24 July 2012

Phase 2 to provide an image upload portlet available from MyEd and an application for Card Services to manage those images, is built and peer testing starts on 27 Aug 2012.

N.B. this project was started before the move to the new projects website, so documentation is only shown from 6th August 2012.   Documentation prior to this can be found on the old site at http://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/areas/learn/dei/DEI006/index.shtml