Overview
Background
Student Funding information is not currently held centrally but recorded locally on Access DB and Excel spreadsheets and it is impossible to report on the University position regarding Student Funding due to the lack of accessible management information.
Scope
The scope of the project is to develop a framework and set of system tools within EUCLID to administer Student Funding data.
The framework and tools developed will support staff with the administration of Student Funding data, improve both the Applicant and Student experience and deliver management information on Student Funding.
The Project team will undertake an incremental approach to the design, developing a prototype, presenting this to the user representatives, obtaining feedback and making enhancements as per feedback, ensuring the system delivered meets the requirements of all user representatives.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are:
- All student funding information is to be recorded within Euclid and the information made available across the institution.
- Improve the applicant/student experience related to application and allocation of funding.
- Reduction in staff time in the administration of student funding.
Deliverables
The deliverables from the project will fall into the following areas and will delivered over 2 phases in 15/16 and 16/17:
Phase 1
- Access for a student to see the funding allocated to them within student self service
- Access for a student to generate confirmation of award letter within student self service
- A new framework for staff to record all Student Funding data in Euclid and to maintain funds
- Develop linkage of funds to Student Instance and Applications
- Expose the data on screens to all staff and students, where staff access will be restricted by administrative role group and students view will be restricted to own funding data only.
- Expose the data in BIS universes, Admissions, Student and Registry, viewable by all staff with access to one or more universe.
Phase2
- Application form for central administered funds
- Eligibility criteria for funds to define who can apply for what
- Feed application data into framework developed in phase 1
- Ability for applicants to view application progress
- Ability for staff to maintain application decision
- Notifications to applicants on application decision
Benefits
Management Information
| Description
| Benefit (Tangible or Non-Tangible) |
1 | Management Information on Funding available for reporting purposes | Recent GaSP exercise to report on funding resulted in 2.5 months wait for schools and colleges to deliver data. This will change to real time reporting. |
2 | Information available to support recruitment activity | University will have confidence in funding data held. |
3 | Audit will be possible for Student Funding across the University | Simpler and consistent approach to meet audit requirements. |
4 | Information held in central location to assist staff involved in fundraising activities | Scholarships are a high priority for philanthropic giving within the Strategic Plan and this will expand the availability, and optimise the impact, of our international scholarships. |
Applicant Experience
Description
| Benefit (Tangible or Non-Tangible) | |
1 | Application decision delivered 2-3 days earlier | The saving in days of SSFS staff time reviewing eligibility will result in 2-3 days reduction in applications available for selection resulting in equivalent reduction is application decisions being communicated. |
2 | Applicants will be presented with only those scholarships that they are eligible to apply for | Usability |
3 | Applicants need only provide information not previously collected in application for study | Usabiity |
Student Experience
Description
| Benefit (Tangible or Non-Tangible) | |
1 | Students can view funding allocated to them | Cost of time for staff to answer questions about funding rather than being able to refer to self service. |
2 | Students can generate confirmation of award letters | Currently students can wait for several days after making a request for a letter, this will be real time. |
3 | Reduction in number of invoicing errors | Unable to quantify errors currently however with the information recorded within Euclid this should no longer occur. |
Administration
Description
| Benefit (Tangible or Non-Tangible) | |
1 | Remove the need for eligibilty check | 2-3 days for each of the 75 Scholarship schemes giving an estimated saving of 150 - 200 days in SSFS. |
2 | Reduction in staff time in the administration of Student Funding (College, School & Student Administration) | Cost of time for staff to answer questions about funding and supply reporting information to funders and other areas of the University. |
3 | Clearly visible to supervisor or college staff if any actions required to amend or stop funding payments | Cost of time for staff to retrieve funding retrospectively. |
Success Criteria
- All Student Fund data is recorded in Euclid.
- Student Funding data is available to University Staff and Students.
- Applicant/Student experience is improved:
- Applicants will see the application decision 2-3 days earlier
- Students will use the enhanced self service to review all funding recorded against their record
Out of scope/Assumptions
There is no automated integration with Finance, however current business process integration with Finance will be reviewed.
There will be no migration of data from local systems into Euclid.
There will be an upload of all current/continuing students' funding data at the go live.
While formal decommissioning of systems is unlikely to be feasible, schools commit to transfer any/all data on current students to Euclid and that any local recording methods are discontinued.