Chuck out your Paper Chintz

• Any Librarians?

• How many use printed handbooks?

• Employ any MetaData Experts?

Staff & Student Information@ staffs

• Paul Boardman - Director of the Process Improvement Programme - PiP

• JISC Exemplar Site

• Building Learning Communities - BLC

• PiP

Tales of...

• How two teams became one

• Two approaches

• Teamwork

The Problem

• Staff information

• Student Information

• Concerns for the ‘Environment’

The Players….

• Franchesca Francis - Registrar & Dean of Students

• Ken Sproston - University Secretary

• Sheila Dexter - Quality Support

• Web team

Dreams and Deliverables

• Ken’s ‘Golden Dream’- one staff Handbook

• Franchesca - Took on the challenge from Modular Development Committee

• PiP - Remit for the redesign of Management of Student Information Core Process

Staff Handbook• Ken had almost achieved a staff handbook on

2 previous occasions since joining Staffs

• seconded Rachel Baker - mammoth clerical task

• Criticisms from colleagues:

- not centrally available

- version control

• Once done - no excuse for not maintaining

Change of Perspective

• Need to move from reactive to proactive handbook

“It started as Rules,Regulations, Arrangements and Procedures but it became clear that it was going to be a general information resource for staff”

• First meeting was in autumn ‘98

Student Handbook

• Modular Development Committee voiced its concerns - task group set up with Deans, Associate Deans, School Administrator, Student Records, etc

• Variable quality of info was delivered via Student Handbooks

• Consistency needed!!!

Perennial Problems

• Best presentation for Students?

• How - Format

• Where - Registration

• When - Regulation changes - Annually

• Problem - Retention - Scalped and Dumped

Write once -use many times

• Award Versions tailored to needs of students• Validations- panels having information they

require• General Handbook• Award Handbook• Module Handbook• Validation Support Document

Help from the Centre

• Sheila Dexter from Quality Support - Award Handbook and Validation Support Document

• Helen Heath - Student Records, looking at the General Handbook

• Expertise in each sub-group used on the appropriate area of information

Lists of Lists

• Each would take their allotted piece and work on it

• Bring back to the Group

• Agree the divisions of headings and documents

• 4 lists of headings were agreed

Time-scales & Objectives

• Went to QDC as recommendations

• QDC asked to consider time-scales and objectives

• September 1999 for General Handbook

• September 2000 for Awards Handbook

Staff Handbook

• Ken was Chair of Internal Quality Audit-IQA

• Sheila was Secretary to IQA

• One of IQA’s original aims was to map what was happening within and across the University - massive task!

• Developed a list of major functions and then sub areas of those functions

• Obvious connections to Rachel’s document collection

• Staff Handbook - initially much more of a data collection exercise

• Much more data in circulation - but not co-ordinated

Bring out your dead!

• There was a co-ordinated Student Handbook and had been for some time

• Vast quantities of paper emerged from every dark corner - much of it irrelevant

• Both teams were running in parallel

• Both had agreed to focus on end user needs and requirements!

Atoms or Electrons?

• Students need a ‘generic set of info that they must have access to’

• Staff have a broader ‘useful’ category - depends on their roles

• Staff site on the intranet would be easier to achieve and progress faster

• Student site predicated on the usefulness of materials for future developments

Compare & Contrast

• Staff HB - more straightforward - but labour intensive,with endless chasing of documents

• Student HB - seen as the first part of an on-going series of developments -Award and School specific

• Single sources of info - linked electronically

Meanwhile..back at the Ranch..

• Franchesca had been working with the Student’s Union, redrafting the regulations

• Personalising them• Staff info still retained ‘distant’ prose• Ken and Franchesca had to reach the ‘critical

point’• Realised that similar outcomes were required-

albeit different Info.

The Web and all that..

• The team- Geoff Bridgewood, Mike Cheung,Julie Adams,Eric Halliday,PiP team

• Agreed on PDF and Web text

• Developed navigation -based on 3 layers

• Spent the summer scanning and putting the documents onto the sites- regular progress meetings

Show and Tell

• Presented to University Management Team in September ‘99

• Sent a merged email to all students and an all Staff email

• Staff and Student NT image had to be updated- wrong time of year to ask!

• Rapid redesign for radio buttons

So What?

• Estimated Cost savings - £43,000

• Annual cost savings of over £20,000

• University forms are next - but that’s another story!

What have we learned?• Team work! - divide the tasks between

empowered teams- utilise interest and experience

• Involve Librarians - metadata experts!

• Set ‘Stretched Goals’ with a presentation to hierarchy in the diary

• Maintain pace and don’t leave it to one or two

• Agree to provide info once by the most appropriate person

There’s more..• Introduce the right people at the right time

• Only user-centred design and language

• Choose the right ‘Project Champion’

• See that the experience is rewarding

• Move from atoms to electrons- its easier than eating beavers to save trees!