Current Students and Staff

// University News

28 Oct 2014

Student admin simplification project delivers on time and within budget

The three-year Student Administration Simplification Value for Money project has now been completed, on time and within budget. The project ran from April 2011 to April 2014 and aimed to simplify and streamline student administrative processes across the University to benefit both staff and students.

Significant enhancements made to the University’s student information systems include:

  • Student self-service functionality such as the online retrieval of IT credentials, registration and re-registration, updating of contact details
  • Paperless UG and PG admissions processes, including running Confirmation for UCAS applicants entirely on-line for the first time
  • Improved support for research student administration such as the management of annual reviews, end dates, and online intention to submit forms
  • Enhanced University-wide support for the management of student placements
  • Online annual update of module specifications approval
  • Impaired Performance Marks Modeller for Programme Administrators in Schools
  • Postgraduate Application fee management for Business & Economics programmes
  • Key Information Sets – for undergraduate applicants (an external requirement)

The improvements made to the student administrative processes, supported by these enhancements, have enabled Academic Registry to make a target budget reduction of £110,000 on or ahead of schedule. There have been significant time-savings in the Schools and Academic Registry, as well as reduced paper/printing and postage costs, and a reduced need for temporary staff to support the processes.

The changes have resulted in an improved experience for applicants and students, better data quality, and increased robustness and consistency of processes across the University. 

Much of the success of the project can be attributed to the hard work and dedication of a small team of staff from Academic Registry, IT Services and administrators from the Schools who co-ordinated and prioritised the work, and to the commitment and support of staff from across the University willing to adopt new ways of working.

Following on from the Simplicity project and with support from the Change Projects Team where appropriate, the team is beginning to plan a sequence of review and enhancement projects to improve processes further and to provide more effective and integrated information systems for staff and students. Members of the University will be engaged in these reviews later in the coming year.

A strategy group is to be introduced to advise on IT development priorities across all student systems. Membership of the group will include representatives from Professional Services and Schools.