Admission System Project Planning

Background
The Admissions System Project is currently in a state of limbo awaiting both formal communication
of the outcome of the tendering /procurement process and the completion of Information Services
restructuring and project planning. The recent UMF grant from HEFCE, that included a project on
Admissions Processing, has expenditure associated with efficiency deliverables to be committed and
spent by March31st 2011. There is significant stakeholder frustration at the slow pace of change: the
initiation of project work on the Admissions System has become urgent.

This paper proposes a project structure based on previous successful Kent system developments and
implementations that involve information systems such as Student Data System and the Timetabling
System: the project will be steered by a cross-stakeholder panel chaired by senior staff; project
managed by Academic Division staff; have dedicated programming provision from Information
Services.

The advantages of this project structure are:

 Institutional responsibility for delivery: shared ownership of the project delivery between
administration and Information Services
 Effective stakeholder representation: a steering group with members from management,
academic, administrative and technical staff
 Better project communication: regular steering group meetings increase project information
flow and improves the management of stakeholder expectations
 Process-lead design: specifications, mock-ups, tests and trials managed by staff who have
good knowledge of the working processes
 Integrated implementation of organisational and technical change: this project is more than
just IT; it is about the review of business processes and how people work, complete tasks and
share information. IT is a small component of the overall work required.

Steering Group
The development of the admissions system is critical to the University’s future operations; the
steering group will include sufficient senior representation to enable and secure effective
implementation.

The steering group will meet twice a term over the two-year project life.

The steering group to comprise:

Chair David Nightingale Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Process Management Mary Hughes Head of Admissions and

Stakeholders Partnership Services
 Steven Holdcroft Head of Information, Recruitment
and Admissions Office
Jon Pink Academic Registrar
Jeremy Ovenden Head of Student Planning and
Information
Project Manager Tony Williams Systems Support and Project
Officer
Information Services John Sotillo Director of Information Services
Management
Michael Wilcox Assistant Director, IT
Development

Process Analyst / Designer Nicholas Thurston Senior Projects Officer

Stakeholder Academic TBC Academic Admissions Officer ;
one UG one PG
Stakeholder Administrator TBC School Admissions Assistant ; one
UG, one PG
Stakeholder Admissions Shirley Prosser Admissions Unit Manager
Officer
Project workers TBC Lead project programmer

Project plan overview

The project first phase will have three initial strands as follows:

A - Rapid development of existing processes (6 months)

Project team: Tony Williams (Project Manager), Nicholas Thurston (Process Analyst / Designer),
Steven Holdcroft; 2 x programmers – Dan Bartlett + TBC (Reporting Services / MSSQL)

This short-term set of developments will be geared to delivering low effort / quick win add-ons to the
existing system that enable processing and administrative efficiencies that enable the project to
meet March 2011 operating efficiency targets. These developments will be prioritised items such as:

 Reporting Services views of data from all three admissions databases to allow administrators
visual summaries for tracking and drilling through to applications
 School administration/ academic tracking comments and codes to facilitate the abandoning
of local database and spreadsheet tracking applications and facilitate migration to on-line
processing
 Reporting Services + php Web presentations of structure data and tracking status +
comments to allow migration to web-based transactions (from telnet/UpFront screens)
 Harmonisation of automated system email presentations
 Document mail-in automated load – from students and from scanners by staff
B - Future process development (6 months+)
Project team: Tony Williams (Project Manager), Nicholas Thurston (Process Analyst / Designer),
Steven Holdcroft (Head of Information, Recruitment and Admissions Office) and to include relevant
admissions office staff as appropriate.

The team will work at designing processes with diagrams, detailed descriptions and screen,
communication and report mock-ups that will provide the basis for designing the new system. This
part of the project will learn from part A, designing efficient admissions processing options and
grappling with important questions over which parts of the process should be systematised and
which parts need operational and local flexibility in order to meet the service level and stakeholder
requirements. This work is required in order to add the detail to the existing headline functionality
list which is the current IT system specification.

This team will also cover important issues such as:

 Protocol based decision making

 Managing communications with applicants
 Assigning roles and tasks
 Service level monitoring

C - Future system groundwork

Project team: Tony Williams (Project Manager), Steven Holdcroft, IS Programmers

This part of the project will conduct the evaluation and demonstration work necessary to determine
the technological routes to system migration, be it Oracle + ADF, MSSQL + .NET, mysql + Java or some
other combination.

This is necessary in order to balance the requirements for robust and efficient systems, cost and
expertise.

This part of the project, like A and B will have structure goals and will report back to the steering
group.

Project second phase

After six months, the project plan for the second phase will be developed. This will work out the
prioritised migration of processes and functionality from the current Ingres/php/MSSQL base to the
new platforms.

UMF Commitments
The UMF bid specifically requested and costed the following posts over 10 months. Expenditure will
need to be completed by 31st March 2011. There are 8 months remaining from 1 st August.

 Secondment Senior Admissions Office post 0.8fte - Total £37k

 Secondment Programmer 1.0 fte –Total £37.5k
  Secondment Programmer 1.0 fte – Total £37.5k
 Project Management 0.3 fte – Total £13k

While there will be some flexibility as to how the costs are finally apportioned, we need as a matter
of urgency to appoint programmers to the project and make the necessary cover arrangements for
Project Management and the senior admissions input.

The HEFCE UMF fund is an opportunity to substitute external funding for internal earmarked funds in
the early months of the redevelopment of admissions systems. Thereafter earmarked funds will be
expected to continue to support the project.

Nicholas Thurston/jco

21/07/2010