Student Information System Focus Group – Module Registration
Notes of a meeting held on the 8th of February 2012
In Attendance
Wendy / APPLEBY / ARCS / (Chair)Trudy / MASON / ARCS
Victoria / ADRIENNE / Blizard Institute
Alice / AUSTIN / SPIR
Kiran / BAHRA / Planning
Katherine / BEVAN / ARCS
Jason / BUNNING / SITS
Ed / CARTLEDGE / SEMS
Sam / COKER / SMD
Michelle / DEAN / CCLS
Mark / FERRIS / SITS
Jenny / GAULT / English & Drama
Tony / HIGGINS / ITS
Nashin / KHAN / SMD
Matt / LATHAM / History
Michelle / RESTARICK / SBCS
Kunal / SAPAT / WHRI
Rosine / SMYRL / SLLF
Marta / TIMONCINI / Geography
Kaye / YEUNG / Cancer SMD
Ben / WAKEFIELD / ARCS / (Notes)
Part 1 – items for discussion
Introductions
1. / Wendy Appleby welcomed colleagues to the first subject based forum.[a] It was reported that the SITS development team was moving to ITS as part of TOM. Tony Higgins would take on responsibility for the SITS team and SITS development and was welcomed to the meeting.
Overview of module selection
2. / The current module registration process for both new and continuing students was explained.[a] The process for new students – Students were made an offer, and if they accepted they were moved from the Applicant part of the system to the Registry part of the system (ATR’d). Upon being ATR’d an automated email would be sent to the prospective student asking them to pre-enrol; once they have pre-enrolled the module registration task is made available.
[b] Some schools, especially LLM, did not want students to be able to preselect modules before their induction meeting. Other schools found it useful to know in advance which modules students wanted to take.
[c] ARCS would like to have a consistent approach where possible; however they recognised that there are differences in how people work.
Wendy Appleby noted the following:
[d] Schools / Institutes had differing views on the approach to module registration; some found it useful to know what interest there was in elective modules for planning purposes; others wanted to meet with students before enabling options to be selected
[e] Joint and shared student and those running programs across schools required a standard approach, therefore the focus group needed to pin down a decision.
[f] Changes to the Blackboard interface had been made over the summer to enable students to gain access to module information on Blackboard as soon as the module registration activity had taken place, not once module selections had been approved by schools / institutes. There was general agreement that this had improved access however if students were unable to make module selections until later in the process this would have an impact on access to the VLE. It was assumed that SITS would talk to the Moodle in the same way it did to Blackboard.
Module selection discussions
3. / English & Drama noted the following:[a] The current system of module registration worked for them and recognised that because it worked for them, it did not mean that was the way it had to be.
[b] The only way a student gets enrolled on the VLE is once they’ve registered for their modules on SITS.
[c] Early on-line module registration was helpful for planning purposes (teaching assistants, seminar groups, timetables, student information, access to online materials) and this was needed prior to welcome week.
[d] Face to face academic advice was important; however initial module selection need not wait because students could refocus in light of academic advice by changing modules up to the second teaching week of the semester.
[e] It was important for new students to be given a timetable when they arrive and be part of their modules right away.
[f] Other schools agreed that early module registration was useful.
4. / Other comments noted:
[a] In response to a question from Tony Higgins, it was confirmed that the module selection system is entirely electronic rather than paper based. Once students have pre-enrolled (from mid August) it is possible to see what module selections are being made.
[b] In most schools / institutes, the students’ module choices were reviewed in an interview with their tutor and any suggested changes could be made within the two week deadline.
[c] In the School of Biological & Chemical Sciences students selected modules in a discussion with their adviser during induction week in order to pick a long term path of progression. This was a more efficient system and it confirmed the module selection data for practical allocations sooner than students changing their minds over two weeks.
[d] It was agreed that any correspondence / messages being sent out to students regarding module selection would be made available to academic colleagues in advance. There was concern that the email was sent out in September and academic departments had been unaware of the content.
[e] If students chose their modules before meeting an adviser, they might not think the meeting with an adviser is necessary and may miss other valuable information.
[f] Module selection dates had an impact on student experience. It was suggested that if students were able to select their modules earlier rather than later they were more likely to turn up and get involved in the college and if students could see how their week looked they could organise themselves around it.
[g] International students taking the foundation program needed to consult with a tutor to know which modules would lead them to their degree course.
[h] Geography thought discussions were useful but if modules were selected in week zero, it would leave little time to make up seminar groups and other arrangements.
[i] The Institute of Cancer preferred to wait for students to make an informed decision and emphasised the need to be copied in to any correspondence with students to ensure a consistent message was delivered.
[j] The question was raised whether it was possible to have more than one parallel system or should there be one consistent approach. If the College went with either system would this have an impact on the student experience, particularly for students on joint programmes.
[k] Many first year students were not offered a choice of modules, and should they receive the same correspondence as those who did get a choice it could falsely raise their expectations. Students needed to be informed in the clearest manner as early as possible whether they would have a choice in their first year modules or not.
Academic Model
5. / The following points were noted:[a] Members of the group were asked to notify ARCS of any changes that would impact on module registration. The deadlines for notifying ARCS were outlined in the ARCS calendar.
[b] A change in when module selection opened was unlikely to seriously affect deadlines regarding the Academic Model but it was important to be sure.
[c] Colleagues were reminded of the importance of sticking to key deadlines as late changes could not be guaranteed to be amended in SITS immediately as there would be significant pressure on the team this year to implement KIS.
[d] Is the module directory going to be updated? Should schools send the module registration as in the previous year?
[e] ARCS and ITS are working towards a situation where the data that goes in to SITS then comes out and appears in a module directory somewhere. There is currently a test system in place which will not only fully automate the module directory from SITS but also has the potential to include information about whether a module is available to associate students, whether there are prerequisites, etc.. With the exception of timetabling information, everything should be centrally pulled form SITS.
[f] It was reported that a project board had met the day before and it was agreed there should be a College wide timetabling system put in place which would automatically extract module information directly from SITS.
[g] It was agreed that it should be possible for school administrators to view module information / diets and make minor amendments to modules, such as tutors. This would enable academic colleagues to check the data before module diets are generated. Problems with the time frame had prevented this from happening the previous year.
Miscellaneous Points
6. / The following points were noted:[a] Mark Ferris had produced a report for the School of Maths and could be provided to support schools though the module registration exercise.
[b] The School of Politics and International Relations wished to be able to find out which students were trying to get on their modules. It was only possible to view 20 students’ registration statuses (e.g. entered or confirmed) at a time and it would be helpful to be able to download a full list. Mark Ferris noted that a series of reports that schools could retrieve themselves could be developed easily in eVision / MySIS. Wendy Appleby noted that there was a lot of encouragement for this development.
[c] In the previous year ARCS had repeatedly encountered queries about students who had pre-enrolled but had not completed enrolment appearing online. This data could not be cleansed until after the final deadline for enrolment which was after week 2 of teaching. As a consequence schools were expecting to see students in classes that they had not fully enrolled in. Student modules should be flagged with a status to show whether the student is fully enrolled. This would enable schools to remind students that they hadn’t completed enrolment.
Associate and Intercollegiate Students
7. / The following points were noted:[a] Harry Gibney was the only person in the international office responsible for module registrations for associate students.
[b] Schools were unable to see what associate students were doing in the module registration screen. In order to get international students on the VLE, they had to be enrolled as an auditor. The school then had to remember to check their module registration and then take them off auditor status.
[c] Warren had been taking forward automated module registration for undergraduate associate students.
[d] It was agreed that a separate meeting was required with Harry Gibney present to resolve the issues around the academic model for associate students. It was noted there was still time to put a solution in time for September although it would require immediate action.
[e] Currently associate students were being presented with a huge list of all the available modules in paper form. A balance needed to be reached between offering sufficient modules to attract students and specific enough to enable module registrations to be modelled and presented to students.
Semester 2 Module Amendments
8. / In line with the academic regulations, students with electives are able to make semester two module amendments within the first two weeks of the semester. A discussion about the process which took place in January ensued:[a] Module amendments are only available to students who had module choices in the second semester. Last year the college had about 2,500 module amendments, which was thought to have been a blip however a similar number of module amendments (2,300) had been processed for the same period.
[b] There was now a question as to whether module amendment should be a MySIS task and whether it should be managed by schools or managed centrally.
[c] The solution would be dependent upon having the necessary development resources through ITS.
[d] SBCS were happy to manage module amendments within the school. It was agreed that this was best left in the hands of the schools.
[e] The Blizard institute wanted a full list of SMD modules available for students. Wendy Appleby suggested having more clearly defined diets containing specific modules to avoid confusing overlong module lists.
[f] Some Cancer SMD students were sent conflicting messages about when and whether they could change modules in the second semester. ARCS confirmed that they had only sent out one email and there shouldn’t have been any mixed messages. Wendy Appleby recommended reviewing the content of the emails.
[g] SBCS noted that they had already put a process in place to ensure module amendments did not go directly back to Registry without passing via the school administrators first. This was to avoid mistakes such as an academic signing something off incorrectly.
[h] It was noted that there was such a variation in process from one academic department to another that it was difficult to communicate a standard centralised message. It was suggested that the responsibility for communicating these processes to students should be managed / delegated to schools/institutes and they could decide what message should be sent out and when, leaving Registry with a monitoring regulatory role.
Module Registration / Pre-Selection Timing
9. / The following points were noted:[a] In terms of semester two module amendments, students had until the end of the second week of teaching in semester 2 to make changes with the task being made available around the 9th of December to give students the opportunity to consider their choices over Christmas. The question was asked whether this was too long. This gave students plenty of time to speak to a tutor rather than panicking if they received messages that a module was not running next semester. It was agreed that the timings should not be changed.
[b] In terms of module pre-selection for continuing students it was agreed that the timings used in the previous year should be adopted for a second year and then reviewed to ensure the process worked adequately.
[c] In the previous year, continuing students had a pre-selection stage from mid May to mid June, followed by the MAA process from mid June to mid July, and then the program approval stage from mid July to September-October. This timescale was dependent upon all module amendments being submitted through PMAB in sufficient time to make amendments in SITS. In the previous year it was noted that there had been a significant number of last minute changes.
[d] It was noted that a number of students that had completed the pre-selection task had subsequently failed the programme and the data had not be cleansed to remove the module registrations. It was agreed that this should be managed centrally.
Decisions for 2012