Distributed Thinking

I'm very happy to pass on the news that the University of Edinburgh has been named "University of the Year" by Tribal, the vendor of our student record system.  This reflects the huge effort that we have put in to improving our student administration systems and processes. Over the past year, we have rolled out systems that let students register online and update their personal details online, which has simplified their dealings with the university administration and improved the quality of the data that we store.  We have used new technology in our user interfaces to make them easier to use and more visually appealing - this technology that was not straightforward to integrate with the Tribal system, so this was a harder task than it may have seemed from outside.  We have also provided an common interface for the final marks of all courses to be uploaded to the student record, making them available earlier. These improvements have been enabled by the partnership crea...

Yesterday the Student Systems Management team met to review the draft “Strategic framework for Student Experience Services” and consider how our work can support this plan.  The discussion ranged over a number of topics. One recurring theme was how to join services and information so that students can find what they need (sometimes even before they know they need it).  The recently released Path tool (requires login) is a great example of this: it shows students which courses they may need to take as precursors for others, while also showing them alternatives that may be available from other schools.  If the feedback option is enabled, they can see moderated comments from other students, such as recommendations to read a given book before starting the course.  This helps students navigate their way through the complex set of options available to them.  It also makes this information available to personal tutors, who otherwise may only have a partial view of the...