jisc course data final report - bfc

Course Data: Making the most of Course InformationBlackpool and The Fylde CollegeFinal Project Report & Evaluation – March 2013Contact: Peter Greenall (Project Manager)

[email protected] 01253 504461

mailto:[email protected]

JISC Final Report

Project InformationProject IdentifierProject Title Course Data Project Stage 2 – Blackpool and The Fylde CollegeProject Hashtag #coursedataStart Date 12/01/2012 12/01/2012 12/01/2012Lead Institution Blackpool and The Fylde CollegeProject Director N/AProject Manager Peter GreenallContact email [email protected] Partner Institutions Please refer to the JISC course data website for further details of other

institutions undertaking the XCRI-CAP implementation.Project Web URL Project mini-site: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap

XCRI-CAP feed: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he Programme Name Course Data: making the most of course information - Stage 2 Programme Manager Ruth Drysdale, eLearning Team Innovation

Document InformationAuthor(s) Peter GreenallProject Role(s) Project ManagerDate 28th January 2013 Filename BFC_Draft_Final_Report.docxURL Draft document therefore not published onlineAccess Project and JISC Internal

Document HistoryVersion Date Comments

01 7th Jan 2013 Initial Draft0.2 25th Jan 2013 Draft updated following team meeting and distributed to project

team for further comment0.3 28th Jan 2013 Draft submitted to JISC for review0.4 28th Feb 2013 Draft updated to reflect comments from JISC course data team

and circulated to programme team for comment0.5 6th Mar 2013 Final internal draft circulated to project team1.0 10th Mar 2013 Final Report submitted to JISC

http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he

http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap


Project Identifier: TBCVersion: 0.3Contact: Peter Greenall, Project Manager, [email protected], 01253 504461Date: 28th January 2013

Table of Contents

1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..................................................................................................................................4

2 PROJECT SUMMARY.............................................................................................................................. 4

3 MAIN BODY OF REPORT........................................................................................................................ 5

3.1 PROJECT OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES..............................................................................................................5

3.2 HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT ACHIEVING YOUR OUTPUTS / OUTCOMES?....................................................................6

3.2.1 Strand A – Technological Development..........................................................................................6

3.2.2 Strand B – Information Quality Assurance.....................................................................................8

3.2.3 Strand C – Project Management....................................................................................................9

3.3 WHAT DID YOU LEARN?...............................................................................................................................9

3.4 IMMEDIATE IMPACT....................................................................................................................................9

3.5 FUTURE IMPACT.......................................................................................................................................10

4 CONCLUSIONS..................................................................................................................................... 10

5 RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................................................... 10

6 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE..........................................................................................................11

7 REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................ 11

8 APPENDICES........................................................................................................................................ 12

8.1 Self Assessment Framework (SAF).......................................................................................................12

Document title: JISC Final Report TemplateLast updated : Feb 2011 – v11.0

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1 AcknowledgementsThis project was one of 63 projects funded by JISC under stage 2 of the Course Data (making the most of course information) initiative. Whilst there have been no direct partners linked to this project, the project team maintained contact with other HE in FE institutions using the same student information system (EBS). The project team would particularly like to thank Hazel English of City of Bristol College for her support. From a technical development aspect, the project team would also like to thank the Drupal community who have offered support and suggestions during the installation and integration of modules.

The team would also like to thank the course data support team who have delivered inspirational sessions and support at the times it was needed most.

2 Project Summary The Higher Education information landscape is rapidly evolving. This project has run alongside a number of national developments which have placed an increased focus on the quality, accuracy and therefore the reliability of public information provided by institutions involved in the delivery of Higher Education in the UK. These have included the publication of Part C of the QAA Quality Code (March 2012), and the launch of the Key Information Set (KIS) in September 2012. As requirements continue to evolve, as too does an increasing need for institutions to develop internal processes and systems to support the management and dissemination of information about their provision.

Before embarking on the Course Data project, the collection of course information at Blackpool and The Fylde College consisted of separate business processes for each public output (i.e. the prospectus, college website, course leaflets and UCAS entry profiles were all gathered separately, and sometimes by different departments within the College). The source of all data was the programme leader who is responsible for managing the delivery and development of their programme and handling the multiple requests for similar information, in slightly different formats, at different times.

The Course Data project has supported Blackpool and The Fylde College in reviewing internal business processes to ensure that course data is collected in a more organised manner, at the right time to support the College publication schedule. Additionally, systems have been developed to allow programme leaders to update their public information in web-based forms which feed into a carefully designed workflow to ensure that content is checked and moderated prior to publication. The creation of an XCRI-CAP compliant feed will also serve to support the future ability to share information with external parties in a more streamlined and less time-intensive manner.

The ultimate goal in coming years would be to transfer the content created at the point of programme validation, from word processed documents, to database fields. This could then be linked to clearly defined workflows and fully embed the creation of public information into validation and amendment processes.


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3 Main Body of Report

3.1 Project Outputs and OutcomesLinks to the project outputs identified below can be found on the project mini-site: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap

Output / Outcome Type Brief Description / URL

Content – XCRI-CAP Feed

Machine readable feed of all HE provision within the College, conformant to the XCRI Course Advertising Profile specification, accessible via a COOL URI. The quality of course information will be supported by a clearly defined, supportive and user-friendly digital workflow.

XCRI-CAP Feed URL: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he

Guidelines – Specification of Course Related Information

Internal guidelines to support the standardisation and comparability of course related information.

Enterprise Architecture Model and Course Information Management Methodology

A model linking the business processes, data, systems and hardware relating to the provision of course related information within Blackpool and The Fylde College. The EA model will lead to the development of a clearly defined methodology for the acquisition, review and publication of course related information, fully supported by digital systems.

Interim ReportsReports produced at 6 month intervals throughout the project to provide update to the programme directorate regarding progress made.

Final Report and EvaluationReport summarising the work undertaken by the project team and presenting an evaluation of project success.

Content Workflow – DrupalA user interface within our Web Content Management System (CMS) to handle the workflow involved in the initial creation, quality assurance and publication of course related information.

Improved organisational knowledge and understanding

The commencement of the course data project (January 2012) coincided with the publication of Part C of the QAA Quality Code for Higher Education (March 2012). This has led to improved understanding, across the organisation, of the challenges, timescales and wider implications involved in the management of course data.


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http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap


3.2 How did you go about achieving your outputs / outcomes?The Course Data project at Blackpool and The Fylde College was broken down into three key work strands:

Strand A – Technological Development Strand B – Information Quality Assurance Strand C – Project Management

3.2.1 Strand A – Technological DevelopmentBlackpool and The Fylde College makes use of two systems in the management of course marketing information. The core curriculum structure, student registration and academic records are defined and managed within the College student record system, Tribal EBS. A one-way data link was then in place to the college website which utilises Drupal as its Content Management System (CMS). Additional fields were then provisioned within Drupal to support the additional marketing content for each programme. This additional content was manually collected by the marketing department each year and was used to populate the course information on the website. Collection was undertaken using a variety of spread sheets and word processing documents and manually transferred into the CMS. In addition to this process, the HE admissions team also manually collected information relating to the entry requirements for each programme which was then manually updated on UCAS and maintained within the CMS. A similar process was also undertaken by the marketing department to collect and verify information for the HE prospectus.

The project team were keen to make the management of this content easier for all involved. The project aimed to create workflows for content update, moderation and publication. In order for this to be established, users needed to be created within the CMS to allow content editing roles to be assigned. User creation was a manual process and was only undertaken for a small number of users who were centrally managing content within the system. The changes planned as part of the course data project meant that the number of users editing content would increase dramatically, and should be linked to the programme leader role assigned to a course within EBS. User credentials for the system also needed to match those used for other College IT services to ensure the usability of the end product. The Drupal LDAP module was therefore implemented to link user authentication to Drupal. Overnight synchronisation was then established to ensure that all staff had user accounts within Drupal to facilitate the assignment of content editing permissions. The Drupal link to EBS was then amended to import existing user roles into the CMS.


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The diagram below summarises the technical infrastructure which was implemented and developed through the course data project:

A full field mapping between EBS, Drupal and XCRI-CAP was then undertaken in order to identify the sources of XCRI-CAP data and any aspects of the feed that were not already centrally stored. A decision was then made regarding the location of any new fields. Core curriculum fields were created as user defined fields within EBS, whilst textual marketing fields were created in Drupal. The final system ensures that EBS fields are displayed in a read-only manner through the content management system and that content editors will only be able to update the marketing fields contained solely within Drupal. The link between EBS and Drupal is one-way in order to ensure that audit requirements relating to the curriculum structure and enrolments are maintained.

With the appropriate fields and user permissions in place within Drupal, a workflow was established to ensure that content was moderated and approved prior to publication (see 3.2.2 Strand B –Information Quality Assurance).

The activities identified above played a significant role in preparing the systems and business processes within the College for the production of an externally published XCRI-CAP feed. This was the final stage in the technical development of the project, and was perhaps one of the most easily achievable outcomes because of the preparatory work undertaken. The XCRI-CAP feed has been published through a ‘COOL URI’ which will be maintained indefinitely:



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3.2.2 Strand B – Information Quality AssuranceWithin this strand a full review of all business processes relating to the collection and verification of course information was undertaken. The review highlighted a number of issues relating to the timing of collection and the method used to obtain data from programme leaders as discussed previously. The manual processes in existence created a significant amount of overlap in the data collected which in turn created the opportunity for inconsistency and placed unnecessary burden on programme leaders.

A working group was convened consisting of all internal stakeholders involved in course data production and management. This included representatives from the Marketing department, Web Development Team, Management Information and Funding, Academic Programme Leaders, The HE Directorate and the HE Admissions Team. The working group shared knowledge of existing practices in order to more clearly define the business processes and systems which should be used in the creation and management of course information. This was undertaken using Enterprise Architecture methodologies which included a wide number of diagrams which attempted to map the ‘as-is’ state through to the ‘to-be’ state. The somewhat disparate and manual nature of existing business processes and systems made a truly reflective and useful ‘as-is’ state somewhat difficult to define. The project team and working group did however have very clear ambitions regarding the ‘to-be’ state and this was more easily constructed.

The working group also defined the quality assurance workflow and agreed upon timescales and trigger-points for content update and approval. The working group agreed that as a minimum, public marketing information relating to each course should be reviewed by the programme leader every 12 months. The diagram below illustrates the implemented workflow:


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Other outputs from this strand include training materials relating to the use of the workflow systems implemented and a data specification guide for academic staff which is to be used in future training to support the consistency of the data contained within the CMS.

3.2.3 Strand C – Project ManagementThe project management strand supported all project deliverables by co-ordinating internal stakeholders to achieve the project aims. Internal dissemination, project reporting, programme networking and supporting documentation for the project were undertaken within this work strand.

3.3 What did you learn?The Course Data project has significantly improved the internal management of course information and the systems within the College which support our business processes in this area. This is however just the start of a much bigger journey. The project has enabled Blackpool and The Fylde College to better understand the challenges associated with the collection and management of course information and has established solid foundations for further development.

The Self Assessment Framework which was used during stage 1 has been revised to help illustrate the distance travelled during the span of the project (see 8.1 Self Assessment Framework (SAF)). The table below illustrates the vast improvement made, with all red indicators being changed to green and only 4 amber indicators remaining. The amber indicators which remain mainly require further development of XCRI-CAP by the wider community to harness such feeds and make use the data produced by the Course Data project institutions.

Stage 1 Assessment Completion of Stage 2 Difference

Red Indicators 11 0 -11

Amber Indicators 18 4 -14

Green Indicators 11 36 +25

A number of other projects ran concurrently with the Course Data project, and the College was also subjected to unplanned, routine funding audits from 2 major funding bodies. These projects and audits competed for the same resources allocated to the project and meant that some slippage did occur. This was however recovered by employing resources in a more condensed fashion once the competing demands had been handled. This meant that progress was made in bursts of activity, rather than steady weekly progress as planned.

3.4 Immediate ImpactThe project has supported the College in considering course data from source to destination and has significantly improved internal business processes as well as knowledge and understanding of the challenges involved in maintaining clear and reliable public information. The content management


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workflows implemented support ownership of course data at the curriculum level and data is collected once and used many times, therefore reducing the administrative burden placed on academic staff.

As the external requirements for course data emerge, the XCRI-CAP feed places the College in a strong position to offer reliable and live data to external consumers of the feed, whilst at the same time making use of the data for internal purposes. At the time of writing, the College is currently considering the use of the demonstrator projects such as Facebook course search integration and XCRI-CAP consumption through mobile applications to further raise the profile of its provision.

3.5 Future ImpactThe Course Data project has created a single point of management for public course information, however some manual processing is still involved in the initial collection of data. The work undertaken has highlighted the need to further consider the creation of public information as part of the course validation and amendment processes. In the future, this will involve the development of content management systems and workflows to digitise the creation of HE curriculum within the college, with public information fully embedded. If this level of detail was available it would facilitate a more granular level of data validation across the multiple systems employed within the College and in doing so further enhance the quality and depth of public information.

4 ConclusionsThe challenges involved in the collection, management and publication of course information are more complex wide-reaching than first anticipated. The JISC Course Data project has supported Blackpool and The Fylde College in making significant enhancements to the quality and availability of its published course data.

As the systems and processes mature, future prospective students will be in a position to make a more informed choice about their studies, which will ultimately lead to improvements in retention and achievement as students select the course which most closely meets their needs and expectations. Furthermore, the XCRI-CAP feed presents the opportunity to share course information with a wider range of external agencies, which has the potential to raise the profile of the College’s HE provision.

The project has provided an excellent catalyst for development within the College and has resulted in a much improved understanding of our current position and future trajectory in relation to the development of systems and processes to support the production and management of public course information.

5 RecommendationsWith 63 institutions competing stage 2 of the course data project and submitting validated XCRI-CAP compliant feeds, firm commitment from potential consumers of the content is required to support future developments and to encourage other institutions to produce feeds of their own. For Blackpool and The Fylde College, the project has been transformational, and more projects and programmes of this nature would be welcomed in the future.


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6 Implications for the futureThe project has played a key role in developing internal understanding of the wider implications and issues associated with the management of course data. When combined with the requirements of Part C of the Quality Code, it is fair to say that the College now has a clearer focus on the steps necessary to ensure the effective management of course information. It is therefore anticipated that the foundations laid by the course data project will continue to be built upon, for example, further work within the College to manage curriculum validation and amendment using digital forms and workflows is strongly recommended.

The project has demonstrated a way in which HE in FE providers who are sometimes marginalised through national initiatives such as the KIS (e.g. excluding courses <= 1FTE) can maintain the presence of their curriculum offer outside of the organisation’s core web presence through the provision of a standard feed to external agencies.

Further work will be undertaken in the months following the project closure to embed project outputs into internal protocols and practices. The XCRI-CAP feed will be maintained by the College web-development team within the College who deliver all public facing web presences.

7 ReferencesDrupal modules implemented:

Workflowhttp://drupal.org/project/workflow

Workflow Extensionshttp://drupal.org/project/workflow_extensions

Revisioning (version control)http://drupal.org/project/revisioning

Diff (allows users to easily identify the differences between versions)http://drupal.org/project/diff

Content Access (manage permissions for content types by role and author)http://drupal.org/project/content_access

Module Grants (support for unpublished content revision)http://drupal.org/project/module_grants

View Unpublished (support for unpublished content revision)http://drupal.org/project/view_unpublished

Views (used to build content review screens)http://drupal.org/project/views

Ckeditor (WYSIWYG editing)http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor


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http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor

http://drupal.org/project/views

http://drupal.org/project/view_unpublished

http://drupal.org/project/module_grants

http://drupal.org/project/content_access

http://drupal.org/project/diff

http://drupal.org/project/revisioning

http://drupal.org/project/workflow_extensions

http://drupal.org/project/workflow

8 Appendices

8.1 Self Assessment Framework (SAF)

QuestionStage 1 Review Conclusion of Stage 2

Answer RAG Comments Answer RAG Comments

A – Institutional Strategic Policy

A1Stakeholders: Has the institution identified key stakeholders who are responsible for

course marketing?Yes - partially Amber

Programme Leaders, Marketing and Admissions

Yes - fully Green

Roles clarified and remained as originally expected,

although this may evolve further in the future

A2

Collectors: Has the institution identified key third party course collecting

organisations that could be served by the XCRI implementation, for example UCAS, HEFCE/HESA for the Key Information Set

(KIS), HEAR?

Yes - partially Amber Primarily UCAS and KIS. Yes - partially Amber

UCAS and the KIS remain the key drivers for the production

of the XCRI-CAP feed, although this is not yet offered

by either party.

A3

Your website: Has the institution agreed whether or not the XCRI implementation

will drive the main institution website, including an assessment of the impact of

such a change?

Yes Green

The College website will operate from the same

database (CMS) but will not necessarily directly consume

the XCRI-CAP feed.

Yes GreenUnchanged from original

assessment.

A4

Other internal uses: Has the institution identified other internal uses for the XCRI implementation (for example, publication on faculty websites, integration with non-

course information)?

Yes - fully GreenPotential to support the

production of paper-based prospectus.

Yes - fully Green

Unchanged from original assessment. Now the XCRI-

CAP feed is available this possibility is now being

investigated further.A5 Retention policy: Has the institution

agreed a policy for the long term storage and management of the information,

Partially Amber CMS provides automatic versioning and history. A formal policy has not been

Yes - formally Green Full audit trails of any changes made within EBS are

maintained within the MI&F




including a policy for the length of retention?

defined.team. All Drupal content is kept through version control

and will be stored indefinitely.

A6

Coverage: Has the institution agreed the coverage of the XCRI implementation in relation to the types of courses it offers

(for example undergraduate, postgraduate, taught, research, CPD, full

time, part time, and so on)?

Yes - fully GreenAll HE programmes – full and part-time undergraduate will be included within the feed.

Yes - fully Green

All HE programmes are included within the HE feed. Expansion of XCRI-CAP to

cover all courses offered by the college (including FE) is

currently being considered.

A7

Depth: XCRI does not prescribe how detailed the course marketing information should be. Has the institution agreed on

the depth of information that will be included in the XCRI outputs?

Partially AmberTo be considered as strand of

stage 2 implementation.Yes - formally Green

Published XCRI-CAP feed includes all XCRI-CAP fields. The depth of content within

fields is defined within the data guide for academic staff.

A8

Integration: Has the institution agreed a policy for electronic access from, or

integration with, other systems within the institution?

Partially Amber

CMS already communicates with learner record system.

Some work on identity management and user

authentication to be undertaken to gain full

integration.

Yes - formally Green

Improved integration with college authentication systems

and EBS as a result of the project. Better definition of business processes and the support provided by course

data systems.


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A9

External access: Has the institution agreed a policy for electronic access to

the information externally from other organisations?

Partially Amber

Not formally agreed, but initial intentions are that the feed will

be freely available following some form of usage

agreement.

Partially Amber

The feed is currently published externally. Consumption is subject to the website terms

and conditions. Formal agreement of the policy for

access is yet to be obtained.

A10

Charging: Has the institution a policy statement on whether it will be making any charges for the provision of course marketing information to third parties?

Yes - in draft Amber No intention to charge. Yes - In Draft Amber

This will be considered along with the external access policy (A9). Formal agreement is yet

to be obtained, although indications are that the

institution is unlikely to charge for access to course data.

A11

Update: Has the institution agreed a policy for the frequency of update of its course marketing information for each

type of course?

Partially AmberTo be considered further in

stage 2. Will most likely undertake an annual review.

Yes - formally Green

Annual Update triggered through workflow as a

minimum. Additional updates when programme is re-validated or amended.

A12Business case: Has the institution

identified the business case for XCRI implementation?

Yes - partially Amber

Benefits relate to more informed student choice, therefore more likely to choose the correct course, more likely to stay, and more likely to achieve and achieve well.

Yes - fully Green

The business case for XCRI-CAP implementation was

formalised within the Stage 2 Implementation Plan.


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B – Planning the Output

B1

Mapping structures: Can the current courses data structures be mapped or

transformed readily to the XCRI information model?

No Red

Current course structure in learner record system has several course codes for different variations of the same programme (i.e. FT/PT etc.) This will need some changing.

Yes - fully Green

Changes to the HE curriculum structure have permitted a more

precise mapping between internal data structures and the XCRI-CAP

1.2 specification.

B2

Mapping fields: Can the current courses data fields be mapped or transformed readily to the XCRI

information model?

No Red

As above - some work to be undertaken to amend the learner record system and

feed into CMS

Yes - fully Green

A full mapping of internal course data fields within both EBS and

Drupal was undertaken, and a full mapping between these systems

and XCRI-CAP 1.2 is now possible.

B3

Course identifiers: Are common course identifiers used in all of the

proposed sources of course advertising information (so that they

can be linked together automatically)?

Yes GreenThe CMS is fed from the

learner record systemYes Green

A re-structure of the HE curriculum was undertaken to ensure that

there is only one course code per programme.

B4

Storage: Where does the institution currently store the course advertising

information to be used in the XCRI implementation?

In 2-3 systems AmberCMS and learner record system and UCAS

In 2-3 systems

Amber

CMS and EBS. Links between the two systems have been improved. User authentication and content

workflows now implemented.


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B5Extra data: Is further work required to

identify and source any extra data needed for the XCRI implementation?

Yes Red

Not all data fields are currently collected. Data structures will need to be

amended accordingly

No Green

All data fields are now present within the content workflows. EBS and Drupal amended appropriately to add the additional fields needed.

B6Nature of XCRI feed: How will the

institution physically/technically generate/host the XCRI feed?

SOAP web service

Green Other XML

WebsiteGreen

Drupal XML view was implemented. A second view is also available which supplies a

direct feed based on URL parameters, allowing users to filter

the feed.

C – Management Implementation

C1

Sources: Has the institution identified the authoritative source or sources of

course marketing information that could be used in an XCRI implementation?


Systems within the college are a little disparate. This

will be rectified during stage 2.

Yes - fully Green

Documents produced during validation are now the authoritative

source for many fields. Other fields which relate more to the

description of the programme and its modules are editable by the content owners and reviewed

annually.

C2

Centralisation: Has the institution agreed on the extent of centralisation of the course information to be included in

an XCRI implementation?

No Red

Need to discuss the extent to which marketing define

the course advertising profile.

Yes Green

Course information is centralised within EBS and Drupal, with

business processes now mapped to initial content provision and

update.

C3 Volume and complexity: Has the institution considered how the volume

Yes - partially Amber Aggregation to programme level then displaying

Yes - fully Green The HE curriculum structure was re-modelled to ensure that there


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and complexity of its provision will be reflected in an XCRI implementation?

different presentations for FT and PT seem the best

approach.

was one course code per programme, with occurrence codes

reflecting the different ‘presentations’ of the programme.

C4

Process changes: Has the institution highlighted any changes to the

processes of creating and maintaining course marketing information?

No RedProcess changes to be defined and realised in

stage 2.Yes - as is Green

A full review of business processes has resulted in a harmonised

approach.

C5

Tracking and auditing: Has the institution agreed how updates to the course marketing information will be tracked (for example via an audit trail recording date and staff involved)?

Yes - changes scheduled

RedCMS will handle the update process as part of the stage

2 implementationYes - as is Green

Full audit trails are recorded within MI&F for any changes to

programmes within EBS. Editable content within Drupal is reviewed and approved by a moderator. All

previous versions of Drupal content are kept indefinitely along with

workflow audit logs.

C6

Lines of responsibility: Has the institution agreed how the XCRI implementation will be managed,

including who will be responsible for it?

Yes - fully GreenMainly within the Web Development Team

Yes - fully GreenUnchanged from original

assessment.

C7Time scales: Has the institution

assessed the time scale that will be required to implement XCRI?

Yes - fully GreenStage 2 implementation plan

submitted.Yes - fully Green

XCRI-CAP feed was a little behind schedule but was published within

the overall project timescale.

C8

Finance: Has the institution identified and sourced the financial resources

that will be required to implement XCRI?

No RedAwaiting approval for JISC

stage 2 fundingYes Green

Largely funded through the JISC Course Data programme.


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C9

Non-technical skills: Has the institution identified and sourced the non-

technical skills that will be required to implement XCRI, for example business

analysis, process re-design?

In house GreenProject management,

business analysis etc. will be handled in house.

In house GreenUnchanged from original

assessment.

C10

Technical skills: Has the institution identified and sourced the technical

skills that will be required to implement XCRI?

Mix of in house & outsource

Amber

Mainly in house with some consultancy work from Clarus Computing who

support our learner record system developments.

In house Green

All work was completed by the in house project team. Clarus

Computing were not used to support IDM/authentication work stream because an alternative

solution was identified in the form of an open-source community

developed module.

C11

Resources: Has the institution identified the resources (i.e. time, money,

technical and non-technical skills) required to sustain XCRI in the long

term?

Yes - partially AmberResources identified within

stage 2 implementation planYes - fully Green

Provided by the JISC course data project

C12 Relationship with other projects: Has the institution considered how the XCRI

implementation will relate to other projects addressing courses

information, for example, validation, approval and assessment systems, student relationship management

systems, Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR)

implementation, Key Information Set

Yes - partially Amber Links to Identity Management (IDM) project.

KIS

Yes - fully Green The project overlapped to a certain extent with the KIS project. This

introduced benefits as course data was already under focus, but also

introduced slippage into the course data project because of the

competing demands for resources from both projects.


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(KIS) and so on?

C13

Quality: Has the institution addressed the quality of its course marketing information (for example accuracy,

completeness, integrity, accessibility, timeliness, transferability, transparency,

provenance, transportability)?

No Red

Process development planned as part of stage 2 implementation. There is a need to create a single point

of access for course information and improved

processes for data collection and

Yes Green

The quality of course data has improved and will continue to do so

as a result of the course data initiative.

D – Technical Implementation

D1

Support from CMS: Has the institution a Content Management System or

Document Management System that would support XCRI implementation?

Yes - fully Green Drupal Yes - fully Green

The College CMS – Drupal has been developed further as part of the course data project and as a

result is now accessed by a wider range of content editors.

D2Support from MIS: Has the institution a Management Information System that would support XCRI implementation?


EBS provides the core structure but Drupal will be

used for additional marketing fields.

Yes - fully Green

EBS provides all core information to Drupal. Drupal is then used by content owners to manage non-

core course information.

D3Permanent IDs: Does the institution use permanent unique course identifiers in its main courses information system?

Yes Green Yes Green

Unique identifiers were assigned to each course code however there were multiple course codes per

programme and therefore multiple ID’s. This has now been resolved through the re-modelling of the HE curriculum structures within EBS.


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D4

All data available: Can the institution's current data provide all of the

requirements of the major target consumers of XCRI, for example

HEAR, Key Information Set (KIS), etc.?

Partially AmberSome additional fields and

data collection required.Yes Green

Whilst the KIS continues to evolve each year, the systems within the

College provide the data necessary to create these outputs.

D5

Programme / module: Do the institution's information systems

support the provision of both programme level and

module/unit/component level course advertising information?


Recent development takes a programme to stages (levels), modules and

assessments.

Yes - fully GreenRecent development takes a

programme to stages (levels), modules and assessments.


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D6Equipment and software: Will new

equipment or software be required?No Green

Existing systems and software will be developed further.

No GreenUnchanged from original

assessment.

D7

Application change: Will changes be required to applications or IT services to gather the required information to

implement an XCRI feed?

Yes - apps & processes

Red

Workflow to be developed within Drupal for content

creation, update and approval.

No GreenFeed now in place and content supported by links to EBS and

content workflow

D8

Interface(s) change: Will changes be required to applications in order to build interfaces between systems to support

the XCRI implementation?

Yes - apps only RedEBS and Drupal interface

will need further development

No GreenSystem interface development

completed.

D9

Process change: Will changes be required to manual processes to gather the required information to implement

an XCRI feed?

Yes - apps & processes

Red

All course data processes are currently manual,

copying and pasting info from word documents into

web pages.

No GreenProcesses changed to match content workflows and update

trigger points identified.


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