Linking systems and information

Just had an interesting session with the head of Information Services, to talk about how the university handles course information and its different purposes. This is linked to the fact that during August we lost links to the course information from the website from within the Support Point. It raised some interesting points about looking at the reason behind existing databases, how they are very focused to different business purposes and whether it is right to expand their purpose. A big thing is if their purpose is expanded to include new audiences how is this managed? Are we going to start putting too much pressure on Faculties to manage this data?

This is a good point as the www.staffs.ac.uk has a definate marketing focus on the traditional learner, therefore both the course search and results are targeted at that type of person. With the Support Point the target is either employers or employees looking for awards in a particular sector, and rather than looking at what entry requirements they need they are more interested in progression information and location of study. So how is this managed? Information overload!

Successful Launch

Well I am now fully recovered from yesterdays launch, which went well. We did have a lot of positive comments about the usefulness of the support point, although there where concerns about the usability of the site and how those uncomfortable with technology would find it. This concern was mainly focused around the use of the Forums. A few bugs were found in the system, but this was mainly due to work the technical team were doing the day before to make the site look more polished. On the whole a positive experience which shows a real need by staff for this tool and for the functionality it gives.
Here is a couple of the presentations given during the morning:

Prof Mark Stiles Welcome and Background



Fleur Corfield gives a brief breakdown of the Support Point