Less admin more quality: my little challenge ;-)

1. Less admin more quality: my little challenge ;-) Elizabeth Burd Department of Computer ScienceUniversity of Durham

2. Let me tell you a story… that you have probably heard before…

3. Issues • Time completing unnecessary admin is time taken away from teaching and research • Many of the tasks require the same sets of information, just in a different format • Much of the information required by the faculty for i.e. a module is the same for all modules • No central repository so need to access original source to make use of materials • Need version control system to keep track of the changes made

4. Main Screen of the Database

5. What it does • Module proforma and general admin • Module box documents • Module / program / curriculum review • Library documents • Department web pages • Assessment satisfaction grids

8. Problems • Keep changing the main forms to be returned for the administration centre • Admin centre see this as them losing control, they must keep their own paper copy! • Changed modules code – these were used as key fields • Modules code of Masters and UG courses of different form • No deletion of modules – have modules such as advanced basket weaving in system

9. Benefits • Generation of web pages consistent for modules • Easier to create new combinations of modules from existing ones • Required documentation for university now takes approximately 10 mins (from about 1 –2 hours) also forms department documentation as well

10. Some successes • Improvement in documentation speed of production and quality • Can see most current version in full not by a partial set of corrections • Other departments using database, including their requirements for db has improved our documentation procedures • Useful for early discussions (even when distributed across campuses); access documents over web

11. Conclusions • University have now come up with the idea of implementing their own database!