Recently the government has signalled through the draft 2010-2015 Tertiary Education Strategy that it wants to see improvements in the performance of the tertiary education system. It has also indicated that it wants to link funding more closely to performance, and for information on the educational performance of TEOs to be made publicly available. In considering how UCOL might respond to some of these challenges and determine further opportunities to improve student performance within the delivery year, they have identified that at a system level information about students’ academic progress gained from current systems and processes only comes together at the end of the year - too late to make changes locally or at a UCOL wide level.
In the last quarter of 2009 IS initiated a project to develop and implement tools that would proactively and systematically provide student achievement information to academic staff and managers. The objective has been to implement a common system that can readily identify where there are challenges and opportunities within the academic year, which, if addressed would improve student’s academic success. Fundamentally this system tracks and reports student achievement at a credit level based on the results of individual assessment results recorded in the student management system. The tool converts assessment results into credits and reports credits expected (baseline), credits targeted, and credits achieved on a monthly cycle with faculties responsible for setting and regularly reviewing credit targets. It is intended that the variances between credits targeted and credits achieved to be the basis for discussions between academic staff and managers to aid understanding and to result in tangible actions to improve student performance. The application builds on UCOL’s data warehouse work presented at last years IT conference and provides an excellent example of how Information Systems can add real value to the business of education
Harry Faas got his first computer when he turned 8 and by the time he was 9 he was programming in MS basic 1.0. He was born in New Zealand but grew up in Holland where he studied mechanical engineering. It was during this time that he was introduced to DBASE and developed an interest in database applications. He moved to New Zealand at the age of 21 and worked as a programmer where he mainly developed database applications. He was based in Wellington for 4 years working for a small development company called Rex limited and later moved to the much larger Datacom systems. During his time he was involved with developing database systems for Tower Insurance, Telstra Clear and the Ministry of Education. In October 2001 he started a development company in Palmerston North together with James Watts from InSPire NET. During this time he developed an ecommerce software package and worked with Hallenstein/Glassons, Just Kids, Ballantynes and EziBuy to connect their businesses with the internet. He currently holds the position of Information Systems Manager at UCOL. For the last year he mainly has been involved in the development and implementation of a data warehouse system. He maintains a strong interest in database development in particular MS SQL server development.