Background
Adam Smith College was born in 2005 following the merger of Glenrothes College and Fife College. It is the third largest college in Scotland with approximately 35,000 students enrolments annually and 900 staff. The College, located in Fife, has a strong presence in the community with four main campuses, in Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes and Leven, as well as within local learning centres.
Adam Smith College aspires to provide a flexible service that meets the needs of its learners and is working with Tribal to innovate the colleges approach to the management of information delivered by its core systems to meet this need.
Adam Smith College required a solution that provided an online presence externally enabled them to be online facing, while automating at the same time could automate key processes internally to ensure a more efficient approach to the use of its information. As a long standing user of SITS:Vision, the college needed to review the way in which it used its information and services to meet this requirement.
Specifically, the college needed to:
- Create a central repository of course related information that could be published to the college web site and to external facing brochures and other materials
- Enable the online management of enquiries and applications from students including all student communications and admissions processes including automated online admissions
- Enforce checks on student offers using more rigorous business processes
Enable teaching staff to interact online by enhancing services including results, registers and student offers.
The solution
The college invested in a package of tailored consultancy services from Tribal that would enable them to review existing processes and work with our team of technical and business process consultants to transform its existing implementation. Following a review with senior management in the college, e-Vision was implemented over a three year project with online applications and enrolments taking centre placestage. Tribal offered further functionality to enhance the management of its students including online absence and fund management which was set up to allow a move to online bursary management in the next academic year.
Staff and student communications were improved through the implementation of the staff and student portals. Tribal’s process manager component has also provided them with a solution for streamlining processes in the registry area.
Outcomes
As a result of the work carried out by Tribal, Adam Smith College has seen the following:
- Reduction in carbon footprint by reducing the needs for hard copy letters and increased email communication
- Reduction in staff time and costs required for processing hard copy paper applications
- Improvements in response times to students and a more rapid application and enquiry service
- Increased accuracy in enrolment projections and management information
Data quality increased through applications being submitted by learners themselves.
“Our e-journey has been exciting, exhilarating, educational and has enhanced the core services we offer to our clients. It has also been exhausting but worthwhile”.
Sandra Rhodes, Director of Information Management, Adam Smith College