JISC

The project will help the Academic Support and E-Services department at Leeds Met to gain the knowledge and tools required to implement a Flexible Service Delivery strategy (i.e. a process-led business environment in which institutional requirements lead IT service development and delivery). It is hoped that the project will enable the system owners of academic facing services to evaluate the cost, risk and impact of improving their service delivery mechanisms for their current portfolio of student services, as well as for future service provisions.

Aims and objectives

The main project aim is to plan, resource and define a strategy with which we can explore the delivery of flexible services through the use of: 

• Enterprise Architecture 
• Service Orientated Architecture 
• Business process re-engineering 
• Cost-benefits analysis and baseline costing 
• Mapping of the student journey through academic facing systems 
• Sophisticated modelling of the corporate systems in relation to academic facing systems

This will enable Leeds Met to move forward in its implementation of service oriented systems and associated business processes to support academic functions in a much more focussed and integrated way, on the basis of an enhanced understanding of business processes, costings, and where and how any new or replacement technologies might add to the effectiveness of those processes.

The project objectives are to: 

• Map current academic facing business processes and perform thorough systems analysis 
• Achieve a fuller understanding of the student journey through academic systems through the use of use case scenarios 
• Analyse cost baselines for academic facing systems using the BIILS 
• Project Evaluation Toolkit or similar 
• Investigate the potential cost savings of shared / hosted services 
• To understand the technologies and strategy needed to implement a flexible service delivery model 
• Collate and evaluate the knowledge gained throughout the project to produce a strategy for implementing flexible service delivery where it can add value to the business

Anticipated outputs and outcomes

At the end of the project the institution should benefit for the following reasons: 

• Locally the project will lead to cost savings as systems will have been the methodologies and frameworks developed will ensure systems are analysed and proven to add value before implementation or pilot. 
• As systems are rationalised resources should be available to implement the systems that will add the most value more quickly. 
• The student experience will be improved as the systems and business processes involved will be optimised. 
• As well as drawing on the expertise and guidance provided as a result of other JISC funded projects, it should feed back into this community meaning knowledge will be shared across HEIs and so the benefits should be sector-wide. 
• The project will also provide useful experience regarding joint projects with partners in Further Education institutions, through the involvement of institutions in the Regional University Network. 
• Future improved flexible service delivery through extended services to students and staff. 
• Integration into the financial modelling of all future student facing academic service planning. 
• Data integration is should in the long-term be more focussed and allow easy integration of new products allowing the University to develop a more personalised learning experience.