Improvements to the student records system will enhance student and staff experiences over the next three years. The Student Systems Partnerships team (SSP) is constantly enhancing the student and staff experiences of EUCLID, the student records system, and its related systems. With new funding for the next 3 years, and having started delivering objectives in November 2023, this project has a wide scope to improve the student life cycle by the refining of processes and systems since EUCLID launched 15 years ago. Working with Registry, Admissions, and Colleges, improvements are articulated and prioritised according to the experiential and efficiency benefits. This will enhance many areas across the University that impact the student life cycle, including: Admissions Timetabling Fees Scholarships Graduation Immigration services Careers As well as improving the applicant and student experience, the aim is to also benefit staff, by reducing the number of helpline calls and inefficiencies to improve turnaround times. Objectives and Benefits Current Students and Staff Examples of improvements in progress include the annual course enrolment. The objective is to ensure that all Schools are able to process optional course bulk enrolments for students, hopefully in the future to enable students to self-enrol. The provision of clearer and more accurate information on exams for students will also reduce system issue-related calls, and minimise any last-minute timetable changes. Additionally, certain objectives are improving the accessibility of the University, for instance ensuring that timetabling room allocations considers any student/staff disabilities. The processing of fees is just another area of the many targeted for improvements, especially due to past inaccuracies leading to incorrect charging. Past and Future Students It is not just current student experience, but also for past and future students. Recent enhancements delivered to the Admissions team are improving the scoring and filtering of the thousands of applications received, this is speeding up the processing of applications ahead of deadlines. Recent change to the graduation registration is ensuring that the University has the students’ most up-to-date contact details to improve the post-university support rates. Early indications are showing the response rate from students about their plans after graduation are gone up by 700% enabling Careers to bespoke guidance and support. The Future of the Project Thanks to the multi-year funding, there are larger strategic changes that are being planned for improving the user experience for all at the University of Edinburgh. For example, the Postgraduate (PG) Application form has not been changed since EUCLID was launched, with the Admissions process still incorporating manual processes, impacting both staff workload and the decision time provided to applicants. A review of the PG Research life cycle will better support students thanks to improved tracking of the student journey in EUCLID. There are a number of other processes and services that could be improved to remove manual steps, the use of local systems and associated business risks: The graduation ceremony has improvements planned for ticketing, seating, and transcripts The scholarships decision process can be streamlined Reassessment can be set up along the existing Assessment and Progression Tool The new student Case Management System could be supporting the manual process managing student complaints The entire project is expected to be completed by August 2027. The future of EUCLID user experience is certainly looking bright. To find out more information about the wider continuous improvements going on, please click here. Publication date 01 Apr, 2024
