Enterprise Applications Strategic Enhancements (EASE) program

The Enterprise Applications Strategic Enhancements (EASE) Program is a collection of projects aiming to simplify UQ enterprise system platforms, reduce operating costs, support automation and data availability.

In addition, we will provide support and skill sets to other UQ strategic initiatives to realise their benefits and adapt technology as required.

Objectives

The program will continue to roll-out throughout 2020, and aims to:

• provide data integration and conversion for the Curriculum End-to-End Program (CEEP)
• ensure that systems are adapted to support UQ’s Program Architecture 2 (PA2) recommendations
• improve the student experience
• improve administration by implementing an automated user creation for SI-net
• improve stability and maintenance of student financial information in SI-net
• upgrade and improve the OneStop payment gateway system
• review the timetabling system and process
• review the Graduations module.

Benefits to UQ

The EASE program will support UQ’s strategic initiatives and provide:

• simplified IT products and platforms
• improved productivity and reduced risk
• reduced system overheads
• improved services for students and prospective students
• support for automation through improved integration and out-of-the-box functionality.

View the EASE program on a page (PDF, 145.8 KB).

Support for UQ strategic initiatives

The EASE program will support the following UQ strategic initiatives:

CEEP: Curriculum management system integration

The Curriculum End-to-End Program (CEEP) will deliver new and improved digital tools to support the lifecycle of UQ’s curriculum. It will improve the design, approval, publishing, delivering and review of curriculum artefacts by implementing a new core curriculum management system (CMS).

EASE will support CEEP program delivery by providing expertise and technical skills to enable a close integration with SI-net.

Program architecture support

UQ’s Program Architecture 2 (PA2) will deliver a set of consistent program design principles, tools, systems and frameworks to help ensure UQ’s programs, majors and courses are sustainable, meet student and market expectations, and optimise the student experience.

EASE will support this initiative by ensuring SI-net and related system architecture are able to operationalise these changes. Some of the known impacts of the Program Architecture project are:

• downstream impacts from the addition new academic plan types. New rules and nomenclature are required for specialisations as per the program design policy
• single duration master programs and related admission and credit impacts
• resizing of existing plans to align with new Programs Policy, changes to plan type codes, additional plans and discontinuations
• revision of course lists to include program requirements, recoding of courses and the related SI-net updates
• plan compatibility checking i.e. the restriction of certain majors to specific specialisations
• policy changes around recognition of prior learning.

Alternative short-form credentials impact and proof of concept

Flexible (alternative) credentials are short, standalone courses that don’t necessarily belong to a program or plan, where students will receive a UQ certificate for completion.

The EASE program has provided a roadmap and a clear implementation plan to allow for the full implementation of the administration and operationalising of the alternative credentials project by:

• documenting the feasibility of the work needed to implement this in SI-net and integrated systems.

The program has now been tasked with implementing this. It is a two-phase implementation:

• Phase 1 will introduce a new career to SI-net and allow for administration of short courses from online application through to credentials.
• Phase 2 will allow for more flexibility around open-entry exit, and more automation of application and enrolment.

EASE will also provide support for SI-net and UniFi for the following programs:

• CX: including advice on Future Student interface with SI-net
• HCMS: including support for the initial data conversion of research students.

Other program initiatives

OneStop upgrade implementation

OneStop is UQ’s payments processing system, which requires an annual update for bug fixes, new features and essential product support.

The purpose of this project is to enable UQ’s continued use of OneStop and leverage new functionality.

SI-net user access transformation

SI-net user profiles and person records are created manually through a very time consuming process. EASE will help automate this process.

Student fees improvements

Student fees at UQ are complex. There is a large system and administrative overhead needed to administer fees, and they are difficult for students to understand and for staff and students to validate. The legacy system utilises multiple customisations, which are undocumented and old.

The aims of the project are:

• examine the system customisations and leverage out-of-the-box functionality to replace them
• provide a more transparent and refined student fees process for students and administrative staff
• implement a consistent approach to manage special fee arrangements and discounts
• review the delivery of the electronic Commonwealth Assistance form (eCaf).

SI-net student experience review

This project is currently on hold due to COVD-19 priorities.

There are a number of changes which can be made to improve the student experience in mySI-net. This project has defined and prioritised changes that improve the student experience, and will implement the high value changes as priorities allow.

One high value initiative is the Student Activity Guides, which will provide an improved experience for student cohorts and a simplified platform.

Graduations review

This project is currently on hold due to COVD-19 priorities.

UQ graduations processes are cumbersome and built around extensive UQ-specific SI-net customisation. Extensive changes were made in 2019, and additional potential improvements were highlighted for completion in 2020. These include:

• reviewing potential graduands process
• undergraduate diploma processing
• improving nightly batch processing
• improving expected graduation completion flag.

Timetable system review

Class scheduling (timetabling) is a critical business process undertaken each semester by the Academic Services Division (teaching space management), faculties and schools.

It involves the creation and modification of activities derived from each of the University’s course offerings. These activities are then both automatically and manually scheduled against University-defined constraints (staff, student, location, week, day and time etc) which then generates each course offerings timetable.

This project will evaluate class timetabling solutions against UQ requirements.

Program Team

EASE Steering Committee