Project going live in 2011/12

The project has reached a significant milestone in that it has been confirmed that the project will go live for the 2011/12 academic year!

The project will go live with 6 of the 16 schools at UCLan, with the remaining 10 manually inputting the data into the new system so all students have an online timetable.   The 6 schools that are going live will have the timetable scheduled by the system.  The project team are currently working with the 6 schools to collect the data required.  The team are also still working with the remaining schools to run more schedules in the test environment to continue testing.

The system has been reviewed by the team responsible for the security of the UCLan systems and although there are one or two minor issues the team are reviewing , the system has been given the all clear.

Our Room Bookings Unit are in the transition phase to become the Central Timetabling Unit (CTU) and are looking at resources available and the structure of the team.  The CTU staff are currently undertaking training to learn how to use the new system and the team are looking at asking Serco to provide some additional training days to ensure the CTU are ready for the go live.

The NSS survey results were released, with Organisation and Management coming out as UCLan’s third worst result.  The Students’ Union have carried out some investigation into this and the students feedback that this was due to Timetabling and timing issues.  Particularly highlighted were the cancellation of lectures at the last minute and lack of communication. The students confirmed that receiving a timetable earlier than induction week would enable them to better co-ordinate other elements of their lives with university such as employment and child care. 

This is hopefully a key area where the project will have an impact.