Excellence Gateway
Published 19 August 2008
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) London on behalf of the Excellence Gateway
Sector relevance: Adult and Community Learning, Further Education, College
Keywords: ACL, Administration and Support, Data, Equality and Diversity, Financial Management, Leadership and Management, Resources and Staff
A new management team at Richmond Adult Community College set out to make better use of technology to transform their business operations and to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings. Over several years, and by adding modules to their management systems incrementally, the RACC has succeeded in developing an integrated solution that has supported their key business processes during a period of substantial growth.
Richmond Adult Community College (RACC) is situated within the London Borough of Richmond, a predominantly affluent part of Greater London. In existence since 1838, RACC gained self-governing status as a Further Education College through incorporation in 1996. Since then it has been one of the fastest growing colleges in the further education sector with around 15,000 students.
The College currently offers approximately 2000 courses across 14 of the FE Sector Subject Areas and ranging in level from basic skills to postgraduate. The standard of teaching and learning at the College is graded as ‘outstanding’ by OFSTED. Richmond Adult Community College also has Beacon College status and Centre of Vocational Excellence status in two areas, Business and IT, and Digital Media and Design.
Merritt Associates (Nov 2007)
The challenge for a new management team in 2000, says Deputy Principal Drew Burns, was “to see how we could use new technology on the business side first -the priority was to use new technologies to reduce transaction costs between the college and the public.”
These transactions involved over 30,000 enrolments, 3000 courses and 600 part-time staff and at this time, the college management was reliant on an old-fashioned database that was administered and understood by just one member of staff.
Access by the necessary range of staff to essential management data was problematic due to the ‘gatekeeping’ applied to the system and the limitations of the software.
The process of transforming the business systems, started with the decision to procure a new software system, using the necessary external expertise to produce a robust specification. This was the beginning of a gradual implementation of an integrated administration database that would join up processes across the college.
After consideration of a number of different software products RACC started to work with Mondas PLC (now Corero PLC), a software company who were looking to extend their customer base from finance software for the City to the FE sector. This enabled a bespoke system to be developed at RACC. The key development was a finance system that linked to the student database – enabling greater financial control, much improved management information and over time a number of other business-related modules.
One of the first colleges to get their prospectus online, together with web-based enrolment and payments (2004-05)
Quality Assurance – online student evaluations replaced the old paper-based system improving student feedback and enabling more efficient analysis. This was achieved by ensuring students had access to learning resource centres to complete their course evaluations.
Web registration – real time registration is achieved via ‘last-generation’ PCs in each classroom – these computers are also connected interactive white boards, making good use of near ‘end of life’ equipment.
Timetabling module linked to registers
Online helpdesk for administration staff and systems – allows for prioritisation of service desk requests. Covers several systems including IT/College Information Systems/Estates/Health and Safety and Finance
Human Resources module for recording staff development
Mandatory staff training to support the introduction and use of new systems.
Some modules are still being introduced:
Starting with an expectation of realising benefits within a 2 year time frame, in fact, RACC is only just seeing the full benefit of their investment in the 5th year of development.
Reliable electronic registration – linking the student database to finance systems and modules for payroll and staff development - ensures accurate payments and strong financial control.
Learners enjoy the convenience of online enrolment (course permitting) with 35% of enrolments now made on the Web.
The simple web-based Quality Assurance System was an early action that greatly improved timeliness and efficiency of getting learner feedback from the previous paper-based process
Co-development of many of these modules enabled them to obtain bespoke systems more cost-effectively as the software company were able to gain commercial advantage through the developments.
RACC has successfully driven down transaction costs and improved the learner experience by:
Drew Burns’s view is that these improved ‘back office’ systems have given RACC the ability to respond positively to a changing landscape for adult learning and a more difficult financial climate.
For more information contact Drew Burns
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