The Hub

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The Hub Student Support Centre at the University
of Bradford Simon Croll Head of Student Support
Centre (The Hub) 7 April 2009 SROC 2009
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INTRODUCTION

• The Hub opened to its first customers 12 March
  2007
• A major undertaking bringing together in one
  location 60 staff from a number of student
  support departments in varying locations across
  the University

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THE PROJECT

• In the Universitys Corporate Plan 2004-2009, the
  Vice Chancellors introduction stated that we
  are planning a real step change in student
  support that includes significant investment in
  our Estate incorporating new buildings and the
  development of a state-of-the-art web enabled
  campus

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THE PROJECT

• The Student Centre (working title) will deliver
  practical aspects of this vision. It will
  combine a bright modern physical space within the
  Richmond Foyer front entrance to the University,
  for student transactions relating to
  administration and appropriate learning support.
  It will also deliver a web-enabled virtual
  service for students to access a range of
  information off-campus and out of hours to meet
  the needs of todays flexible learners and all
  our students whether current or prospective
  students.

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THE PROJECT

• A Project Board established to oversee the
  creation of the Hub.
• Included in the membership
• Pro-Vice Chancellor (Chair)
• Deputy Vice-Chancellor
• Director of Management Information Services
  (Project Manager)
• Head of Student Registry
• Director of Estates
• Students Union Representation
• and other senior staff from
• Corporate Services

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THE PROJECT

• In the preparatory stages a number of information
  sessions (Town Hall Meetings) were held to which
  all staff joining the Hub were invited in
  addition to two Away Mornings in December 2006
  and February 2007
• Many of the staff involved worked in different
  areas of the campus and had never actually met
  each other

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THE PROJECT

• On the whole, staff were very supportive of the
  project
• A major factor was the new physical working
  environment The Hub would bring
• Another being the frustration of services being
  dotted all over campus

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TEAMS WITHIN THE HUB

• Teams within the Hub include the following
• Front of House Team
• Accommodation Office for University-managed
  accommodation
• Admissions including Undergraduate and
  Postgraduate Course and Research Admissions,
  Course Enquiries and Educational Liaison
• International Office (primarily recruitment but
  also student welfare)

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TEAMS WITHIN THE HUB

• Teams within the Hub include the following
• Student Administration and Support incorporating
  the former Student Registry, Graduate Registry,
  Cashiers (now the Payzone), Student Financial
  Information Service, Student Bursaries Officer,
  Debtors Team from Finance
• Not included are the Disability Office or
  Counselling Service

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FRONT OF HOUSE SERVICE

• 7 Reception Desks 3 or 4 of these staffed on a
  regular basis during term time, capacity for
  additional usage at peak periods
• 4 Meeting Rooms for individual discussion with
  students some set up for more business-like
  discussions, table and chairs, others more
  relaxed mode.

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FRONT OF HOUSE SERVICE

• One Meeting Room used on a regular basis by
  Chaplains and others at lunchtimes including a
  monthly visit from the local Police.
• Telephone points with free calls to SLC, local
  LEAs etc

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FRONT OF HOUSE STAFFING

• No new appointments other than the Front of House
  Team Leader
• 4 Front of House Team members appointed from
  staff joining the Hub 2 from the Cashiers
  Office, 1 from Credit Control (based in former
  Student Registry) and 1 from the Accommodation
  Office

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FRONT OF HOUSE STAFFING

• Front of House Team supplemented by support from
  staff in the Back Offices either in relation to
  individual enquiries or providing assistance in
  manning the desk.
• Payzone also located in the Front of House area

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FRONT OF HOUSE STAFFING

• A concentrated period of training for the Front
  of House Team in the weeks prior to opening -
  spending time with each of the Departments moving
  into the Hub
• From the outset a comprehensive service covering
  the work of all the Teams located in the Hub has
  been offered at the Front Desks

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FRONT OF HOUSE STAFFING

• Originally envisaged that approx 50 of enquiries
  might be processed by the Front of House Team
  without referral to the Back Office increasing to
  75 after 12 months
• In practice well over 75 of business has been
  dealt with by the Front of House Team. Since
  November 2007 this has averaged 85

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FRONT OF HOUSE OPENING HOURS

• Originally from 08.30 18.00
• The amount of business at the beginning and end
  of the day did not justify these hours and they
  have now been amended to 09.00 17.00
• During vacations the hours reduced to 10.00
  16.00 although staff are on call until 17.00 if
  required.

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BACK OFFICE SUPPORT TEAMS

• Teams located on 2 floors immediately adjacent to
  the Front of House
• Upper floor
• Student Administration and Support including the
  Head of Student Support Centre (34 staff)
• Lower floor
• Admissions (14 staff)
• International Office (14 staff)
• Accommodation (3 staff)

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Co-ordinating the work of the Hub

• Making efforts to avoid Teams in the Hub becoming
  compartmentalised
• Fortnightly meetings of representatives from the
  various Teams to discuss matters of common
  interest
• Regular Hub training sessions, Teams giving
  presentations of their work, sharing information
• Working together more closely than hitherto on
  events such as Enrolment or Award Ceremonies

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STATISTICS
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STATISTICS
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STATISTICS
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Review of Hub operation held in November 2007

• Positive points emerging
• Immediate benefits for students with a large
  number of services now provided in one location.
  Wasted journeys from one office to another a
  thing of the past
• Joined up approach beneficial in terms of staff
  working together, more familiar with each others
  work, greater efficiencies

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Review of Hub operation held in November 2007

• Positive points emerging
• A sense of togetherness for staff involved in
  organising large events such as enrolment and
  award ceremonies
• A more co-ordinated approach and decisions taken
  more promptly than might previously have been the
  case

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Review of Hub operation held in November 2007

• Further developments in progress include
• Development of the virtual Hub web site
• RMS Job Logging/tracking system for the Hub
• FAQs web-based system

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IT Support within the OSS environment
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INTRODUCTION

• Prior to the opening of the Hub, we held very
  little information about amount of queries,
  nature of queries, type of call (email, walk-up,
  telephone, etc) in the various areas joining the
  hub
• Also, there was little information about the
  questions being asked, ie Frequently Asked
  Questions

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INTRODUCTION

• In order to ensure this information would be
  available with the new Hub and until an IT
  solution was sought, we introduced a simple
  tally-mark system on our FOH service to track
  walk-up queries, to record the time-slot, type of
  query and who dealt with the query (FoH staff or
  referral to Back Office)
• This information could then be used to improve
  the service and be more responsive to customer
  needs, etc.

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INTRODUCTION

• Due to the numbers of staff working in the Hub
  and the volume of queries being dealt with, it
  was agreed very early on that an IT solution
  would be required in order to track queries, pass
  queries between teams and ensure that Service
  Level Agreements were adhered to, etc. thus
  ensuring good customer service

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INTRODUCTION

• Therefore, along side the Hub Project, a Virtual
  Hub project with budget of 272,000 was also
  agreed, which would look at CRM/help desk system
  along with many other aspects of IT and
  technology within the Hub
• Due to the scale of the Virtual Hub project
  (and sub-projects), it was envisaged that this
  would be a much longer term project than the
  physical Hub and therefore some interim measures
  such as the tally-mark system would need to be
  deployed

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The Virtual Hub

• The Virtual Hub contains 5 different
  sub-projects
• Sun Ray 2 Thin Client Technology
• Helpdesk/Call Logging
• FAQs
• Instant Messenger for Staff
• The Hub Website
• Extension of Self-Service Options

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Sun Ray 2 Thin Client Technology

• In order easy the movement of staff between the
  BO and FOH Also movement of staff between FOH
  desks and confidential meeting spaces, we wanted
  to introduce thin-client technology

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Sun Ray 2 Thin Client Technology

• Phase I Using Windows Terminal Services went
  live to all FOH Desks and some pilot stations in
  the BO
• Staff carry a card which is inserted into the
  SunRay client, they enter their password and
  their desktop pops up on screen as it was when
  they removed their card
• This means that staff who frequently move between
  desks do not need to re-load programs or
  re-retrieve records, etc.
• Phase II Using VMWare rolled out to all Hub
  staff in the Hub from September 2008

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Sun Ray 2 Thin Client Technology

• Java Enabled
• Smart Card

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Helpdesk/Call Logging

• Phase I March 2009 will see the deployment of
  RMS Customer Service Desk and RMS Client/Server
  to all 65 staff in the Hub
• Comprises
• 23,000 student/alumni clients
• 65 staff
• 25 teams
• 5 types of calls (email, tel, fax, walk-up, IM)
• 9 Categories of Calls
• 66 sub-categories
• Instant Calls for recording very quick queries
  eg directions to the library

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Helpdesk/Call Logging

• Phase II Academic Year 2009/10 will see the
  roll out of
• No click call logging when letters have been
  generated from the SITS Vision product
• Students access to view My Help Calls
• Students being able to raise help calls with a
  single click from the student portal (Tribal
  eVision)

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Helpdesk/Call Logging

• Phase III Academic Year 2009/10 and 2010/11
  will see the roll out of
• Email logging RMS will read emails in certain
  inboxes and raise them as helpcalls
• Link to RMS from the Universal Knowledge
  FAQs/Knowledge database
• Deployment of Ericsson Solidus and TAPI II
  technology to allow student records to pop-up
  on screen before answering the phone also
  allow multi-types of calls (IM, email, voice) to
  be queued in strict rotation

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FAQs

• Phase I August 2009 roll out of Universal
  Knowledge. This system will allow customers to
  ask a question in human format, warts and all,
  which the knowledge base will offer an answer
• The knowledge base must be fed information and
  can also spider websites
• Customers are asked to rate the reply and refer
  on to a human for an answer if they believe the
  response does not answer their question
• Phase II 2009/10/11 will see a link between the
  RMS system and the Universal Knowledge system
  in that referral will automatically raise a help
  call that can be tracked by the client

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Instant Messenger for Staff

• Just started to deploy Wimba Pronto (via
  Blackboard) for use by staff in The Hub
• This allows staff to instantly communicate with
  individuals or groups of staff within The Hub
• Useful for communications between the Front of
  House and Back Offices
• Also useful to get instant communications about
  system issues (eg, HUB Printer 5 has suffered a
  failure, please use HUB Printer 4 instead until
  further notice)

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The Hub Website

• Until now, updating web-pages at the University
  of Bradford required either html skills or use of
  a web authorising tool such as MS Front Page or
  Dreamweaver
• However, the University recently went to tender
  on a Content Management System and the successful
  bidder was a company called Terminal Four
  http//www.terminalfour.com/

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The Hub Website

• The Terminal Four product allows staff members to
  update web content by simply using their web
  browsers
• The Hub website will be re-built and using
  terminal four and will be information based
  rather than structurally based ie who are you?,
  what do you want?

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The Hub Website

• November 2008 will see the launch of the launch
  of this new information based website
• This will also develop over time to tie-in the
  other new technology such as RMS, FAQs, Universal
  Knowledge, eVision

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Extension of Self-Service Options

• Along side this will be the continual development
  of self-service options using eVision
• These currently include
• Enrolment/Re-enrolment
• Award Ceremony Reply Service
• Alumni Information/Updates
• DLHE return
• Updates to Personal Details
• Module/Stage Results including component marks
• On-line transcripts/European Diploma

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Extension of Self-Service Options

• Will/Could soon include
• Pre-enrolment Portal (Tracking and tasking from
  enquirer through to student)
• Self-serve letters
• Paper/Coursework turn-in
• On-line document/photo submission
• Fees Interactive (on-line interactive service for
  fee assessment/questionnaire)

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Other Current and Future IT technologies

• Plasma screens Using Terminal Four for content
  management
• Deployment of non-staffed Hub-nano stations
• Self-service terminals
• Web kiosks

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In Summary
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Any Questions? 7 April 2009