After the intense delivery of a number of projects in 2019 such as the Curriculum Transformation, Curriculum Management System (MQCMS), student system upgrade and student study plans, you’d think the Program Beacon Team would be taking it a little easier in 2020.

They’re not.

“The Team have a focused and ambitious program of works for delivery in 2020, which is well underway,” says Professor Kevin Jameson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic).

“We’ve also expanded their scope to include projects that support HDR and Macquarie International.”

With a history of successfully delivering a wide range of challenging projects, the team were well placed to provide support to other teams across the University as they responded to the COVID-19 challenge.

“We all needed to respond quickly to the COVID-19 situation,” explains Ms Gail White, Executive Director Student Engagement and Academic Registrar.

“With their depth and range of experience, the Program Beacon team were well placed to jump in at the deep end and help other teams across the University provide the support and resources our students and staff needed.”

Here’s the team’s 2020 schedule of work:

Curriculum Management System (CMS) and CourseFinder Replacement

At the top of the list is the development of tools that assist prospective and current students find the degree they want to study. They need to be easy to use, highlight the key selling points of each course and provide the information students need to make an informed choice.

• Double Degree Advisor – Phase 1 deployed in March 2020
• Double Degree Advisor – Phase 2 to be deployed in September 2020
• CourseFinder Replacement, to be implemented by December 2020

Student Migration

After migrating all current students from old to new course structures in time for session 1 2020, the team are now concentrating on:

• Remediation of error
• Support for people, process, policy and technology solutions for the maintenance of the corporate records and BAU amendments to the student record and study plan
• Support for a hybrid completions solution for post 2020 courses
• Knowledge transfer
• Post implementation review

Work is currently being undertaken on behalf of various portfolios and offices across the University to review and analyse the impact of the new Curriculum and Student Management System configuration changes.

Student Management System (AMIS)

Rapid Enhancements:

• AMIS 8.1
  • HDR eApps Staff OneID
  • AMIS Staff OneID
  • Roll over for Scholarships to reduce manual effort
  • Transitioning the management of some non-award courses to AMIS Cloud (22 June 2020)
• AMIS 8.2, scheduled to be deployed in June 2020
  • Online leave of absence reporting for students- a new initiative
  • eStudent OneID (eStudent Password Integration) to provide students with single-sign-on to eStudent
  • 2019B upgrade for both Finance and AMIS
• AMIS 8.3 scheduled to be deployed in October 2020
  • StudyLink Data integration to remove manual application data entry in AMIS
  • eforms and workflows for HDR Candidature management
  • Transition of HDR Rewards and Scholarships

Business Transformation, implementing new features in AMIS:

• Applicant Portal (including repatriation of the HDR eApplication instance)
• Enhanced Admissions
• Enhance Enrolments
• Student Portal

TCSI- transforming the collection of student information project

After being delayed by the government due to COVID-19 the TCSI project is scheduled to be completed in December 2020. Implementation of the project will see consistent government student data reporting across all Australian universities.

The team are also assisting with the Faculty of Human Sciences transition.

So while the team had a busy 2019, 2020 continues that momentum and is full steam ahead on improving our systems and resources.