At the Edutorium user conference, we allocated time for an input workshop. This workshop was organized with three groups that looked at the study administrative processes related to the revision of the study portfolio, the use of Edutorium, and to some extent, the use of surrounding systems from slightly different perspectives. All participants had the opportunity to participate in each group, and there were many diverse discussions.
For us at Ginntech, such work sessions are valuable for several reasons. It involves improving our own products, finding new services or solutions that are needed, and, of course, gaining a better understanding of the daily work life of our users.
Through this workshop, we received several points directly related to Edutorium that have been given the status of "immediate action." We also obtained ideas for long-term projects and gained a better understanding of issues that we cannot immediately address.
Here are some key findings that we would like to present. It is important to note that this is only a small selection, and we follow up on all suggestions regardless of whether they are on this list or not. However, we want to specify some of the follow-up points, hence this summary.
Quick Improvement Measures for Edutorium:
Several searches, reports, and sorting options will be implemented immediately. This includes, for example, searches by name and code in the taxonomy for study programs, sorting of users with multiple filters, and more. These improvements will be available to all customers as part of regular upgrades.
Other improvement measures have been planned for future upgrades.
Input for New Functionality Related to Workflow will be considered in the "admin workshop" section.
Training/Workshops:
Both through the input workshop and the evaluation forms, there were requests for more time for review and sharing of experiences related to workflow (and access management). It is difficult to determine the best setup. How many phases are optimal? What is included in each role? How can we ensure that the academic staff can perform their tasks as easily as possible? Can functionality be implemented to ensure that tasks are not submitted prematurely before they are completed? (which would create additional work for administrators). Better time for discussing these and similar questions has been requested.
Based on this, we will invite participants to a dedicated "admin workshop" after the summer break. It will be a combination of teaching, demonstration of various alternative setups, discussions about the use of different solutions, and sharing experiences across schools. We will provide more information about this soon.
If this is successful, we will continue organizing regular workshops on various topics.
Long-Term Projects:
Master and metaschemes have become keywords for two projects that we will initiate in the autumn. We will find new names for them later, but the preliminary outlines are as follows:
Master Scheme: Several suggestions have been made regarding the desire for certain fields to be "common fields" across all study plans/course descriptions. This is to ensure that certain information elements are edited in one place but still presented across all study plans or course descriptions. The master documentation must be linked to a revision semester and be fully configurable (similar to the template for study plans/course descriptions).
Metascheme: There have been suggestions for checklists or other metadata related to the revision process itself. For example, during the revision of all study plans, a specific number of assessments (e.g., by the study plan coordinator) should be conducted. After revising the study plan, checkboxes can be marked for each assessment point completed. This way, the revision process can be documented, and it can also serve as a simple checklist for the responsible person.
The metascheme can be expanded to include summary reports of what has been revised, providing documentation of the activities and changes at the end of the revision.
Some might say that through an extended and comprehensive metascheme, we also have a quality system. This project could potentially be continued in this way. In that case, we need one or more participants to collaborate on the project. If interested, please contact eivind@ginntech.no.
Integrations:
For most staff in educational institutions, there is a lot of extra work involved when different systems do not communicate with each other. The need for integrations is often not given high enough priority by school management, which leads to frustration, extra work, and unnecessary time consumption.
We have extensive experience in creating integrations and are happy to contribute to this work. For example, if we are to improve the handling of DBH reporting, we need one or more schools to initiate a specific project. Is anyone interested?
Another area that was highlighted is the need for integration with the Learning Management System (LMS). One school has asked us to develop an integration solution for Itlearning. This work is already underway, and we expect to have it fully tested by May. The integration involves retrieving course learning outcome descriptors from Edutorium (where they are created) and presenting them in the LMS. By working on this structure, we will gain valuable experience that can also be used for integration with other LMS platforms. Please contact us to start a project for your school, whether you use Itslearning, Canvas, or other solutions