JISC Course Data Final Report - BFC

Course Data: Making the most of Course Information
Blackpool and The Fylde College
Final Project Report & Evaluation – March 2013
Contact: Peter Greenall (Project Manager)
peter.greenall@blackpool.ac.uk 01253 504461

JISC Final Report
Project Information
Project Identifier
Project Title Course Data Project Stage 2 – Blackpool and The Fylde College
Project Hashtag #coursedata
Start Date 12/01/2012 12/01/2012 12/01/2012
Lead Institution Blackpool and The Fylde College
Project Director N/A
Project Manager Peter Greenall
Contact email peter.greenall@blackpool.ac.uk
Partner Institutions Please refer to the JISC course data website for further details of other
institutions undertaking the XCRI-CAP implementation.
Project Web URL Project mini-site: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap
XCRI-CAP feed: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he
Programme Name Course Data: making the most of course information - Stage 2
Programme Manager Ruth Drysdale, eLearning Team Innovation
Document Information
Author(s) Peter Greenall
Project Role(s) Project Manager
Date 28th
January 2013 Filename BFC_Draft_Final_Report.docx
URL Draft document therefore not published online
Access Project and JISC Internal
Document History
Version Date Comments
01 7th
Jan 2013 Initial Draft
0.2 25th
Jan 2013 Draft updated following team meeting and distributed to project
team for further comment
0.3 28th
Jan 2013 Draft submitted to JISC for review
0.4 28th
Feb 2013 Draft updated to reflect comments from JISC course data team
and circulated to programme team for comment
0.5 6th
Mar 2013 Final internal draft circulated to project team
1.0 10th
Mar 2013 Final Report submitted to JISC

Project Identifier: TBC
Version: 0.3
Contact: Peter Greenall, Project Manager, peter.greenall@blackpool.ac.uk, 01253 504461
Date: 28th
January 2013
Table of Contents
1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..............................................................................................................................4
2 PROJECT SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................4
3 MAIN BODY OF REPORT ............................................................................................................................5
4 CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................................................... 10
5 RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................................10
6 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE...............................................................................................................11
7 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................. 11
8 APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................................12
Document title: JISC Final Report Template
Last updated : Feb 2011 – v11.0
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1 Acknowledgements
This project was one of 63 projects funded by JISC under stage 2 of the Course Data (making the
most of course information) initiative. Whilst there have been no direct partners linked to this project,
the project team maintained contact with other HE in FE institutions using the same student
information system (EBS). The project team would particularly like to thank Hazel English of City of
Bristol College for her support. From a technical development aspect, the project team would also
like to thank the Drupal community who have offered support and suggestions during the installation
and integration of modules.
The team would also like to thank the course data support team who have delivered inspirational
sessions and support at the times it was needed most.
2 Project Summary
The Higher Education information landscape is rapidly evolving. This project has run alongside a
number of national developments which have placed an increased focus on the quality, accuracy and
therefore the reliability of public information provided by institutions involved in the delivery of Higher
Education in the UK. These have included the publication of Part C of the QAA Quality Code (March
2012), and the launch of the Key Information Set (KIS) in September 2012. As requirements
continue to evolve, as too does an increasing need for institutions to develop internal processes and
systems to support the management and dissemination of information about their provision.
Before embarking on the Course Data project, the collection of course information at Blackpool and
The Fylde College consisted of separate business processes for each public output (i.e. the
prospectus, college website, course leaflets and UCAS entry profiles were all gathered separately,
and sometimes by different departments within the College). The source of all data was the
programme leader who is responsible for managing the delivery and development of their programme
and handling the multiple requests for similar information, in slightly different formats, at different
times.
The Course Data project has supported Blackpool and The Fylde College in reviewing internal
business processes to ensure that course data is collected in a more organised manner, at the right
time to support the College publication schedule. Additionally, systems have been developed to allow
programme leaders to update their public information in web-based forms which feed into a carefully
designed workflow to ensure that content is checked and moderated prior to publication. The creation
of an XCRI-CAP compliant feed will also serve to support the future ability to share information with
external parties in a more streamlined and less time-intensive manner.
The ultimate goal in coming years would be to transfer the content created at the point of programme
validation, from word processed documents, to database fields. This could then be linked to clearly
defined workflows and fully embed the creation of public information into validation and amendment
processes.
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3 Main Body of Report
3.1 Project Outputs and Outcomes
Links to the project outputs identified below can be found on the project mini-site:
http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap
Output / Outcome Type Brief Description / URL
Content – XCRI-CAP Feed
Machine readable feed of all HE provision within the College,
conformant to the XCRI Course Advertising Profile specification,
accessible via a COOL URI. The quality of course information
will be supported by a clearly defined, supportive and user-
friendly digital workflow.
XCRI-CAP Feed URL:
http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he
Guidelines – Specification of
Course Related Information
Internal guidelines to support the standardisation and
comparability of course related information.
Enterprise Architecture Model
and Course Information
Management Methodology
A model linking the business processes, data, systems and
hardware relating to the provision of course related information
within Blackpool and The Fylde College. The EA model will
lead to the development of a clearly defined methodology for
the acquisition, review and publication of course related
information, fully supported by digital systems.
Interim Reports
Reports produced at 6 month intervals throughout the project to
provide update to the programme directorate regarding
progress made.
Final Report and Evaluation
Report summarising the work undertaken by the project team
and presenting an evaluation of project success.
Content Workflow – Drupal
A user interface within our Web Content Management System
(CMS) to handle the workflow involved in the initial creation,
quality assurance and publication of course related information.
Improved organisational
knowledge and understanding
The commencement of the course data project (January 2012)
coincided with the publication of Part C of the QAA Quality
Code for Higher Education (March 2012). This has led to
improved understanding, across the organisation, of the
challenges, timescales and wider implications involved in the
management of course data.
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3.2 How did you go about achieving your outputs / outcomes?
The Course Data project at Blackpool and The Fylde College was broken down into three key work
strands:
• Strand A – Technological Development
• Strand B – Information Quality Assurance
• Strand C – Project Management
3.2.1 Strand A – Technological Development
Blackpool and The Fylde College makes use of two systems in the management of course marketing
information. The core curriculum structure, student registration and academic records are defined
and managed within the College student record system, Tribal EBS. A one-way data link was then in
place to the college website which utilises Drupal as its Content Management System (CMS).
Additional fields were then provisioned within Drupal to support the additional marketing content for
each programme. This additional content was manually collected by the marketing department each
year and was used to populate the course information on the website. Collection was undertaken
using a variety of spread sheets and word processing documents and manually transferred into the
CMS. In addition to this process, the HE admissions team also manually collected information
relating to the entry requirements for each programme which was then manually updated on UCAS
and maintained within the CMS. A similar process was also undertaken by the marketing department
to collect and verify information for the HE prospectus.
The project team were keen to make the management of this content easier for all involved. The
project aimed to create workflows for content update, moderation and publication. In order for this to
be established, users needed to be created within the CMS to allow content editing roles to be
assigned. User creation was a manual process and was only undertaken for a small number of users
who were centrally managing content within the system. The changes planned as part of the course
data project meant that the number of users editing content would increase dramatically, and should
be linked to the programme leader role assigned to a course within EBS. User credentials for the
system also needed to match those used for other College IT services to ensure the usability of the
end product. The Drupal LDAP module was therefore implemented to link user authentication to
Drupal. Overnight synchronisation was then established to ensure that all staff had user accounts
within Drupal to facilitate the assignment of content editing permissions. The Drupal link to EBS was
then amended to import existing user roles into the CMS.
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The diagram below summarises the technical infrastructure which was implemented and developed
through the course data project:
A full field mapping between EBS, Drupal and XCRI-CAP was then undertaken in order to identify the
sources of XCRI-CAP data and any aspects of the feed that were not already centrally stored. A
decision was then made regarding the location of any new fields. Core curriculum fields were created
as user defined fields within EBS, whilst textual marketing fields were created in Drupal. The final
system ensures that EBS fields are displayed in a read-only manner through the content management
system and that content editors will only be able to update the marketing fields contained solely within
Drupal. The link between EBS and Drupal is one-way in order to ensure that audit requirements
relating to the curriculum structure and enrolments are maintained.
With the appropriate fields and user permissions in place within Drupal, a workflow was established to
ensure that content was moderated and approved prior to publication (see 3.2.2 Strand B –
Information Quality Assurance).
The activities identified above played a significant role in preparing the systems and business
processes within the College for the production of an externally published XCRI-CAP feed. This was
the final stage in the technical development of the project, and was perhaps one of the most easily
achievable outcomes because of the preparatory work undertaken. The XCRI-CAP feed has been
published through a ‘COOL URI’ which will be maintained indefinitely:
http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/xcri-cap/he
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3.2.2 Strand B – Information Quality Assurance
Within this strand a full review of all business processes relating to the collection and verification of
course information was undertaken. The review highlighted a number of issues relating to the timing
of collection and the method used to obtain data from programme leaders as discussed previously.
The manual processes in existence created a significant amount of overlap in the data collected which
in turn created the opportunity for inconsistency and placed unnecessary burden on programme
leaders.
A working group was convened consisting of all internal stakeholders involved in course data
production and management. This included representatives from the Marketing department, Web
Development Team, Management Information and Funding, Academic Programme Leaders, The HE
Directorate and the HE Admissions Team. The working group shared knowledge of existing practices
in order to more clearly define the business processes and systems which should be used in the
creation and management of course information. This was undertaken using Enterprise Architecture
methodologies which included a wide number of diagrams which attempted to map the ‘as-is’ state
through to the ‘to-be’ state. The somewhat disparate and manual nature of existing business
processes and systems made a truly reflective and useful ‘as-is’ state somewhat difficult to define.
The project team and working group did however have very clear ambitions regarding the ‘to-be’ state
and this was more easily constructed.
The working group also defined the quality assurance workflow and agreed upon timescales and
trigger-points for content update and approval. The working group agreed that as a minimum, public
marketing information relating to each course should be reviewed by the programme leader every 12
months. The diagram below illustrates the implemented workflow:
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Other outputs from this strand include training materials relating to the use of the workflow systems
implemented and a data specification guide for academic staff which is to be used in future training to
support the consistency of the data contained within the CMS.
3.2.3 Strand C – Project Management
The project management strand supported all project deliverables by co-ordinating internal
stakeholders to achieve the project aims. Internal dissemination, project reporting, programme
networking and supporting documentation for the project were undertaken within this work strand.
3.3 What did you learn?
The Course Data project has significantly improved the internal management of course information
and the systems within the College which support our business processes in this area. This is
however just the start of a much bigger journey. The project has enabled Blackpool and The Fylde
College to better understand the challenges associated with the collection and management of course
information and has established solid foundations for further development.
The Self Assessment Framework which was used during stage 1 has been revised to help illustrate
the distance travelled during the span of the project (see 8.1 Self Assessment Framework (SAF)).
The table below illustrates the vast improvement made, with all red indicators being changed to green
and only 4 amber indicators remaining. The amber indicators which remain mainly require further
development of XCRI-CAP by the wider community to harness such feeds and make use the data
produced by the Course Data project institutions.
Stage 1 Assessment Completion of Stage 2 Difference
Red Indicators 11 0 -11
Amber Indicators 18 4 -14
Green Indicators 11 36 +25
A number of other projects ran concurrently with the Course Data project, and the College was also
subjected to unplanned, routine funding audits from 2 major funding bodies. These projects and
audits competed for the same resources allocated to the project and meant that some slippage did
occur. This was however recovered by employing resources in a more condensed fashion once the
competing demands had been handled. This meant that progress was made in bursts of activity,
rather than steady weekly progress as planned.
3.4 Immediate Impact
The project has supported the College in considering course data from source to destination and has
significantly improved internal business processes as well as knowledge and understanding of the
challenges involved in maintaining clear and reliable public information. The content management
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workflows implemented support ownership of course data at the curriculum level and data is collected
once and used many times, therefore reducing the administrative burden placed on academic staff.
As the external requirements for course data emerge, the XCRI-CAP feed places the College in a
strong position to offer reliable and live data to external consumers of the feed, whilst at the same
time making use of the data for internal purposes. At the time of writing, the College is currently
considering the use of the demonstrator projects such as Facebook course search integration and
XCRI-CAP consumption through mobile applications to further raise the profile of its provision.
3.5 Future Impact
The Course Data project has created a single point of management for public course information,
however some manual processing is still involved in the initial collection of data. The work undertaken
has highlighted the need to further consider the creation of public information as part of the course
validation and amendment processes. In the future, this will involve the development of content
management systems and workflows to digitise the creation of HE curriculum within the college, with
public information fully embedded. If this level of detail was available it would facilitate a more
granular level of data validation across the multiple systems employed within the College and in doing
so further enhance the quality and depth of public information.
4 Conclusions
The challenges involved in the collection, management and publication of course information are
more complex wide-reaching than first anticipated. The JISC Course Data project has supported
Blackpool and The Fylde College in making significant enhancements to the quality and availability of
its published course data.
As the systems and processes mature, future prospective students will be in a position to make a
more informed choice about their studies, which will ultimately lead to improvements in retention and
achievement as students select the course which most closely meets their needs and expectations.
Furthermore, the XCRI-CAP feed presents the opportunity to share course information with a wider
range of external agencies, which has the potential to raise the profile of the College’s HE provision.
The project has provided an excellent catalyst for development within the College and has resulted in
a much improved understanding of our current position and future trajectory in relation to the
development of systems and processes to support the production and management of public course
information.
5 Recommendations
With 63 institutions competing stage 2 of the course data project and submitting validated XCRI-CAP
compliant feeds, firm commitment from potential consumers of the content is required to support
future developments and to encourage other institutions to produce feeds of their own. For Blackpool
and The Fylde College, the project has been transformational, and more projects and programmes of
this nature would be welcomed in the future.
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6 Implications for the future
The project has played a key role in developing internal understanding of the wider implications and
issues associated with the management of course data. When combined with the requirements of
Part C of the Quality Code, it is fair to say that the College now has a clearer focus on the steps
necessary to ensure the effective management of course information. It is therefore anticipated that
the foundations laid by the course data project will continue to be built upon, for example, further work
within the College to manage curriculum validation and amendment using digital forms and workflows
is strongly recommended.
The project has demonstrated a way in which HE in FE providers who are sometimes marginalised
through national initiatives such as the KIS (e.g. excluding courses <= 1FTE) can maintain the
presence of their curriculum offer outside of the organisation’s core web presence through the
provision of a standard feed to external agencies.
Further work will be undertaken in the months following the project closure to embed project outputs
into internal protocols and practices. The XCRI-CAP feed will be maintained by the College web-
development team within the College who deliver all public facing web presences.
7 References
Drupal modules implemented:
• Workflow
http://drupal.org/project/workflow
• Workflow Extensions
http://drupal.org/project/workflow_extensions
• Revisioning (version control)
http://drupal.org/project/revisioning
• Diff (allows users to easily identify the differences between versions)
http://drupal.org/project/diff
• Content Access (manage permissions for content types by role and author)
http://drupal.org/project/content_access
• Module Grants (support for unpublished content revision)
http://drupal.org/project/module_grants
• View Unpublished (support for unpublished content revision)
http://drupal.org/project/view_unpublished
• Views (used to build content review screens)
http://drupal.org/project/views
• Ckeditor (WYSIWYG editing)
http://drupal.org/project/ckeditor
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8 Appendices
8.1 Self Assessment Framework (SAF)
Question
Stage 1 Review Conclusion of Stage 2
Answer RAG Comments Answer RAG Comments
A – Institutional Strategic Policy
A1
Stakeholders: Has the institution identified
key stakeholders who are responsible for
course marketing?
Yes - partially Amber
Programme Leaders,
Marketing and Admissions
Yes - fully Green
Roles clarified and remained
as originally expected,
although this may evolve
further in the future
A2
Collectors: Has the institution identified
key third party course collecting
organisations that could be served by the
XCRI implementation, for example UCAS,
HEFCE/HESA for the Key Information Set
(KIS), HEAR?
Yes - partially Amber Primarily UCAS and KIS. Yes - partially Amber
UCAS and the KIS remain the
key drivers for the production
of the XCRI-CAP feed,
although this is not yet offered
by either party.
A3
Your website: Has the institution agreed
whether or not the XCRI implementation
will drive the main institution website,
including an assessment of the impact of
such a change?
Yes Green
The College website will
operate from the same
database (CMS) but will not
necessarily directly consume
the XCRI-CAP feed.
Yes Green
Unchanged from original
assessment.
A4
Other internal uses: Has the institution
identified other internal uses for the XCRI
implementation (for example, publication
on faculty websites, integration with non-
course information)?
Yes - fully Green
Potential to support the
production of paper-based
prospectus.
Yes - fully Green
assessment. Now the XCRI-
CAP feed is available this
possibility is now being
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Question
A5
Retention policy: Has the institution
agreed a policy for the long term storage
and management of the information,
including a policy for the length of
retention?
Partially Amber
CMS provides automatic
versioning and history. A
formal policy has not been
defined.
Yes - formally Green
Full audit trails of any changes
made within EBS are
maintained within the MI&F
team. All Drupal content is
kept through version control
and will be stored indefinitely.
A6
Coverage: Has the institution agreed the
coverage of the XCRI implementation in
relation to the types of courses it offers
(for example undergraduate,
postgraduate, taught, research, CPD, full
time, part time, and so on)?
Yes - fully Green
All HE programmes – full and
part-time undergraduate will
be included within the feed.
Yes - fully Green
All HE programmes are
included within the HE feed.
Expansion of XCRI-CAP to
cover all courses offered by the
college (including FE) is
currently being considered.
A7
Depth: XCRI does not prescribe how
detailed the course marketing information
should be. Has the institution agreed on
the depth of information that will be
included in the XCRI outputs?
Partially Amber
To be considered as strand of
stage 2 implementation.
Published XCRI-CAP feed
includes all XCRI-CAP fields.
The depth of content within
fields is defined within the data
guide for academic staff.
A8
Integration: Has the institution agreed a
policy for electronic access from, or
integration with, other systems within the
institution?
Partially Amber
CMS already communicates
with learner record system.
Some work on identity
management and user
authentication to be
undertaken to gain full
integration.
Improved integration with
college authentication systems
and EBS as a result of the
project. Better definition of
business processes and the
support provided by course
data systems.
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Question
A9
External access: Has the institution
agreed a policy for electronic access to
the information externally from other
organisations?
Partially Amber
Not formally agreed, but initial
intentions are that the feed will
be freely available following
some form of usage
agreement.
Partially Amber
The feed is currently published
externally. Consumption is
subject to the website terms
and conditions. Formal
agreement of the policy for
access is yet to be obtained.
A10
Charging: Has the institution a policy
statement on whether it will be making
any charges for the provision of course
marketing information to third parties?
Yes - in draft Amber No intention to charge. Yes - In Draft Amber
This will be considered along
with the external access policy
(A9). Formal agreement is yet
to be obtained, although
indications are that the
institution is unlikely to charge
for access to course data.
A11
Update: Has the institution agreed a
policy for the frequency of update of its
course marketing information for each
type of course?
Partially Amber
To be considered further in
stage 2. Will most likely
undertake an annual review.
Annual Update triggered
through workflow as a
minimum. Additional updates
when programme is re-
validated or amended.
A12
Business case: Has the institution
identified the business case for XCRI
implementation?
Benefits relate to more
informed student choice,
therefore more likely to
choose the correct course,
more likely to stay, and more
likely to achieve and achieve
well.
Yes - fully Green
The business case for XCRI-
CAP implementation was
formalised within the Stage 2
Implementation Plan.
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Question
B – Planning the Output
B1
Mapping structures: Can the current
courses data structures be mapped or
transformed readily to the XCRI
information model?
No Red
Current course structure in
learner record system has
several course codes for
different variations of the
same programme (i.e.
FT/PT etc.) This will need
some changing.
Yes - fully Green
Changes to the HE curriculum
structure have permitted a more
precise mapping between internal
data structures and the XCRI-CAP
1.2 specification.
B2
Mapping fields: Can the current
courses data fields be mapped or
transformed readily to the XCRI
information model?
No Red
As above - some work to be
undertaken to amend the
learner record system and
feed into CMS
Yes - fully Green
A full mapping of internal course
data fields within both EBS and
Drupal was undertaken, and a full
mapping between these systems
and XCRI-CAP 1.2 is now possible.
B3
Course identifiers: Are common
course identifiers used in all of the
proposed sources of course
advertising information (so that they
can be linked together automatically)?
Yes Green
The CMS is fed from the
learner record system
Yes Green
A re-structure of the HE curriculum
was undertaken to ensure that
there is only one course code per
programme.
B4
Storage: Where does the institution
currently store the course advertising
information to be used in the XCRI
implementation?
In 2-3 systems Amber
CMS and learner record
system and UCAS
In 2-3
systems
Amber
CMS and EBS. Links between the
two systems have been improved.
User authentication and content
workflows now implemented.
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Question
B5
Extra data: Is further work required to
identify and source any extra data
needed for the XCRI implementation?
Yes Red
Not all data fields are
currently collected. Data
structures will need to be
amended accordingly
No Green
All data fields are now present
within the content workflows. EBS
and Drupal amended appropriately
to add the additional fields needed.
B6
Nature of XCRI feed: How will the
institution physically/technically
generate/host the XCRI feed?
SOAP web
service
Green
Other XML
Website
Green
Drupal XML view was
implemented. A second view is
also available which supplies a
direct feed based on URL
parameters, allowing users to filter
the feed.
C – Management Implementation
C1
Sources: Has the institution identified
the authoritative source or sources of
course marketing information that could
be used in an XCRI implementation?
Systems within the college
are a little disparate. This
will be rectified during stage
2.
Yes - fully Green
Documents produced during
validation are now the authoritative
source for many fields. Other fields
which relate more to the
description of the programme and
its modules are editable by the
content owners and reviewed
annually.
C2
Centralisation: Has the institution
agreed on the extent of centralisation of
the course information to be included in
an XCRI implementation?
No Red
Need to discuss the extent
to which marketing define
the course advertising
profile.
Yes Green
Course information is centralised
within EBS and Drupal, with
business processes now mapped
to initial content provision and
update.
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Question
C3
Volume and complexity: Has the
institution considered how the volume
and complexity of its provision will be
reflected in an XCRI implementation?
Aggregation to programme
level then displaying
different presentations for
FT and PT seem the best
approach.
Yes - fully Green
The HE curriculum structure was
re-modelled to ensure that there
was one course code per
programme, with occurrence codes
reflecting the different
‘presentations’ of the programme.
C4
Process changes: Has the institution
highlighted any changes to the
processes of creating and maintaining
course marketing information?
No Red
Process changes to be
defined and realised in
stage 2.
Yes - as is Green
A full review of business processes
has resulted in a harmonised
approach.
C5
Tracking and auditing: Has the
institution agreed how updates to the
course marketing information will be
tracked (for example via an audit trail
recording date and staff involved)?
Yes - changes
scheduled
Red
CMS will handle the update
process as part of the stage
2 implementation
Yes - as is Green
Full audit trails are recorded within
MI&F for any changes to
programmes within EBS. Editable
content within Drupal is reviewed
and approved by a moderator. All
previous versions of Drupal content
are kept indefinitely along with
workflow audit logs.
C6
Lines of responsibility: Has the
institution agreed how the XCRI
implementation will be managed,
including who will be responsible for it?
Yes - fully Green
Mainly within the Web
Development Team
Yes - fully Green
assessment.
C7
Time scales: Has the institution
assessed the time scale that will be
required to implement XCRI?
Yes - fully Green
Stage 2 implementation plan
submitted.
Yes - fully Green
XCRI-CAP feed was a little behind
schedule but was published within
the overall project timescale.
C8
Finance: Has the institution identified
and sourced the financial resources
that will be required to implement
XCRI?
No Red
Awaiting approval for JISC
stage 2 funding
Yes Green
Largely funded through the JISC
Course Data programme.
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Question
C9
Non-technical skills: Has the institution
identified and sourced the non-
technical skills that will be required to
implement XCRI, for example business
analysis, process re-design?
In house Green
Project management,
business analysis etc. will
be handled in house.
In house Green
assessment.
C10
Technical skills: Has the institution
identified and sourced the technical
skills that will be required to implement
XCRI?
Mix of in house
& outsource
Amber
Mainly in house with some
consultancy work from
Clarus Computing who
support our learner record
system developments.
In house Green
All work was completed by the in
house project team. Clarus
Computing were not used to
support IDM/authentication work
stream because an alternative
solution was identified in the form
of an open-source community
developed module.
C11
Resources: Has the institution identified
the resources (i.e. time, money,
technical and non-technical skills)
required to sustain XCRI in the long
term?
Resources identified within
stage 2 implementation plan
Yes - fully Green
Provided by the JISC course data
project
C12
Relationship with other projects: Has
the institution considered how the XCRI
implementation will relate to other
projects addressing courses
information, for example, validation,
approval and assessment systems,
student relationship management
systems, Higher Education
Achievement Report (HEAR)
implementation, Key Information Set
(KIS) and so on?
Links to Identity
Management (IDM) project.
KIS
Yes - fully Green
The project overlapped to a certain
extent with the KIS project. This
introduced benefits as course data
was already under focus, but also
introduced slippage into the course
data project because of the
competing demands for resources
from both projects.
Page 18 of 21

Version: 0.3
Date: 28th
January 2013
Question
C13
Quality: Has the institution addressed
the quality of its course marketing
information (for example accuracy,
completeness, integrity, accessibility,
timeliness, transferability, transparency,
provenance, transportability)?
No Red
Process development
planned as part of stage 2
implementation. There is a
need to create a single point
of access for course
information and improved
processes for data collection
and
Yes Green
The quality of course data has
improved and will continue to do so
as a result of the course data
initiative.
D – Technical Implementation
D1
Support from CMS: Has the institution a
Content Management System or
Document Management System that
would support XCRI implementation?
Yes - fully Green Drupal Yes - fully Green
The College CMS – Drupal has
been developed further as part of
the course data project and as a
result is now accessed by a wider
range of content editors.
D2
Support from MIS: Has the institution a
Management Information System that
would support XCRI implementation?
EBS provides the core
structure but Drupal will be
used for additional
marketing fields.
Yes - fully Green
EBS provides all core information
to Drupal. Drupal is then used by
content owners to manage non-
core course information.
D3
Permanent IDs: Does the institution use
permanent unique course identifiers in
its main courses information system?
Yes Green Yes Green
Unique identifiers were assigned to
each course code however there
were multiple course codes per
programme and therefore multiple
ID’s. This has now been resolved
through the re-modelling of the HE
curriculum structures within EBS.
Page 19 of 21

Version: 0.3
Date: 28th
January 2013
Question
D4
All data available: Can the institution's
current data provide all of the
requirements of the major target
consumers of XCRI, for example
HEAR, Key Information Set (KIS), etc.?
Partially Amber
Some additional fields and
data collection required.
Yes Green
Whilst the KIS continues to evolve
each year, the systems within the
College provide the data necessary
to create these outputs.
D5
Programme / module: Do the
institution's information systems
support the provision of both
programme level and
module/unit/component level course
advertising information?
Recent development takes a
programme to stages
(levels), modules and
assessments.
Yes - fully Green
Recent development takes a
programme to stages (levels),
modules and assessments.
Page 20 of 21

Version: 0.3
Date: 28th
January 2013
Question
D6
Equipment and software: Will new
equipment or software be required?
No Green
Existing systems and
software will be developed
further.
No Green
assessment.
D7
Application change: Will changes be
required to applications or IT services
to gather the required information to
implement an XCRI feed?
Yes - apps &
processes
Red
Workflow to be developed
within Drupal for content
creation, update and
approval.
No Green
Feed now in place and content
supported by links to EBS and
content workflow
D8
Interface(s) change: Will changes be
required to applications in order to build
interfaces between systems to support
the XCRI implementation?
Yes - apps only Red
EBS and Drupal interface
will need further
development
No Green
System interface development
completed.
D9
Process change: Will changes be
required to manual processes to gather
the required information to implement
an XCRI feed?
Yes - apps &
processes
Red
All course data processes
are currently manual,
copying and pasting info
from word documents into
web pages.
No Green
Processes changed to match
content workflows and update
trigger points identified.
Page 21 of 21

JISC Course Data Final Report - BFC

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