SAM Steering Group
Minutes of Meeting held on Wednesday 6th November 2002
Attending: John Buckett, Ray Burnley, Gisela Fischer, Kerensa Pearson, Elizabeth Stewart, Stevie Woodley, Keith Zimmerman, Sue Brooks (IT Services Director)
From: 5. Feedback from Exam Period, second paragraph: KZ commented that final year weighting should not be associated with modules in the final year, as suggested by RB, but be implemented via Pathways instead. KZ indicated that this was a problem in SITS too. SB suggested that RB liase with Emma Baker (SITS Project Officer) so as to reach a common SAM/SITS solution to final year weighting. Action: RB
From: 6. SAM Funding for Next Year: SB indicated that she believed
the Institute of Arabic & Islamic Studies where interested in
becoming a SAM3 user School. RB to contact the
Institute. Action: RB
The meeting seemed generally happy about SAM’s performance. RB noted
that SAM3 had now completed the whole yearly cycle of tasks from
pre-Registration, through Exams, to Progression. RB also noted that
there was still an issue of Current Academic Year and
postgraduates. Postgraduates tended to crossover years with the
writing-up of dissertations and theses. RB indicated that he had in
mind minor changes to the user interface to facilitate easy switching
between academic years.
GF noted that no indication of Method of Assessment appeared on the
Module Registration (Red/Pink) Forms generated by SITS this year.
RB reported that he had tried the automatic conversion option in
Access 2000 and that the resulting version of SAM3 seemed to run
well. More comprehensive testing would be required before we could be
happy that this version was reliable and bug free. The same process
would be needed for an Access XP version. If the automatic conversion
did work well, RB could maintain a reference development version in
Access 97 and perform the 2000 & XP conversions for each new
release. SB suggested that both conversions would need to be tested at
each release. This could result in considerable effort.
SB then informed the meeting that the University had recently
signed-up for the Microsoft Campus 3 licensing agreement. This would
mean that keeping a copy of Access 97 on a PC for SAM3 would not incur
extra costs. In light of this it was decided not to pursue Access 2000
& XP versions of SAM3.
Ray Burnley demonstrated a pilot version of web access to the SAM3
data, called SAM3web. It was made clear that this was a pilot, no
effort had been invested in a fancy user interface. The intention was
to show the meeting how easily SAM3 data could be made available, in a
read-only manner to, primarily, academic staff, although access could
be extended to students too. The pilot took about three working days
to prepare. SB suggested a feedback button if the user interface is
developed so that staff/students could inform admin staff using SAM3
when data is incorrect and should be updated.
It was noted that SHiPSS already have a system that displays their Module Templates on the web, the actual data coming from within SAM3. KZ mentioned that SITS currently did not have the requisite data fields for storing Module Templates. SHiPSS also implemented a system back before the Summer for students to give their Programme and Module Feedback on line. SAM provided the student list and their Programme and Modules. KZ reported that it was very popular with the students and the response rate was much higher than previous paper based exercises.
Many issues would need to be addressed before SAM3web could be rolled-out, including: authentication, access, security, scope of data visibility. During the demonstration SB noticed the use of non-University email addresses for students and indicated that there may be policy changes in future to outlaw non-University email addresses (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo) for University business. KP indicated that such a policy would have to be effectively publicised to encourage Hotmail, etc. email users to read their University mailbox.
There are other University wide web developments in the pipeline. The
University was likely to extend it’s licence for WebCT (web
environment for distance learning) to provide a portal site. On the
SITS front work was in progress to implement eVision, SITS’s web
access and portal system.
RB reported that this was ongoing. JB suggested that this was an
important issue. RB then volunteered to produce some documentation for
the next meeting. Action: RB
The agenda listed six items put forward by RB plus the Web development
noted above. KZ put on hold Applicant Monitoring that had been
suggested by SHiPSS. He was now pursuing a SITS solution to his
requirements. If SITS proved unequal to the task KZ indicated he might
resurrect the suggestion. The meeting added no further items and
indicated the following order of priority:
ES highlighted the fact that the SITS training was scheduled over the Summer vacation when many of her staff, who are part-time, would not be available. It was thought probable that the SITS training team would be able to accommodate SML.
RB proposed that SAM could be run in more of a SITS mirror mode. In this mode nightly downloads of data from SITS could refresh SAM data. Users would use SITS to enter and update data but that data could then be used in SAM for reporting or for interfacing with facilities used in SAM that where not available in SITS.
SB echoed a view often expressed by KZ, that SAM had a role in documenting and demonstrating Schools requirements from a student management system. Continuing development of SAM was useful in raising the threshold of what is required of SITS and hence is not incompatible with the use of SITS.
SB proposed a special meeting to look at SAM/SITS Strategy. Suggested
attendees: Sue Brooks (IT Services Director), Emma Baker (SITS Project
Officer), Paul Sandy or Sue Milward (IT Services Admin Computing),
Keith Zimmerman (as a representative for large Schools), Chris Austin
(IT Services Administrator and ex administrator from Classics &
Theology - as a representative for small Schools), Ray Burnley,
John Buckett. [Ed. This Transitional Planning meeting has now been
arranged for Thursday 21st November 2002 at 14:00 in the
LaTiS Centre, Queens Building.]
Wednesday 22nd January 2003, 10:30am in LaTiS
Meeting Room, Queen’s Building. It was decided that ex SAM Schools now
in Phase 3 of SITS would be invited to this meeting to give feedback
on the shift from SAM to SITS.