Pictured above: Anthony Dent, managing director,
Dynistics
Shrewsbury College of Arts & Technology is prioritising not
only student performance but the performance and efficiencies of
the college as a whole, by rolling out Active Dashboard business
intelligence software to its senior management team.
Solihull based Dynistics Active Dashboards software has gone
live this month and is already having a positive impact on the
college as a method for identifying and tracking performance across
the college - with a view to rolling it out to all operational
managers and departmental heads.
The college is target-driven in terms of learner numbers,
funding received and success rates of students and the dashboards
are being developed to highlight trends as they happen. Performance
management in colleges is increasingly important in terms of
justifying where money and resources are being spent and ensuring
maximum efficiency.
"Only weeks after installing the software the dashboards are
helping to identify and eliminate pockets of inefficiency within
the college to help it save costs and maximise returns," said Len
Tildsley, vice principal, Shrewsbury College.
"Active Dashboards allows us to set performance parameters so
that it's possible to compare current performance with targets
agreed at the start of each year - making it very simple to see if
we're meeting them.
"Trend analysis taken from historical data also helps us predict
what the coming months may hold - early indication is vital to us
hitting our targets and identifying any underperformance before it
becomes an issue is much simpler now Active Dashboards is
installed."
Active Dashboards is able to take the live data from the
college's many data sources and integrate and cross tabulate it so
that performance can be measured on a daily basis. It provides
users with a full picture of college performance helping management
make better informed decisions as a result.
"We've been live for less than a month and already the increase
in productivity is very quick to see. We chose Dynistics over the
competition because it's very simple to set up, provides a rapid
return on investment and is streets ahead in terms of usability. It
has made a significant difference to the management information we
have at our fingertips - almost over night," concludes Len
Tildsley, vice principal, Shrewsbury College.
Going forward, Shrewsbury College plans to use Active Dashboards
to integrate data from its human resources, financial and student
data systems so that it can cross reference and correlate results;
for example, student performance with staff sickness. The college
has 300 staff, 8,000 students and is based across two principal
campuses.