Information Management Project
Management of Target Student Numbers Working Group
Julie Guest is leading a group to inform and direct the improvement theme of Management of Target Student Numbers.
The group has the following members:
| Julie Guest | Business Project Leader |
| Gillian Reid | Business Analyst for Information Management Project |
| Barbara Miller | Student Statistics |
| Robert Masson | Financial Services |
| Mike Telford | Financial Services |
| Gillie Reith | Faculty of Design and Technology |
| Grant Maxwell | Faculty of Design and Technology |
| Ken Russell | Aberdeen Business School |
| Kate Bowden | UK Student Recruitment |
| Giles Morris | Overseas Student Recruitment |
| Louise McLean | Student Admissions |
To participate in the group please email to j.k.guest@rgu.ac.uk
The group has held the following meetings:
Meeting 1 - Friday 24th November 2006
This is a copy of the presentation that was used to provide an overview of current analysis on target setting and also to provide information on the outcomes that the group should achieve:
The group then went on to consider a series of questions relating to decision making and targets and the following document provides the outcome from this activity:
To comment on either of these documents please email to j.k.guest@rgu.ac.uk or g.reid@rgu.ac.uk
Meeting 2 - Tuesday 12th December 2006
Mike McCall, Director of Finance provided a demo of a Financial model that has been used very successfully with several schools. This informed discussion on a potential model for setting target student profiles based on applications, applicant to enrolment rates and retention rates. The group agreed that this model should be adopted as the basis for development of a Web application for modelling of target student populations and financial impact.
Gillian Reid provided more detail on how this might work as shown in the following presentation:
It was agreed that further work on a proposed specification for this would be presented for consideration at the next meeting scheduled for 8th January 2007.
To comment on any aspect of this meeting please email to j.k.guest@rgu.ac.uk or g.reid@rgu.ac.uk
Meeting 3 - Monday 15th January 2007
This meeting considered setting targets for a standard undergraduate course with a September intake and which continues for 4 academic sessions. To help the group a short presentation was provided which shows the cycle for setting such targets:
The group then went on to consider a model for setting targets for a standard UG course based upon the Financial model demonstrated by Mike McCall at the last meeting of the group. The purpose of the model is to demonstrate how an online application could work and it was explained to the group that this would work by allowing a user to choose a School, Programme and course for which to set targets. Then they would be taken to a screen which would provide the functionality in the model to allow them to set targets for the different student types on the course (usually this will be Home+EU and International). The application will then go on to display information on the Financial impact of the targets that have been set including details on how the targets contribute to the number of funded places, service teaching, income and deductions such as recruitment fees, withdrawals scholarships etc.
The general consensus of the group was that they felt the model being demonstrated didn't provide realistic targets in some areas. It was agreed that the main drivers for setting targets were Intake and Retention and that the model should be revised to take account of this and also some aspects of the existing Undergraduate Forecasting model. A revised model will be developed for discussion at the next meeting of the group.
This is a link to the model discussed at this meeting.
To comment on any aspect of this meeting please email to j.k.guest@rgu.ac.uk or g.reid@rgu.ac.uk
Meeting 4 - Tuesday 30th January 2007
At this meeting the group considered enhancements to the target setting model discussed at meeting 3. Intake and retention rates are now the main drivers in the model and projections on Applications and Offers are calculated based on Intake. The new model was explained followed by a demonstration of several examples with actual data including comparisons of the projections obtained from the model for session 2006/07 and actual data for session 2006/07.
There was concensus that the model appeared to be working in principal but that consideration needs to be given to students on placement years, outgoing socrates/erasmus students, students returning after a part-time repeat year or a year-out to see if and how these should be reflected in the model.
It is also the intention to do some further testing with academic staff in Aberdeen Business School and Faculty of Design and Technogly to see how the model performs against current projections.
In addition, work will commence on looking at how the model can be adapted to cope with non-standard UG courses, that may for example have stages that run across academic years, and also PG courses.
This is a link to the version of the model that was presented to the group:
These are some examples containing actual student data:
To comment on any aspect of this meeting please email to j.k.guest@rgu.ac.uk or g.reid@rgu.ac.uk