One of the other projects was e-business focussed - about secure online enrolments for our institute!

The project was a research project to see what was involved - because of the diverse environments we work in, and different ways we enrol students it’s not simple. You have to draw in the course enquiry, counselling, enrolment and payment as part of the whole workflow. It involved collaboration with the Student Admin System people and this gave a very practical perspective to it.

The team looked at a whole range of scenarios about what might happen and the implications of various choices. Potential problems such as overenrolments and recognition of prior qualifications (eg for prerequisites) were uncovered. Some enrolment types are a lot easier, while some manual intervention may be required in other courses. Tension between need for issuing invoices and upfront payment and the implications for finance processes. Options for off-campus enrolment through mobile wireless could be a possibility and raises some IT security concerns. Commercial shortcourses are likely to be first cab off the rank next year :-)