Improvement of Business Process Management
in Higher Education institutions
Project information
Project acronym: HEI-UP
Project title: Improvement of Business Process Management in
Higher Education institutions
Project number: 518035-LLP-1-2011-1-AT-ERASMUS-ECUE
Sub-programme or KA: Erasmus-Multilateral
Project website: www.bpm-hei.eu
Reporting period: From 1/10/2011
To 30/9/2012
Report version: 1
Date of preparation: 25.10.2012
Beneficiary organisation: IMC FH KREMS
Project coordinator: Michael Reiner
Project coordinator organisation: IMC FH KREMS
Project coordinator telephone number: 0043-(0)2732-802- ext. 313
Project coordinator email address: michael.reiner@fh-krems.ac.at
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
The document may be freely copied and distributed provided that no modifications are made, that the source is acknowledged and that this copyright notice is included.
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to present first year of the Erasmus-Multilateral project »Improvement of Business Process Management in Higher Education Institutions (HEI-UP)«, which was started in October 2011.
SMEs and Enterprises, which perform their activities on the market, usually have their core business processes well managed. Identified, documented, standardized, managed, automatized business processes ensure they stay competitive on the market.
Nowadays, HEIs (higher education institutions) are faced with a shift from mass education, almost uniform age group (adolescents), employment status of students and finance sourcing to very different position. HEIs should adapt to study programme specialization, broader target age group (lifelong learning), already employed students, which come from companies and various sources and combinations of financing (state, tuitions, projects, services ...). Not only private HEIs, public HEIs are faced with mentioned changes also.
To improve HEI clients (=students, employees, partners) satisfaction and to remain competitive, HEI’s should manage their business processes similar to Enterprises and SMEs. Therefore, a business process management knowledge transfer should be initiated and maintained. Business Process Management (BPM) methodologies should be adapted to HEI specifics. Additionally, best practices of business processes from the enterprises and SMEs should be gathered, analysed, modified and compiled into unified methodology for management of HEIs.
Constant flow of BPM knowledge between HEIs and enterprises should also be maintained, to ensure exchange of field based BPM experiences and theoretical knowledge. Existing BPM courses should also be improved with HEI processes best practices, to raise next generation of BPM capable students. The goal of this project is to analyse Business Process Management practices in higher education institutions, compare them with those in companies, prepare a process framework, and establish a consortium and a course for HEI management staff.
First phase of the project was to analyse existing BPM practices in HEIs, perform gap analysis and compare processes with the APQC (American Productivity and Quality Center) standard for education. Research design and questionnaire was already prepared and distributed to education institutions in Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
The main results of the researches showed that the following processes are not very mature among the research target group: communication processes, research processes, teaching / education processes, and marketing related processes including alumni relations. Processes that also need further structuring are so called 'student' process from student perspective. Surprisingly, management processes are very mature (based on respondents' answers).
Based on results of the first year's research, weak points of the management systems on HEIs were identified and proposed for future improvement.
BPM framework, which development has already started, will serve as a central process landscape map for the HEIs, and will help various stakeholders (employees, students, professors) to have a clear overview of the processes on their HEIs.
A wider consortium, which establishment has already started, will serve as a major exchange point of best BPM practices between companies and HEIs.
Based on findings from our research, a new course specialization will be designed to existing course ECQA Certified Business Process Manager. This course will be targeted to HEI management staff. The purpose of the project is to raise the quality of the management in HEIs and consequently the satisfaction of most important stakeholders – students.
The course, which will be developed in second year of the project, will be adapted to the ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Organization) structure and rules, which will ensure its EU wide acceptance.
The structure of a project team ensures the knowledge, which was brought to the project, is a wide one. Partner group is a combination of higher education institutions and private companies with extensive business process management experiences.
Table of Contents
1. PROJECT OBJECTIVES ... 7 2. PROJECT APPROACH ... 9 3. PROJECT OUTCOMES & RESULTS ... 10 4. PARTNERSHIPS ... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. 5. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE ... 16 6. CONTRIBUTION TO EU POLICIES ... 18 7. EXTRA HEADING/SECTION ... 20
1. Project Objectives
General objectives of the project are:
Objective 1. To help promote creativity, competitiveness, employability and the growth of an entrepreneurship
Creativity, competitiveness and employability of the students at the partner HEIs will be improved, because the course (business informatics related) they attend will be improved with best practices of BPM projects from real life (ENTs).
Lack of real-life experience is one of the major obstacles when learning about conceptual knowledge. Introducing case studies of BPM projects into the course materials will improve understanding of students and better prepare them for management tasks.
Objective 2. To encourage the best use of results, innovative products and processes and to exchange the knowledge
To improve the satisfaction of the HEI stakeholders (students, professors, management staff and others), HE’Is processes should be managed similar as those in enterprises.
The project encourages the exchange of best practices. This includes their transfer from enterprises to HEIs. This means the case studies of BPM projects will be gathered from literature (standards), ENTs and other HEIs, transformed into the process framework for HEIs and added to existing courses.
Objective 3. To support the achievement of a European Area of Higher Education
To support the achievement of a European Area of Higher Education, HEI management practices will be improved using a new BPM framework for HEIs and coaching events.
Objective 4. To reinforce the contribution of higher education and advanced vocational education to the process of innovation
To reinforce the contribution of higher education and advanced vocational education to the process of innovation will be initiated with standard set of processes (core, management, supporting) for HEIs, which will be prepared during the project.
Objective 5. To improve the quality and to increase the volume of co-operation between higher education institutions and enterprises
To improve the quality and to increase the volume of co-operation between higher education institutions and enterprises, a consortium will be established, which will gather HEIs and ENTs.
Objective 6. To facilitate the development of innovative practices in education and training at tertiary level
To facilitate the development of innovative practices in education and training at tertiary level, and their transfer, including from one participating country to others, results of BPM state analyses from partner countries (AT, SI, LT, BG, PL) will be compared between each other. Best practices of HEI management will be transferred between countries.
Specific objectives of the project are:
Conducting the research about state of the BPM in HEIs Preparation of Unified HEI process framework
Preparation of course materials for HEI managers Establishing a consortium of HEI-companies partnership
2. Project Approach
The project builds on existing ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Association) platform, which was used in several projects. Currently, 27 Certified Professions exist on this platform and HEI-UP course is one of the latest ones (www.ecqa.org ).
This means the learning materials are structured according to the EQF (European Qualification Framework): The learning content will be structured in units, elements, performance criteria. Also, multiple-choice questions, online exam and e-learning platform will be available.
The content of the learning materials will combine the general knowledge on business process management (ECQA Certified Business Process Management course) and specific knowledge about HEI processes, such as Research, Teaching, Curricula development, Alumni management and similar. One of the innovative approaches included in this project is learning material how to incorporate Corporate Business Process Management topics into management practices of HEIs (quality manual, process maps and descriptions).
The research, business process framework and the content is developed jointly by partners from different countries which ensure EU universality of the learning content.
Pedagogic value is evaluated using trainees’ feedback and experienced trainers feedback.
The learning content will be available in traditional form (as a PPT, PDF and printed materials) and as e-learning content (using Moodle LMS).
Unified dissemination strategy, graphic design, leaflets, posters, presentations was prepared and it is used on each dissemination events.
The results are disseminated through well established and EU wide known networks and conferences (EUROSPI 2012, EU Cert Days 2012, DOBA International conference 2012, SMI 2012 – Congress of Young Scientists), internet media (web pages – www.bpm-hei.eu , social networks – LinkedIn group) and local distribution in native languages.
Sustainability of the project will be achieved by establishing contractual JRC (job role committee) within the ECQA, which includes one participant per partner. The role of JRC will be:
Updating learning materials Dissemination
Assessing new trainers Setting rules for JRC work
Approving new training, exam and certification centres
Each JRC member must provide 10 days of work per year or 1000€ for HEI-UP related tasks in next years.
Sustainability is also ensured by using ECQA model for exploitation: establishment of learning, exam and certification centres. Each interested organization in EU or world will be able to become training centre by complying ECQA standard rules.
3. Project Outcomes & Results
Main project results in the first year of the projects are (excluding project management, quality management, configuration management and dissemination results):
Research of BPM practices and knowledge in HEIs and companies
Analysis: State of BPM in HEIs
Analysis of existing BPM practices in HEIs includes:
- set of existing processes, which are performed and managed in HEIs (core, management and supporting processes,
- the maturity of existing processes (According to BPMM - Business Process Maturity Model) - a finding, which processes are managed
- comparison with BPM practices in companies.
The main objective of this research was to find out which processes on HEIs are not well managed and which should be managed more company-alike.
Figure 2. Focus group session in Sofia Process documentation in HEIs
Figure 1. Excerpt from the research: Example of research results for analysis of processes in HEIs
Enter the full project number here 11 / 21 The research results include: research design, research questionnaire, web questionnaire (link) research analysis, research report, articles and conference presentations and were already published on various conferences: DOBA 2012, SMI 2012, ECQA Days 2012.
Analysis: BPM related curricula in HEIs
We have analysed existing curricula in partner HEIs and have found out that the BPM topics are scattered among various programmes and courses.
Figure 3. Excerpt from the research: HEI programmes that cover BPM topics
The research results include research design, research analysis, research report, articles and conference presentations which are yet to be published.
Analysis: BPM knowledge analysis of HEI management staff
The research results include research design, research analysis, research report, articles and conference presentations which are yet to be published.
a. Management Systems b. Managing BPM projects c. BPM and Modeling
d. Documenting Business Process e. Process Simulation and Analysis f. Decision models for selecting BPM
platform g. Properties of BPM software (licensing, deployment) h. Enterprise architecture i. IT Integration techniques j. Human factors in BPM Figure 4. Excerpt from the research: Level
Analysis: BPM knowledge needs on HEI market
The research results include research questionnaire which will be used in second year of the project.
Figure 6. Excerpt from the research: a questionnaire
Process framework draft
Unified Process Framework for HEIs will include a reference set of processes for HEIS: core processes, management processes and supporting processes. Example of core processes for HEIs: curricula development, student relationship management, learning content delivery, etc. Examples of management processes in HEIS: human resources management, documentation management, audits, financial management, etc. Examples of supporting processes in HEIs: acquisitions, purchase of equipment and learning materials, building maintenance, administration, etc.
The processes will be represented in form of process map, process models and additional descriptions (three levels of details). A BPMN process modelling technique will be used for process models design. Details of processes (3rd level) will be described in form of good practices.
Figure 5. Excerpt from the research: The perceived need for additional BPM training
During the first year of the project, similar process frameworks (APQC, Charles Sturt University PF) have been studied and main KPAs (Key process areas) were identified (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Excerpt from the process framework visualization
Course for HEI managers
During the first ear of the project, the course outline was prepared. During the second year of the project, the course content will be prepared and structured according ECQA (www.ecqa.org) rules:
4.
Partnerships
Project stakeholders consist of:- Multinational project consortium - Future trainers
- Future trainees
- Interested parties (management roles in HEIs, companies and public organizations)
Project consortium:
IMC Fachhochschule Krems, Austria (Applicant partner)
BICERO, Business Informatics Center Rozman Ltd., Slovenia (partner, idea) DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Studies Maribor, Slovenia (partner) I.S.C.N. International Software Consulting Network LTD (partner)
Vakaru Lietuvos verslo kolegija, Lithuania (partner)
SZCZECINSKA SZKOLA WYZSZA COLLEGIUM BALTICUM, Poland (partner)
American University in Bulgaria, Bulgaria (partner)
Multinational project team ensures universality of learning content, wide dissemination in the following countries: Ireland, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria and Lithuania. Indirectly, citizens from all EU countries can participate in training sessions, especially e-learning.
Each partner is establishing network of interested parties in its own country, e.g. universities, associations, companies.
Trainings will be targeted to students of faculties and especially to company representatives. Including BPM practices by trained trainees and trainers in companies will positively influence the project impact.
Details:
The project consortium includes partners from Slovenia (BICERO, DOBA Faculty), Lithuania(WLBC), Bulgaria (AUBG) and Poland (SZSWCB) and AT (ISCN). This combination of partners (private SMEs and faculties) ensures that the best practice transfer from ENT to HEIs should be successful.
Different EU regions (Central Europe, South East and East Europe) were chosen because there is a great need for management skills improvement, especially in education institutions.
Partner BICERO(SI) is acting as project coordinator and as a source of BPM methodology. Its core activities include performing BPM courses on the market and other Business Process Reengineering projects, ICT consulting and EU project management. BICERO is leading the preparation of the business process framework for HEIs.
Partner DOBA Faculty is a private faculty. It is the largest e-study provider in Slovenia. It offers Bachelor and Masters study programmes (Applied Business and Social studies). DOBA has a vast experience in online study. DOBA’s competences will be used for preparation of research instrument, analysis of existing courses and market needs and it is offering offer their ICT infrastructure for virtual seminars for
partners. They also share their e-study knowledge and include it in the process framework. The partner provides a source of HEI business process best practices.
ISCN is a private company (AT, IE), with solid knowledge and over 10 years of experience in managing EU projects, consulting (Automotive SPICE), networking and dissemination. Most important, ISCN was the initiator of the ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Association), which currently offers over 20 management related courses. It also organizes yearly EUROSPI and ECQA conferences all over EU. The partner provides its competences related to the dissemination and experiences from the process consulting.
WLBC (West Lithuania Business College), a business college from Lithuania, provides their experiences in identification of professional needs for the market. The partner acts as a source of HEI business process best practices and also as a target. Because of its connections in regional business life, it disseminates the results to state and private institutions.
SZCZECIŹSKA SZKOŁA WYŹSZA COLLEGIUM BALTICUM is a private university from Poland. It offers educational (educational science, economy and management, political science and foreign language studies, Masters and Bachelors level), research and dissemination competences to the consortium.
Its competences for gathering market requirements make it an important member of the consortium. This university also organizes various international symposiums and conferences, which makes it very appropriate partner for dissemination.
AUBG (American University of Bulgaria) is also higher education institution located in Bulgaria. It offers various education programs(e.g. Business Administration, Computer Science, Economics, European Studies, History and Civilizations, Information Systems, Journalism and Mass Communication, Mathematics, Political Science and International Relations) and research competences. It has implemented more than 100 various projects, which ensures solid EU project management and cooperation skills.
All partners cooperate in gathering the best practices (successful BPM projects) from the market and dissemination of results.
Due to their exceptionally wide spectrum of contacts and involvements in numerous sectors and at all levels of education, all partners together have a major impact in the dissemination process.
5. Plans for the Future
Within the second year of the project the following activities will be performed (outline):
Research results will be published
Process framework will be finalized and process maps will be prepared
Learning materials will be prepared and translated to SI, LT, BG, PL, GER language
E-learning web environment will be prepared and the content will be prepared
Coaching event will be performed in each country (SI, LT, BG, PL, AT, IE) with 20 participants per
country
ECQA job role committee will be established
Sustainability plan will be prepared
Dissemination activities will continue (conferences, events, workshops, distribution of materials EU
wide). We plan the following conferences:
EUROSPI 2013, EU CERT DAYS 2013
SLO: DOBA FACULTY yearly conference
QMHE Quality management in Higher Education 2012 (Keynote)
Presented in details:
Modular structure of the learning course
A set of skills required analyzing social impact of an organization and skills needed to manage introduction of relevant actions for optimizing the social influence will be defined (“SkillCard”).
Within the Skill Card, the structure of training content will be prepared using the following hierarchy:
- Units/
o Elements/
Performance Criteria/
Questions for Exam
o Answers for Exam
This deliverable is a basis for all other deliverables (e.g. coaching events and e-learning environment); therefore will be defined in details. The purpose of the SkillCard is to give the trainee rough picture about the course content.
The skillcard will consist of the following units and elements:
- UNIT 1: HEI process specifics
o Element 1: Basic management skills for HEI staff o Element 2: Management and Administrative processes o Element 3: Teaching processes
o Element 4: Research processes o Element 5: Supportive processes
Training material will be developed in English language in order to improve efficiency of any potential corrections of training material after finish of trials.
Training material consists of: presentation slides, student notes and exercises for all elements and all units.
The material will be prepared for the Trial trainings and the preparation will start in jan. 2013. According to the feedback, materials will be improved and translated.
Pool of questions and answers for online exam
Exam questions for the certification will be developed. For each question, multiple-choice answers will be prepared, too. They will be used for after coaching events and trial exams.
Structure of exam Pool is compliant with the structure of the Skill card.
The size of the exam pool will be about 25 questions per Element. Those questions will be inserted into the
database and online exam portal (available at www.ECQA.org ). All interested parties will be able to perform
self-assesment using small subset of exam questions.
eLearning Portal
Advanced eLearning portal will be configured and the e-content will be prepared. Proven Learning Management System (LMS) – Moodle will be used.
The e-learning system will be available here: http://trainings.ecqa.org
User Manual for eLearning portal
User manual for lerning portal will be developed. The objective of this deliverable is to help trainees to use e-learning system (logging, navigating etc.)
User manual will be aimed for candidates and trainers describing how to use the system (for training participants and for trainers).
An Unified BPM framework
The process framework for HEIs will be finalized.
A consortium
Members for the consortium will be invited to join.
Coaching events
Coaching event will be performed with 20 participants / country.
Feedbacks about the learning content and design will be gathered, analyzed and learning materials will be updated.
6. Contribution to EU policies
The project will contribute to the following EU policies:
Horizontal policies:
1. Promoting an awareness of the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity within Europe, as well as of the need to combat racism, prejudice and xenophobia will be achieved in the following way:
How the project contributes to this policy:
Results (BPM framework, course unit) will be used by HEI management staff and students, regardless of their age, sex, nationality, religion.
The aim of HEI-UP is to internationalize the training schema of Business Process Management for Higher
Education Institutions on European level, since the topic is relevant to all European countries equally. This will be achieved by developing the material with content common for all EU countries and providing specifics to be considered for each country. Examples from specific country will be gathered on the eLearning portal.
Trial trainings (coaching events) will be given within 5 EU countries. New trainers will be trained in 5 EU countries.
HEI-UP process framework and training schema will be introduced into ECQA European Certification and
Qualification Association schema (www.ecqa.org) where it will be immediately promoted and available for
trainings all over Europe.
ECQA Job Role Committee (set of experts in BPM for HEI topic) will be established on EU level in order to assure sustainability.
Linguistic and cultural diversity requirements will be met due to availability of training material in 6 EU languages, trainings will be done in English or in national languages of project partners. The translation model will be established for easier translation to other EU languages after finish of project.
Since all over Europe the same training program will be offered, we expect, that the project will contribute to mobility of people (HEI managers) and consequently to improvement of knowledge about foreign cultures.
The content of training material and trainings will contribute to unification of Business Process Management
for HEI all over the Europe. 2. Leonardo da Vinci
How the project contributes to this policy:
This project partially builds on top of LLP/LDV/TOI project CertiBPM (ECQA Certified Business Process Manager,
www.certibpm.info), which results (learning materials for Business Process Management VET course) will be partly used for HEI management staff teaching (the base course). This kind of networking of projects improves
their sustainability, longevity and networking of professionals between HEIs and companies. For example,
existing certified business process managers can upgrade their knowledge only with HEI processes & specific topics. This fact could improve exchange of managers between higher education institutions and
companies. For this purpose, a wider consortium of partners is already being established.
Transversal policies:
3. Exploiting ICT in learning
The ICT is heavily used in this project. Firstly, the course encourages the use of ICT tools for Business Process Management, e.g. tools for HEI processes visualization, modeling and automation (e.g. Aris Express, Microsoft Visio, Bonita Studio,…) Moreover, the course content will be available in e-classroom, which is based on Moodle LMS.
4. Dissemination and exploitation of results
As already mentioned this project partially exploits the results (base course) of another project (Certified Business Process Manager) and adds specialized course units for Higher education. This promotes both projects, mainly through ECQA association. ECQA association is a non-profit association, joining institutions and thousands of professionals from all over Europe and abroad. It provides a Europe wide unified certification schema for numerous professions. It brings together experts from the market and supports the definition and development of the knowledge (Skills Sets) required for professions. It also defines and verifies quality criteria for Training organizations and Trainers to ensure the same level of training all over the world. ECQA promotes all certified professionals.
Sub-programme areas
5. Higher education
The main target group for the results of this project is management staff in higher education institutions. They have already been involved in the research (at least 50/partner country). In the second year of the project, they will be invited to the coaching events (20/partner country) and in the wider consortium (HEI and companies will participate).
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