Are you being served?

“What do you want, when do you want it, and how would you like it delivered?”

With this simple query, Academic Registrar Neil Robinson is leading a quiet revolution in the provision of student services. “Students are our customers and we’re placing individual students at the centre of all our services, of all our activities. Of all our thinking,” he says.

It’s a bold vision as student services at the University of Melbourne encompass a raft of offerings.

Meeting access and equity obligations, providing health and counselling services, offering academic enrichment and career services like learning and essay-writing skills and CV preparation, transactional tasks like enrolment, subject changes, maintaining fee accounts and issuing student ID cards – there is virtually a service to meet every need.

About 500 staff across the University deliver these services to some 45,000 students every year, through the Office of the Provost and the student centres dotted across the campus.

The new student system ISIS, for example, will over time effectively enable students to find information relevant to them, at whatever time, and according to their particular needs.

The $17 million Eastern Precinct Student Centre, opened this year, provides students with a learning and recreational space. It includes the Eastern Resource Centre library and the Frank Tate Learning Centre, features comfortable study spaces and computer access, is open daily from 7am to 2am, and 24/7 during exam time.

A similar centre in the western precinct will open in 2012.

In January, the University will also launch its contact centre, 13 MELB, to help students with common informational and administrative enquiries, as well as enrolment questions, by phone or by email.

A Google-based student email system that links to the full suite of Google productivity tools will also come online about the same time to help students work more effectively, whenever they want.

Improved student facilities are being rolled out, while online platforms are used wherever appropriate. Routine tasks like quality of teaching evaluations, for example, will move online to give students the opportunity to reflect and provide more considered feedback.

An expanding range of services is being delivered through multiple channels – the web, phone, email and face-to-face – to better fit in with the varied lifestyles and requirements of students.

“The improvements to the student experience from these initiatives can’t be overstated,” Mr Robinson says.

“Even graduation conferring ceremonies are being scheduled to meet student requests to graduate as soon after completion as possible. This year, there will be about 20 ceremonies held at the end of the year. It will be a very busy December for the Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor.

“But seriously, that is what it takes. This student-centred focus is something we said was absolutely vital when we introduced the Melbourne Model. Progressively, we’ve been looking at ways to increase this student-centricity by enabling students to make the best choices and decisions for themselves.”

In another initiative, the University will revamp its system of student advising.

“We’ve completed a review of the current process and the review panel has articulated a vision for the future. A vision that will be holistic in outlook, looking at each student’s life-cycle, career goals and aspirations, and tailoring course advice and career information to their individual needs,” Mr Robinson says.

“Our vision is to enable students to access individual academics who can provide the deep disciplinary depth and inspiration that facilitates their preferred course and career goals,” he says.

Tweaking the student enterprise system continues to be a parallel project.

Mr Robinson explains, “When you introduce a new system, despite the best intentions, invariably there will be issues you could not anticipate until it has become operational. There have been teething problems. We have dealt with them, are refining processes and continue to strive to put in place the best possible services to students we can.”

Listening to the word on the ground is central to the process.

Gathering feedback from a range of mechanisms, such as the annual Melbourne Experience Survey, focus groups, and service evaluation surveys, the student services team has been refining existing processes and looking at initiatives to meet changing student demands.

“We’ve been listening to what students are saying, we’ve worked through the implications of the messages and we’re putting in place changes that respond to them. This will flow through every area of student services,” Mr Robinson says.

“Change takes time, and we are working through a broad series of changes. These changes will bear fruit over time. Students, and staff, will increasingly see the benefits as differences occur on the ground,” he says.

http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/