Services

Course Administration System

The Course Administration System performs all of the day to day administration tasks associated with constructing and administering a professional Training course from recruitment through to production of training record summaries.

The CAS Course Administration System was developed in close liaison with all the Colleges of Nursing and Midwifery in Scotland. It has subsequently been installed in a number of other sites in the UK. It performs all of the day to day administration tasks associated with constructing and administering a Nursing Training course from recruitment through to production of training record summaries.

Main Features Include:

Recruitment and Selection
Course Planning
Student Assessment
Absence and Disposal
Student Placements
Placement Area Audit
Management & National Board Reports
Runs on standard PC hardware
Based on industry standard Microsoft software

The Course Administration System was developed to meet the needs of all the Scottish colleges of nursing and midwifery when they discovered that their existing administration systems could not be easily modified to suit the changing needs of the nursing colleges. The system performs all of the tasks associated with constructing and administering a nursing training course, from recruitment through the production of training record summaries.

The vast improvements which the product has brought to course administration, whilst also reducing direct and indirect costs, means that the system is highly regarded within the nursing colleges of both Scotland and England.

Modules

RECRUITMENT & SELECTION for nursing applicants is markedly different to standard University enrolment. A great deal more information is needed, such as an individual's previous professional experience, criminal record checks etc., before any offers of a place can be made.

Helps improve course utilisation
Easy tracking of each applicant's recruitment status
Easy access to information
High quality communication with potential students & staff involved in the selection process

COURSE PLANNING & ASSESSMENT helps the administrator design the course, helps ensure that the course content meets the needs of the relevant National Boards and allows students' performances to be monitored.

Helps improve resource utilisation (course, lecturers, locations)
Flexibility to meet individual student requirements
Information is easily collated for effective assessment of students' performance during all aspects of the course (college & placement)
Flexible course planning allows part-time modular courses as well as full-time continuous courses to be designed.

PLACEMENTS on nursing courses are one of the greatest challenges for existing University software systems which were not designed to handle the complexity of this key process. The system needs to print details of where each student should go and when, list for each off-site location the names of students to be expected, and what experience they should expect to receive, list where students are on placements and an assessment of their performance.

Provides up-to-date information for administrators, students and off-site location managers
Helps ensure optimum utilisation of placement locations
Flexibility to handle re-allocation & revision of placements
Clinical Learning Outcome reports summarise out-placement experience gained
Convenience of producing address labels for students and placements or exporting mailing lists to Excel

The AUDIT database of placement areas with details of mentors and associated locations is essential to maintain the necessary details of area capacities for students by training experience type for placements.

Provides essential information for placements administrators to make placement allocations.
Warns of over-allocations and can be examined for under utilisation.
Maintains diary of audit dates and reports when inspections due.
Strong links Microsoft Excel allows mailing lists and audit data to be exported to Excel for statistical analysis.

ABSENCE recording is a key requirement within the universities/colleges and for outplacements.

Easy & accurate recording
Coverage of both college & placement training elements
Helps ensure that key course elements are not missed through absence

REPORTING is a key aspect of nursing course administration. It is a constant process for a variety of audiences and involves a wide range of information.

A range of standard management reports
Ad-hoc reports aid decision making
Strong links with Microsoft Word allow final training reports to be exported as documents

TECHNICAL compatibility and flexibility is essential for any course administration software system, as is ease of use.

Runs on standard PC hardware avoiding costly investment Is written using industry standard tolls (Microsoft Access running on Microsoft Windows 3.x, '95, '98 or NT).
Interfaces with other Microsoft products, avoiding the re-keying of data.
Has proven reliability.