University

Background

Students starting a new course require a lot of information quickly and it must be pertinent to the course(s). Information, papers, studies, and data are being added all the time

A lot of this information comes from the course tutors who supply materials and recommend articles, books, information, and papers as well as publishing their own materials and adding items. This information is often stored in the University or Department’s document repository system and Students are given access to browse the resources within.

These online repositories have seen rapid growth in use, and this often leads to many different facilities offering similar services being established. While there can be sound reasons for this there is potential for access to such facilities being limited or unknown to their intended audience.

The problem

If an article, textbook, or publication is changed how would a student know? Not all systems can flag new documents to the Student/User. Also, if you are studying several courses, do they have the time to look at each repository and check if they are using the most recent document?

How we fixed this

Skyline can interact with Document Repositories directly, execute queries and retrieve data (SharePoint, InfoRouter and others) and scan all the documents held to determine the uploaded and modified date information. Using rules-based workflows, and/or requests direct from the Tutor(s) / Students, Skyline can collate the ‘new’ documents and dispatch the relevant articles, document, and reference link to the new data to any/all students on that course in the format and manner the student has requested.

Student A has requested an email listing the items that have been changed/updated, be sent to them in a single email

Student B has requested that documents are printed and sent by courier to their halls of residence unless it’s under 5 pages in which case it is emailed to them.

Students are made aware of items that may be of interest to them and have these items delivered to them in a format they require. Paper items can be ordered, hyperlinks to new datasets, reading lists can be emailed with a custom-built order form for the local bookshop or email requests sent automatically to the University Library or local Bookshop.

Results

• Student can concentrate on studies confident that up-to-date information is being delivered

• Course leader knows information is being disseminated

• Reduction in silo concerns

• Non-data items are controlled and ordered/printed by approved University suppliers