Dr Murli Viswanathan Page 1 Case study:'AusEd Inc' (ISYS201/ISY615) 1 Organisation AusEd is committed to learning, seeing its role as enabling students to 'be what they want to be'. By providing IT programs through online learning AusEd gives students the flexibility to study a university degree without needing to visit a campus. AusEd wants to engage with communities, industries and businesses to work in partnership to provide multiple learning experiences and opportunities to enrich the learning journey of our students. These learning opportunities assist in the development of IT discipline-specific skills and generic transferable skills relevant to life-long learning. AusEd’s mission is to provide a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they can effect positive social change. AusEd prides itself on being an inclusive provider, offering higher education to many who would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it. 1.1 Legal status AusEd is legally registered in Australia as a corporate, non-profit, educational institution which means that all financial and human resources are geared towards the development of distance education. 1.2 Activities • Online education Distance education programs at AusEd can be studied from anywhere in the World but typically in Australia, PNG and South Pacific islands. Online education students pursue their study programs through a number of means including the use of special study centres, online discussion forums, electronic library resources, by contacting lecturers, and receiving all study materials online or by post. • Programs in Information Technology AusEd’s online Masters Degree program in Information Technology will provide students with a generic foundation to begin pursuit of a fast-paced, challenging and dynamic career in the information technology industry. Within this program students will study a total of 20 courses giving them a broad understanding and knowledge of a range of areas in information technology. The core courses in this program provide students with a solid grounding in the core body of IT knowledge and skills as defined by the Australian Computer Society (ACS). Students will study one major in Networking, Application Development or IT Management.Dr Murli Viswanathan Page 2 1.3 Location • Executive and Operational management AusEd’s administrative head office is located in Darwin. • Sales and Marketing Sales and marketing is conducted from offices in Pt Moresby and Suva. • Teaching staff Work from home offices in most states of Australia and New Zealand. • Special Study Centres AusEd provides special study centres, located in Suva, PNG, Melbourne and Sydney, which are designed to be vibrant hubs providing online students a place to call home. These Centres give students a place to access support, form study groups and access resources and technology. These special study centres offer access to a range of facilities including: • Student computers and work stations • Support staff on hand to assist with your enquiries • Photocopying, scanning and printing facilities • Multimedia meeting areas with state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities • Tutorial meeting rooms available for you to form study groups • Wireless networking to enable you to connect your device or laptop to the Internet and University systems • Student social areas to engage with other students and staff • Presentation areas available for information sessions and meetings. 2 Information systems AusEd is now organized in three major divisions: Sales, Course Delivery, and Operations. Corporate and divisional headquarters are all located in Darwin. Each division has business operations in several Australian locations. The sales division manages the sales and marketing operations of AusEd. The division is also responsible for management of agents and course promotion. The course delivery division is responsible for the development of course material, running the special study centres and others. The Operations division manages all the core operations including accounting, email and other essential services. 2.1 Maintained in-house The network diagram below provides a representation of the computer equipment running in the Operations division located in Darwin. The server provides a backbone for two of AusEd’s primaryDr Murli Viswanathan Page 3 operational systems. These include the accounting system and the CRM. Figure 1-http://www.conceptdraw.com/samples/resource/images/solutions/network-diagram/Network-Diagram.png • Accounting system (MYOB) AusEd licenses MYOB for their accounting purposes. MYOB is locally installed on personal computers and user laptops. • Customer Relationship Management System (SugarCRM) SugarCRM’s mission is to empower organizations to gain and retain customers by providing greater efficiency and control over the sales pipeline. As an open-platform web-based CRM solution, Sugar is easy to customize to meet an organization’s changing needs. It is also affordable, easy-to-use and offers a competitive advantage by providing organizations with a 360-degree view of their customers. Businesses in all vertical markets ranging in size from the SMB through the enterprise leverage the power of Sugar every day1. AusEd uses SugarCRM to manage its customer base by automating and improving customer touch points such as recruiting, marketing, student service, alumni relations, and donor outreach. SugarCRM Enterprise edition allows AusEd’s staff in the university’s student recruitment and relations department to provide personalized improved service. 1 http://www.sugarcrm.com/company-overviewDr Murli Viswanathan Page 4 • Email 2.2 Externally Managed Systems Information systems for the Course Delivery division are managed externally by Pacific Systems Pty Ltd located in Dunedin. • Learning management system (Moodle)Dr Murli Viswanathan Page 5 • Student management system (Banner) Figure 2-http://www.pcheart.net/images/sms.jpg 3 Strategic plan 3.1 Increase income by diversifying sources of funding (ie. beyond existing sources such as Australia's AusAid and New Zealand's NZAid) • AusEd wants to extend educational services to areas with poor and/or unreliable Internet connections. • AusEd needs to improve reliability of student assessments. 3.2 Minimise cost of non-core activities, particularly support operations (eg. accounting, staff recruitment) and technology development • Utilise and participate in the development of open source software.