Awards

2001 Quality & Productivity Awards

Sponsored by Royal Bank, Ricoh Canada and NORDX/CDT

Royal Bank, Ricoh Canada, NORDX/CDT and Canadian Association of University Business Officers are pleased to announce the following winners of the fourteenth annual CAUBO Quality & Productivity Awards Program:

Seventeen universities or groups of universities submitted 34 entries to the 2001 edition of the CAUBO Quality and Productivity Awards Program. By region, there were 2 from the Atlantic, 8 from Quebec, 15 from Ontario and 9 from the West. This represents an increase of 30% over last year. While the number of submissions was impressive, so too were the quality and variety of projects submitted by Canadian universities. Of particular note is the fact that 1st prize is awarded to a unique undertaking by a consortium of 64 universities to bolster research capacity. Working together and sharing ideas have always been hallmarks of CAUBO and we are pleased to recognize a project that so clearly demonstrates the benefits of collaboration.

An important goal of the program is to encourage the transfer of knowledge and ideas. To this end, the winners will not only be showcased in University Manager and on the CAUBO web site, but will also appear, along with all other submissions, on the effective practices web site of the Council of Higher Education Management Associations, a consortium of all major associations such as CAUBO, NACUBO, APPA, CUPA, SCUP and many others. Look for the site at www.chemapractices.org.

Once again, our sponsors, Royal Bank, Ricoh Canada and NORDX/CDT have contributed much to the program, through their financial contribution and their involvement in the selection process. We are grateful for their continued support.

Canadian National Site Licensing Project (First Prize)

In January 2000, a consortium of 64 universities in Canada formed the Canadian National Site Licensing Project (CNSLP), and began a transformative three-year pilot project designed to bolster the research capacity of the country’s universities. This collaboration entails dramatically increasing the quantity, breadth and depth of published research available to academic researchers throughout the country, speeding the take-up of electronic publication formats, and leveraging Canadian universities’ buying power and influence in an international scholarly publishing marketplace that is dominated by powerful commercial organizations.

By applying an innovative cost-sharing model based on the research intensity of participating institutions, CNSLP amassed $30 million from institutional and provincial funding sources. The project won an additional award of $20 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, by demonstrating that access to leading-edge published research constitutes a critical component of Canada’s research infrastructure.

In its first year of operation, CNSLP has:

• established a national governance and management structure, with stakeholder representation from university libraries, administrators, researchers, and associations;
• developed and secured stakeholder agreement on principles for licensing electronic content;
• devised a groundbreaking model license agreement for use with publishers and geared to the Canadian legal context, that secures advantageous usage rights for universities and can be replicated in regional and institutional settings;
• pioneered a competitive Request for Proposal process for publishers of electronic content;
• shown international leadership in developing new economic and business models for securing research resources in digital formats;
• awarded $46 million in contracts to seven major scholarly publishers, securing a critical mass of multi-disciplinary content for all CNSLP participants.

CNSLP represents an unprecedented business and service achievement for Canada’s academic community. Through its national strategy and procurement process, CNSLP has achieved discounted rates of 30-85% off institutional prices for this electronic content, ensuring pan-Canadian access to resources that were previously beyond the means of all but the largest universities. As a result, approximately 650,000 academic researchers and students in 64 universities across Canada have equitable access to more than 700 specialized electronic journals and research databases in scientific and technical disciplines – resources that underpin world-class research and allow Canadian researchers to remain internationally competitive.

More information on CNSLP is available at: www.uottawa.ca/library/cnslp.

École de technologie supérieure (Second Prize)

"Design and implementation of an integrated information management and consultation system for co-op and job placements (GASP: Gestion automatisé des stages et du placement)"

As a result of its compulsory co-op program, the Co-op Office of the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) undertook, three years ago, to revolutionize its approach to improve the quality of its services to clients (employers and students), and to reduce its operational costs.

The mechanism used to improve its method of operation was to design a computerized management and on-line system for job placements. This system should provide support for the electronic transmission each year of 15,000 curriculum vitae to 1,200 firms, administer 2,700 interviews on campus et provide follow-up for over 1,500 co-op students in industry.

In order to design such a system, the Co-op Office established several committees composed of all interested parties: students, employers, secretaries, supervisors, managers of the École and the Informatics and Telecommunications Service.

Following is an outline of the GASP system modules:

Module 1: Computerized CV system: each session, students enter their CVs at one of the four computer terminals made available to them.

Module 2: Management system for the Co-op and Job Placement Office: enables secretaries and supervisors to manage student and employer files, post positions, send CVs, administer interviews and conduct follow up for placements.

Module 3: Consultation system: enables students to consult and apply for placements, and provide placement follow-up information (postings, interviews and hirings) on line through the Internet.

The GASP system was implemented in the fall session of 1999. Since then, almost 2, 000 placement offers have been filled and almost 400 engineers have found a job through the consultation system. Operational costs have been reduced by several thousand dollars (sending of CVs, overtime, hiring of additional staff). Thus far, the Office has enjoyed a greater satisfaction rating from employers in terms of the speed with which CVs are received and their pertinence. Students are enthusiastic about an “on-line” system that is personalized for them.

Université de Montréal (Third Prize)

"On-line purchasing"

During a review and rationalization of its administrative procedures, the Université de Montréal created and opened to its administrative units an on-line store to meet their daily needs for goods and services. The store is a marketplace where each administrative unit can order its office, computer, laboratory or other supplies directly from designated suppliers according to prices and terms of purchase negotiated in advance under relatively long-term partnership agreements.

The on-line shopping service lets users access the B2B secured web sites of approved suppliers from their computer, as well as perform product research, check the negotiated institutional prices, and select and order products directly as their needs require. Goods are delivered to their door according to pre-determined criteria, and the manager posts purchasing card transactions to his or her budget accounts at the bank's Web site.

The inclusion of each product line requires negotiating prices and firm conditions with suppliers, pre-screening the transaction sites, opening a massive number of accounts and providing personalized user training. In addition, for each purchasing site put into commission, user help networks are set up to provide front-line support to the academic community.

A major communication and information plan, as well as continual training efforts, buoyed the implementation of the "On-line Purchasing" project. The distribution of regular newsletters (section 6) and the creation of a Web site were decisive factors in the academic community's acceptance of the "On-Line Purchasing" project. A copy of the www.fin.umontreal.ca site is attached to Section 5.

At present, the initial objectives are 60% compete, broken down as follows: completed for office and computer supplies, hardware and plumbing items, and partly completed for laboratory supplies. Delays in finalizing the project were primarily due to the adaptation or creation by business partners of transaction sites that meet the security and operating requirements of such as large Institution as ours.

Dalhousie University (Atlantic Regional Award)

"The Dalhousie University Online First Year French Placement Exam "

In July of 1997, Dr. De Meo and Professor Konok of the French Department sought advice from Academic Computing Services on how to replace the first year classroom-based placement exam with a computer-based equivalent. After researching and analyzing the commercial and non-commercial software available, we proposed to build a web-based equivalent. The product was released in the spring of 1998 and has been used successfully to place the nine hundred first year students in one of the thirty sections according to their demonstrated competency.

The web-based solution, administered by a departmental secretary, replaced the classroom-based system that had been administered by ten course instructors, each teaching three sections of thirty students. The web-based solution is available six months before the start of classes; the classroom-based system had been run during the first three weeks of classes. The annual expense to run the web-based solution, in people time, is less the $1,000 compared with the estimated annual expense of the classroom-based method, in people time, at more than $10,000.

In summary, the web-based solution produced the following benefits:

• Students complete the Placement Exam in advance of the term and select the appropriate section based on the automatically scored results. This has recovered three weeks of teaching time.
• Instructors were relieved of a time consuming administrative task. This recovered time is applied to either research or other teaching activities.
• In people time, an estimated savings valued at $10,000 is realized each year. Although this doesn’t translate into an apparent budget line item, it is time Faculty can assign to other activities.
• All students receive the same exam. This is particularly important in the oral section. It eliminated the discrepancies that are unintentionally introduced due to the subtle differences in diction from one instructor to the next.
• A professional speaker was engaged to record the audio clips in the oral section. The clarity of the diction is more professionally presented than possible in the classroom with ten different individuals.
• The departmental administrator centrally administers the scoring. This provides a single point of contact for students when questions arise. There has been no apparent increase in the duties of the administrator. In fact, the ready access available to student scores has reduced the time previously required to track down a disputed grade.
• The web-based solution was developed to allow the department administrator to be the custodian. This means that each year the grade value assigned to each level of competency can be adjusted without any special programming requirements.
• Minor changes to the programming have cost less than $400 through the three years of operation.

This initiative has been a quietly successful project. It has worked so well that no one would consider returning to the original model.

McGill University (Québec Regional Award)

"Web Communications Goup's Web Publishing System"

With the University's flagship web site, the McGill Gateway, at the centre, we've created a database-driven web publication system that streamlines the process of producing and maintaining web pages for the university community. This is web publishing made simple because the software we've produced can generate complex pages with sophisticated programming, and yet it allows content owners from across the university to edit text on their own web pages.

The WCG system brings a high degree of harmonization to the decentralised McGill web landscape, resulting in a visually and technically unified web system. By using a single set of templates for all web pages, we generate web sites that share common navigational tools, corporate data sources, and cascading style sheets (CSS) and standardized code. This is a boon to users and reduces download time because navigational images are quickly stored in cache.

The WCG system starts with a database, which stores all key elements of each web page including programming, scripts and graphics, calculates the relationship of each page in the system to each other, and generates the HTML and javascript code, as well as hyperlinks. It produces two sets of pages: one for a pre-production server, the other for the production server.

The pre-production server provides registered users with an opportunity to preview their pages, and through some clever programming (CGI, Perl, javascript, and dynamic HTML) allows them to edit their pages with nothing more than a web browser. Once a user has edited a page, she clicks on an update button. This alters the file and sends the WCG copy editor a notice that the page has been changed. The database software is rerun, which produces a final version that is uploaded to the production server.

The system is easy to use, yet very sophisticated, so novices and HTML experts can use it alike. Training of office staff usually takes 15 to 20 minutes. The only software required is a copy of a web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and can run on any computing platform (Mac, Windows, Unix, or Linux).

Carleton University (Ontario Regional Award)

"Development and Alumni Affairs Website with interactive online community features"

On October 1, 1999, the Department of Development and Alumni Services at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, launched its new alumni Web site program. The Web program was designed to utilize the opportunities inherent in Web technology to significantly enhance existing alumni relations as well as meet several new objectives:

1. Use the Internet to reach alumni via our online marketing and outreach activities. Currently, 50% of Carleton University alumni reside outside of Ottawa. Therefore, one of our key program objectives is to extend our reach locally, across the country and, in particular, to those alumni residing outside Canada’s geographical borders.
2. Build a community of interest with the alumni Web site by increasing alumni support and involvement through ongoing digital relationships with past and future alumni.
3. Establish the alumni site brand using the Carleton Café theme by positioning the Web program so that alumni feel it is “their” site or “virtual hangout”. Incorporating a unique theme and corresponding marketing strategy reinforces strong ties to the site, the university and to the content and direction of their online community.
4. Utilize the Web site as a tool to update graduate contact information and enrich our volunteer database programs. The department considers these programs extremely important to the sustained growth of our overall alumni program.
5. Establish a solid foundation upon which future relations with alumni could be deepened and enriched. To accomplish this we created a site that is “sticky” – an environment that encourages return visits by using interactive and collaborative applications that offer tangible, value-added benefits to alumni and that actively involve the user.
6. Establish online momentum, registration in the café and overall site traffic. The numerical goals for the first month were established as follows: 100 café registrants, 1,000 site visitor sessions, and 100,000 hits. Further, the site traffic from non-Canadian sources was to match or exceed the 10% of the alumni population who reside outside the country.

The Web site was designed to provide two distinct areas to meet the diverse needs of the alumni population. The “public” section of the site provides news, listings, fundraising information, co-op and career services of interest to “passive” alumni. It also features winners of past alumni awards and current events.

However, to create a truly valuable site for our “active” alumni – and to encourage passive alumni to become more active – the development of a password-protected site was paramount. Using a café metaphor, the final digitally branded concept reveals a virtual destination called The Carleton Café. The various elements and applications on the site create an interactive virtual meeting place, in much the same way that “physical” meeting places exist for students on campus. The Café offers discussion forums, a lost and found search capability, online pledge forms, an online job board/e-business card directory, a message board, spotlight specials, and an online volunteer program that includes mentoring, recruiting and more. The Department of Development and Alumni Services has succeeded in launching a highly successful and newly branded online community Web site to its 84,000-plus alumni.

University of Alberta (Western Regional Award)

"University of Alberta / Quality Color Inc. Partnership"

Based on widespread concerns about the efficiency and long-term financial viability of its Printing Services Department, a Coopers & Lybrand management review, and the recommendations of a campus task force, the University of Alberta undertook a partnership with Quality Color Inc., an Edmonton-based, employee-owned supplier of printing and allied services. Two new corporate divisions, exclusively dedicated to servicing the needs of the University, were created: Quality Color on Campus and Quality Source.

By this means, the University avoided millions of dollars in capital expenditures both for printing equipment upgrades and a high speed, digital duplicating network; created a successful Course Pack publishing program managed by the University’s Student Union; reassigned or outplaced Printing Services and Central Stores staff; and, reallocated tens of thousands of square feet of badly needed space.

Quality Color gained competitive bidding rights to all University printing work and authority to establish a campus presence with four leasehold, dedicated service points, consisting of three high speed, digital duplicating centres and an office staffed by four sales representatives. In exchange, Quality Color provides cash rebates of 3 percent of the total dollar cost of all University printing jobs to the campus units which generated them, as well as remitting a share of its overall, corporate profits to the University’s general revenues. Furthermore, Quality Color has provided donations, both in kind (i.e. pro bono printing jobs) and in cash, totaling more than $535,000 in support of various University projects.

The partnership’s overall success in delivering quality products at competitive prices, greatly enhanced customer satisfaction, and additional cash benefits and other services to the University led, after a rigorous review, to a renegotiation and expansion of the contract to include procurement, storage, and just-in-time delivery of photocopy paper and other stationery products, as well as some scientific instruments. This enabled the University to reduce its Central Stores operations and reallocate space and other resources to more specifically academic needs. Further savings were realized through the efficiency of electronic, single-source ordering, invoicing, and EFT payments. The terms of the contract and customer satisfaction are monitored by a joint-committee of the University and Quality Color which meets quarterly to review and nurture the partnership.