VU recognised in major digital innovation awards

Teams behind the Block Model Enrolment Enhancements (BMEE) project in VU’s IT Services (ITS) and its Students Administration portfolio have been recognised with two major awards.

The teams were honoured with an ABA100 for technology innovation supporting digital transformation in the Australian Business Awards 2020, a national benchmarking awards program recognising projects that deliver customer satisfaction, business sustainability, and product and technology innovation – with an opportunity for benchmarking against top global performers in the World Business Awards.

The project was also a finalist at the Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT) Awards 2020, in the Innovation in Teaching and Learning category. CAUDIT is the peak body representing universities in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

The BMEE project was developed to assist students to enrol, progress through their courses, and find study support through an updated and intuitive MyVU Portal for VU’s recently introduced Block Model of study.

Student Administration Director James Armit said the project delivered a streamlined and intuitive user experience for students to manage their enrolments in a way that supports their learning and academic progress.

“The key to its successful delivery was highly effective communication and collaboration between teams across portfolios and their capacity to meet the challenge of complex problems with open-mindedness and creativity.”

Keeping VU at forefront of excellent student experience

Senior ITS program manager Jeremy Cotton said no other VU project in 2019 had the scope to deliver so much benefit to so many people, and to keep VU at the forefront of delivering great student experiences:

“The project has touched every new and continuing student VU has in 2020, improved the student experience, simplified administrative processes, reduced calls for support, and decreased risk by ensuring students comply with course rules."

By increasing staff productivity, the project will enable staff to dedicate more time to teaching while class numbers are maximised through effective allocation.

Executive Director of IT Services, Zoran Sugarevski said the initiative supports VU’s strategic goals to increase student satisfaction and extend the rollout of the revolutionary VU Block Model to all years of study across all areas.

“Not only has the project resulted in outstanding outcomes, but it also provides an innovative model for future projects to build on as we continually improve our technical support of VU’s course delivery in block mode.”