Successes - Hertford Regional College
Growing college enrolls Fortis document management software to track student progress

Hertford Regional College (HRC) is an associate college of the University of Hertfordshire and has strong links with employers in the area. It is one of the largest further education colleges in Hertfordshire, UK. Based over two sites in Broxbourne and Ware, the college was formed from the merger of Ware College and Turnford in the early 1990s. Since then the college has grown in size, currently employing 900 staff, with approximately 12,000 full or part-time students. It offers the widest range of courses available to students and services for business. Hertford’s results make it the best performing college in Hertfordshire.

HRC is a major provider of non-accredited courses and uses a program called “Recognition and Recording of Progress and Achievement,” or RARPA. The program has two main objectives: an explicit and common staged process for the recognition and recording of student progress and achievement, and the validation of the quality assurance arrangements necessary to form judgments about the learning, for self-assessment purposes and quality improvement.

Administrative Challenges
The RARPA process has generally proven to be highly successful; however, it does increase the amount of physical paperwork needed to manage the process. HRC setup a pilot program to improve the overall management of the process with the following objectives:

The pilot has been successful and is being rolled out to other departments. HRC’s success with RARPA has led to an ever increasing flow of paper-based documentation to support students and staff. To keep up with the abundance of documentation – both paper and electronic, HRC implemented Westbrook Fortis document management software. LB Solutions, a reseller of business process improvement, document management and workflow solutions, assisted the college with implementing Fortis.

Some of the key deliverables from the project are:

“With Fortis, we have a complete and clear picture of the whole process,” said Peter Dutton, Director of Information and Technical Services at HRC. “It allows us to stop searching for documents and gives us the tools to proactively manage and audit the complete process.”

“Having an electronic RARPA system has simplified what was an inefficient, onerous paper chase,” said Lesley Graham, Curriculum Development Manager. “All documents are now easy to track and I can get an update on what paperwork is outstanding for each course any time I want. Relevant staff are sent reminder emails at pertinent points throughout the course, thus ensuring all RARPA paperwork is collected in an efficient and timely manner.”

Since information can be kept over a long period in the Fortis database, reporting and statistical data is readily available. The college has relevant and important information at hand when setting up its yearly portfolio of courses.

Future Direction
HRC plans to introduce electronic forms, collection and archiving of student evidence and extraction of data directly from scanned forms to update electronic process review forms. One area already underway is the extraction of student questionnaire and survey data from forms scanned into Fortis. The college is using this information for advising staff of follow-up actions and for developing statistical reports. An example is the automated capture and reporting of student progression data.

Fortis is also being implemented in the college’s finance department. A purchase order and invoice approval process is being implemented. This will provide a powerful, common document management system throughout the college.

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