Essential Principles of Communications Management in Education - Assignment Example

Business Analysis Ans The business transaction to progress a to the next stage of his or her programme is based upon the UoG’s academic regulations for taught awards, November 2009. There are two ways in which a student could make this progress. At the outset, an individual student would enrol in a University and be in the state of studentship. S/he would be obliged to take on some of the courses that are held to be compulsory by the institution; other courses would be allocated based upon the student pre-requesting the course and places being available in that class. The first stage would be acceptance; once the student is accepted, s/he would be enrolled in the course. The student would then be required to complete the coursework and assignments allocated to the course and complete them successfully. In the event the student is successful in clearing the required milestones that will be tested, s/he will be deemed to have passed the course and can then progress to the next stage, i.e, the enrolment will be completed for the first stage and the student can progress to a more advanced level of the course or on to the next University year for that particular subject. The other means by which a student can move to the next stage of the programme is the other side of the coin, i.e., if the student fails to clear the course requirements for one reason or the other. This could be either because the student fails in attaining the academic requirement, or alternatively the student may be suspended due to bad or unruly behaviour. In the first case, if the student fails to secure a pass mark of 40% and is only able to attain a score less than the 40%, s/he would be considered to have failed the required impediment mark. This would offer justification to refuse to allow the student to progress to the next stage, because the student would be obliged to repeat the course. There could also be other reasons for refusing to allow a student to progress, i.e, bad behaviour or conduct that is harmful and destructive, which would constitute grounds to suspend the student. Hence a student can either move forward onto the next stage pf the course s/he is enrolled in, or be refused the right to progress due to failure to clear the impediment percentage, or be suspended for bad conduct and thereby not progress. As per Section 5.17 of the UoG regulations however, there is some scope for relief for the student if s/he very nearly approaches the 40%, i.e, if the student scores 38 to 39% overall. In such a case, the student could be compensated for an initial failure and allowed to progress to the next stage anyway. Ans 2: MEMO The Pro Vice Chancellor University of England Sir: The present academic framework is based upon a traditional Stage Progression system, which produces high overheads when an academic session is shut down. This is causing such shut downs to be delayed long after a semester has ended; sometimes even up to six months. A large part of the cause for this lies in the way courses are grouped together, so that a student need to secure credits for courses as a composite unit and part of an entire module rather than for individual courses. In view of this, switching to a credit accumulation system would appear to be more beneficial, because it would enable students to secure the necessary credits for each course and this could total up to the pass grade of 40%, if the courses are assessed individually. Requiring a student to pass an entire unit as a whole makes the process of student progression more painstaking and longer. Decoupling the courses from the programmes or grouping them into modules may not however, necessarily address the needs of the students or the university itself, because it would be expensive to implement and require quite a lot of administrative manipulation. This memo recommends the adoption of the BANNER system for credit accumulation, which would require the drafting of a new studentship contract. This would also improve the successful negotiations with the academic staff unions and produce a summer session, where students could be given the opportunity to accumulate the necessary credits needed. The elimination of the current penalties would be an aid in this process , because the credits within a particular module which the student has not been able to clear could be listed as “not yet completed” and the student could be provided the opportunity to redo the course during the summer session. Hence, rather than re-engineering the entire system to separate individual courses form their modules, the system could be adjusted to allow students the opportunity they need for a second go, by listing the failed courses as not completed. Ans 4: When a credit accumulation system is implemented, the success of the student would depend upon securing a certain number of credits within a specified time period. i.e, the number of years required for completion of the course. The new system proposed would allow a student to recover from one failed attempt to clear the course successfully and falling below the impediment category by registering the result of the student as “not yet completed. Two different models may be proposed to address the necessary requirements, which are detailed below: (a) Model no: 1: The student initially requests a particular course and is registered with the University, falling into the category of studentship. The student attends classes and is officially registered as a student taking the course, while it is being run by the University during the semester in which the student is enrolled. When the tests come up, if the student is unable to score the minimum score of 40% as specified under the regulations for conferring undergraduate awards as mentioned earlier, then the student cannot continue on that course, and will be in a state of suspension from the course. The student will however be allowed another opportunity to take the course again. The proposed period to elapse before a student can request an impediment course is after three weeks from the start date of the course. If the student fails to request the course again within this period of time, then a request occurring afterwards will not be entertained, because it may be difficult for the student to keep up with the materials which have already been taught . In such a case, the student will be required to register afresh for the course during the summer session and catch up that way. In the event a student registers for the second time for a particular course within the three week period and still ends up failing the impediment course and being unable to secure a mark above 40%, then the student will be required to finish yet another course request by registering afresh for another session during another semester to do the same course. Model No: 2: According to this model as well, a student starts off the process by registering for a course. Depending upon the number of requests that a university receives for a particular course which has not yet been formally executed, it may arrive at a decision about whether or not to run that particular course. The condition of the student is then stated as registered on a particular course. A failure to clear the impediment percentage of 40% would result in the student being suspended. The student would then be allowed request no: 1 for the impediment course, fulfilling the course requirements in terms of time devoted to the course, even if the necessary credit is not allotted due to failure to secure the cut off percentage of 40%. This model differs from the earlier one in that the University could decide whether or not to run the course again depending upon the number of impediment students registering to take the course. If an adequate number of students have registered on an impediment basis to make it worthwhile for the university to run a special course specifically to cater to the needs of this weaker group of students, then the course materials would be revised and taught differently to enable these students to secure the impediment percentage in order to avoid suspension yet again. Ans 5: The business transaction for the requesting of classes may be carried out as below: The first stage would be for groups of students to voluntarily come forward to request the classes of their choice. Every individual student would then become part of a studentship – a body of students for whom the University would decide to run the specified course. This is an important decision, because in order to make it financially worthwhile to run a class, hire teachers, etc, there must be an adequate number of students requesting the course and ready to be registered on to take it. This produces a studentship of registered students who are prepared to take a particular course and become members of that class/course. This registered membership of the student group results in the University coming forward to undertake all the administrative steps and infrastructure required to run the course because the students would have paid the necessary fees. The probabilities of some students failing to clear the course, thereby generating a backlog of impediment courses must also be taken into account. If the number of impediment suspended students is greater than the capacity of the group, then this could call for a division of the large group into smaller groups that can receive more specialized attention in accordance with their academic needs. Based upon this model therefore, the validity of a group request for classes will depend upon the strength of the class and the strength of the likelihood that the students will clear the classes. Yet another model may be proposed when requesting a change in classes. The procedure in this instance would be similar to the model proposed earlier in that individual students would register for a specified course and be registered on it, thereby attaining membership in that particular course. The assumption is that students have registered for Class no: 1, which is being executed. As the class progresses, the impediment count is to be taken into account. If it is larger than the capacity of the group in that the academic requirements are not being met, then a change of course may be necessary. Some students may find themselves unable to cope with a particular course and need to switch to something different or something which is easier. In such a case, further approvals and re-registrations may be necessary, because the facility must exist for the impediment student to be enrolled into a different course of his/her choice. In the event that there are no spaces available on the course of choice, the student may need to wait until the next semester, Alternatively, in some instances, the University may deem it worthwhile to start a different course because most students are finding Course no: 1 difficult, in which case an administrative decision must be taken in the matter. Ans 6: State diagrams are indeed effective in modelling communications. Within a University system, there are several different players. Articulating or writing down all the intricacies of the network of communications between all of these bodies through memorandums and such would be like merely seeing the tip of the glacier. When diagrams are used however, it is possible to visually and graphically represent streams of communication between not just two parties but also to show the entire network of communications flowing between various different parties. This makes it easier to understand, especially when deep rooted infrastructure changes are sought to be made. The facility of viewing communications in this manner allows an overall picture to be gleaned which makes large scale planning easier to execute and implement. Read More