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Monthly Archives: February 2020

We Clarified what QQI expect in the QBS Process.

Posted on 26/02/2020 - 1:02 pm by

“Reporting is stressful”
(Any Training Company Administrator)

It’s QBS time and every company that provides QQI training is stressed at the moment. They are knee deep uploading student certification data for further validation and the issuing of certificates by the state agency.
As you already know Veri is a quality assurance software that helps training providers with programme benchmarking, course delivery tracking and QA compliance. On top of  that we can reduce your stress level and digitise your QBS upload too.
At the beginning of February we had a meeting at QQI office in Dublin. We discussed the Veri Quality Assurance Dashboard and Report Automation. The aim was making sure that we have a clear understanding of the process from both sides. We want to define what providers should do on the system and what QQI wants to see on their side of the QBS dashboard.
Our Customer Success Manager, Eugena was welcomed and spent some time with the QBS support team asking many questions and discussing all issues that occur with Veri customers when it comes to the data upload process:

  • What is the required data format for automated upload?
  • What to do if some data is missing (can I upload partial data)?
  • Can I check my file before uploading to QBS?
  • What is data duplication?
  • How can I collect personal data from my students on the course?
  • How to build your learner group data file
  • Where can I find Certification Guidance?

Eugena reported a clear message from the meeting:

 nobody likes paperwork and manual upload. 

State Agency administrators are showing full support and welcoming the approach for those providers who upload their certification data automatically. As a team, thanks to Eugena’s feedback, we have improved our knowledge and expertise in the area of QBS upload. We are enthusiastic to be able to support our existing clients and to educate new clients on how to simplify this process. 

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Did you copy and paste today?

Posted on 20/02/2020 - 8:00 pm by

The world of computer science is not exactly glamorous. There are not many household names in the field. The work is mostly taken for granted and the average computer user never questions how the processes came to fruition. If you have turned on a computer the chances are you have used the copy and paste function. The man responsible for that concept is Larry Tesler and he passed away on Monday.
Mr Tesler’s specialty was in user interface design. He wanted to make computer systems easy to use and accessible to everyone. Back in 1973 he became staff at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre.  It was here many of the ideas that molded today’s personal computer were conceptualised.
At the time modes were a common feature in software. Modes allowed users to switch between functions on apps and software but made tasks complicated and time consuming. His loathing of modes is legendary, so much so the licence place on his car reads ‘NOMODES’.
There he came up with Gypsy. Gypsy was one of the first document editors that used the key board and mouse. Gypsy was….. You guessed it, modeless. This meant the interface was always editable as opposed to having to use commands to edit the text.
This innovation caught the eye of Apple where he went on to work for 17 years.  After leaving Apple he set up an education start-up, and worked for brief periods at Amazon and Yahoo.  Bill Gate, Steve Jobs and Larry Page are all well known names and Larry Tesler never seemed to reach those heights.
What we admire about him is that he wanted to make computers accessible and easy to use. We strive to make our app Veri user friendly. Our whole ethos is about making it efficient to complete daily tasks. Many compulsory tasks specific to individual industries are time consuming and rooted in duplication and paper piles. We hope to see this come to an end. We might have to change our licence plate to ‘digitise’!
Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum said Mr Tesler “combined computer science training with a counterculture vision that computers should be for everyone”. Xerox tweeted ‘your workday is easier thanks to his revolutionary ideas.’ Mr Tesler has left a legacy that all future computer science innovations will be built upon. Ask yourself the question, how many times did you ‘copy and paste’ this week?

IITD Best Consultancy Partnership 2019; A Case Study

Posted on 06/02/2020 - 12:01 am by

The IITD National Training Awards is recognised as the premier Learning & Development event for industry. This case study shows how Impact Training and Veri went on to win Best Consultancy Partnership 2019
Challenge:
Impact Training had high administration processes some of which were required for compliance with regulatory, ETB and examining boards. The aim was to ensure that quality is not compromised by tutors or support staff needing to spend time on manual administration. Listed below are a few examples of administration that doesn’t add value to training delivery.

  • Participant enrollment details
  • Profiles and benchmark data
  • Course content/ specification
  • Participant/Tutor/Administrative/communication
  • Monitoring communication
  • Completion of Lesson Plans/Milestones required
  • On the job practical evaluations
  • All assessment type results gathering
  • Participant/Tutor/Administrative/communication

All this information was stored ineffectively and inefficiently in paper forms, word documents, excel spreadsheets, and emails.  The volume of paper meant boxes of paperwork but no management overview as without live data there was no way to re-mediate to ensure maximum success for the learners.  The boxes of paper were a valuable resource that could be turned into intelligence. Statistics on learner outcomes (attendance, milestones etc.), tutor successes, course figures, were often impossible to pull together due to the time and administration involved.
Solution:
Veri offers a bespoke digital solution developed for the Irish market specifically for the Contracted Training Sector.
Objectives:
For the learners:

  • Ensure attendance and payments are tracked and traced digitally to improve accuracy.
  • Digital student feedback to create an open and transparent digital environment, which automates results and follow up to each milestone reached.
  • Create for the student a line of communication with their tutor, all messages date and time stamped for traceability. Teachers can in turn liaise and manage their students regardless of their location opening up the opportunities for collaborative learning.
  • Allow for competency based learning to be recorded digitally by uploading evidence e.g. photographs, directly to the administration dashboard

For Impact

  • Create a more efficient administrative system, a time saving of 30%, (time and motion study)
  • Transform data to monitor tutor’s performance to allow for remediation where improvements are needed
  • Use this data as Intelligence to improve programmes
  • Use this data to report to funders or management in real time using data analytics to show benefits and evidence-based outcomes.
  • Improve communications, engage participants to increase progression, outcomes and improved retention.
  • To ensure that all participant and tutor records are GDPR compliant

Plan:
Impact required innovation to make their large team of 30 plus tutors that were on live off-site contracts simpler and more streamlined in terms of compliance and training management. The conversion of raft of documents to an app was a huge relief to staff as well as a resource and money saver for the administrator. The biggest benefit in terms of use is for the Quality Manager who had weekly reporting on all of these systems previously via paper. Now who just has to click a button.
A detailed project plan was developed which included: scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communication, risk and stakeholders.  The plan was iterative and the primary objective throughout the plan was to maintain the quality of delivery and minimise the risk to learners.  As a result of the planning phase we decided on a phased implementation – we selected one course which was live on the system for four weeks before Veri was rolled out  across the network.  Both companies committed to an agile philosophy in relation to project implementation – in a nutshell ‘if the plan wasn’t working we changed it’.
Execution:
During the execution phase we committed to 1st level support and were immediately available with support for any queries Impact had.  
We used ICT for conference calls, remote meetings but we also ensured where it would add value we would put ‘boots on the ground’.  This meant Veri staff working in the Impact Offices and each tutor being trained in person by one of the Impact Senior Management team –adoption rates by Impact tutors was 100%.
Result:
The decision to move to the Veri digital platform was not a requirement for the market sector Impact is currently operating in. The decision to progress in this direction stemmed from the ethos that ‘Change before you have to – Jack Welch’.  Veri allows Impact to turn large amounts of raw data into meaningful information and reports.
Change is never easy and like any project problems were encountered but the critical success factor was that project was underpinned by a partnership approach. Also Veri’s knowledge and experience of the ETB training sector meant we often understood what was required before Impact even asked.