Supply of Prescribed and Recommended Books

1
Supply of Prescribed and Recommended Books

• Best Practices

2
Background

• The supply of prescribed and recommended
• Is an issue of access to HE for students in
  financial need
• This can dramatically affect the learning
  environment of students
• The role of Financial Aid units is critical to
  the process
• The effectiveness of other support mechanisms is
  key
• Environmental issues have an impact
• Capacity of universities libraries

3
Introduction

• Identification and measurement of outcomes for
  administrative and support areas have not
  received the same level of attention as the
  measurement of students learning outcomes
• Outcomes of these areas and their benefits are
  clear but how to measure outcomes achievement
  requires attention
• Roles, impact and effectiveness of units involved
  need attention
• Finding common outcomes that apply to all
  universities and across student administration
  and support units have to be decided upon
• Deciding on the effectiveness of current
  processes is critical
• Creating and implementing benchmarking platforms

4
Preferred outcome

• All students must have access to prescribed and
  recommended books on or before registration

5
Purpose

• Create awareness on the current practices
• Improve processes involved in the supply of
  prescribed and recommended books on the basis of
  comparison with the best practices
• Instill value of benchmarking for quality
  improvement in each university
• Ensure that there is a systematic approach for
  sharing information based on a common output and
  performance measure

6
Methodology

• Using the Six Sigma methodology, the exercise was
• organised by
• 1. Setting objectives and defining the scope of
  supplying prescribed and recommended books in HE
• 2. Gain support from own institution
• 3. Select a benchmarking approach
• 4. Identify benchmarking partners
• 5. Gather information
• 6. Determine processes
• 7. Select and agree on best practices
• 8. Pilot
• 9. Implement

7
Central University of Technology, Free State

• Students obtain quotations, R3 400 max
• Financial Aid issues vouchers
• Used EDULOAN until 2008
• CUT EDULOAN processes were manual
• Reconciling student lists and Wizard Cards issued
  was a nightmare
• Library capacity needs to be explored

8
University of the Free State

• Does not use EDULOAN
• Allocate a fixed amount per student
• Loaded on student cards (debit card)
• Allows motivation for increase where necessary
  (R3 400 allocated)
• Funds available to students on approval of NSFAS
  Loan
• Balance reclaimed to reduce the loan at the end
  of the academic year
• Library capacity need to be explored

9
University of Cape Town

• Does not use EDULOAN
• Allocate R2 000 per student
• Loads funds on student bank cards on registration
  
• Encourage students to explore other means of
  accessing books other than buying them
• Library capacity is huge

10
Vaal University of Technology

• Does not use EDULOAN
• Students buy books cash
• Financially needy students are allowed to use
  registration funds for books while NSFAS
  applications are being processed
• Special cases are few and assisted differently
• Some schools supply books on registration
• Library capacity needs to be explored

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Vaal University of Technology

• Does not use EDULOAN
• Students buy books cash
• Financially needy students are allowed to use
  registration funds for books while NSFAS
  applications are being processed
• Special cases are few and assisted differently
• Some schools supply books on registration
• Library capacity needs to be explored

12
University of Johannesburg

• Uses EDULOAN and satisfied
• UJ EDULOAN processes are electronic
• EDULOAN accesses student lists from ITS
• All students get Wizard Cards on signing of the
  loan agreement
• Loan applications approved immediately as long as
  students are accepted by faculties
• Response time for books is two days
• Library capacity needs to be explored

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Common Practices

• These include
• Use of EDULOAN
• Vouchers from Financial Aid
• Allocation for books on student card
• Allocation for books on student bank card
• Book cost build into the course costs
• Supply of compiled notes
• Assumption that students can afford to buy books

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Shortcomings of current practices

• There are cases where students do not have access
  to prescribed and recommended books
• These books are unavailable in book shops
• Students getting books late
• Students copying books
• Libraries not used optimally

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Conclusion

• Outcomes in administrative areas in general need
  attention
• Identifying common cross-institutional outcomes
  should form the bases for benchmarking
• All universities must be included in the survey
• This will offer universities the opportunity to
  measure their progress, benchmark themselves
  against peer institutions, and use the results to
  facilitate institutional change
• Quality audits focus on both student learning
  outcomes and the effectiveness of support unit

16

• Thank you