Business Process Modeling in Higher Education Institutions

Embrace business process modeling!

All higher education establishments, from small colleges to large campus institutions, are involved in some complex processes to deliver effective teaching and learning. It is usually plain to see that there is room for improvement for the methods used. The issue now becomes, how do they tackle the problems and what do they tackle first? The implementation of new systems then becomes imperative since it’s usually a drive for considering how to carry out the business process.

Business process modeling is the graphical representation of a company, in this case, higher education institutions, as a means to identify potential improvements. They can achieve this through different graphics methods such as data flow diagrams or the use of flowcharts among other types. 25% of organizations worldwide are conducting training in business management systems, so quite a number of institutions are getting onboard.

So, how then can business process modeling (BPM) techniques be transferred to the educational process?

Literature Review

A literature review can be done on performance measurements and implementation of systems in the public sector. It highlights the factors driving performance in civic organizations. A perfect example of performance measurement systems is the higher education sector. Under normal circumstances, we don’t use terms such as ‘business’ and ‘customers’ in education. But it is inevitable that the purpose of the institutions is to cater for a client group, this being the students.

A study conducted has proven that institutions of higher education have invested heavily in business process change and have gone an extra mile to redesign projects. These projects get their drive from information technology implementation, budget shortages and external requirements for improved efficiency and effectiveness.To promote a higher education institution’s operating performance, performance measurement indicators are necessary. Different tools can be used to measure performance in the education sector. Universities have been recommended to use indicators to measure their operating performance. There have been suggestions for a new model to evaluate the performance of the academic staff. The model can evaluate staff member’s performance in the areas of Research and Development as well as Academic Activities.

Methodology of Research

Analyze and compare different variants

The Methodology of Research has main steps of implanting the simulation modeling approach for reengineering collaboration in higher education:

• Initiation - Create the ‘As Is’ process model which includes including parameters for simulation.
• Analysis - Run simulations based on the ‘As Is’ process model and analyze simulations results. Afterward, compare the simulation results with real data. If the results indicate no statistical errors, then this is an indication that the process model is sufficient. That would mean that the results of the simulation results tie in with real key performance indicators (KPI’s) values.
• Re-engineering - Propose improvements to the process. Include measurement values for the simulation to the ‘To Be’ process variants.
• Implementation - Run simulations based on the ‘To Be’ process models. Study and compare different versions of the ‘To Be’ models according to the results from the simulations.
• Evaluation - Make sure to evaluate benefits and efforts. The decisions should be online with evaluation results.

The Importance of Process Modeling in Education Institutions

It can maximize benefits!

Can process identification and modeling ever affect the operation of an educational institution? Well, it is all dependent on the type of process modeling that a school will carry out. It can have a positive impact on increasing the overview of the individual processes since we assume that it is not possible to improve on issues which we don’t recognize. Additionally, it is arguable that process identification may contribute to the effort to maximize the benefits to the external customers who are the students. Business process modeling has importance in many areas and sectors of specific economic activity. Process modeling is applicable in diverse domains such as the healthcare, manufacturing and the service industry for the development of a range of business and IT systems with 24-40% of their processes being automated.

Results

When it comes to a higher education institution, profitability is quite complicated, especially when considered alongside matters such as growth and sustainability. A good model should take into consideration the transversal and specific skills that graduates could gain during the study. They should learn the process analysis essay topics as well. There should be a systematic model based on defined procedures and methods for quality improvement in these institutions.

Conclusion

As we all know, education is significantly different from other types of businesses. For one, it exists in a controlled environment of participative process, external controls, shared governance and power. Due to these factors, the usefulness of many models development is limited in the commercial sector. The adoption of business process management on the improvement of strategies has become the primary concern of higher education institutions in recent times. They have to perform functions and develop procedures to fulfill the expectations of the clients, in this case, the students. To achieve this, they should start to manage their business processes in a manner similar to enterprises!