Those three years and 30 significant ‘go-lives’ have finally ended, with the team taking a collective deep breath and deserving huge congratulations from the Macquarie community. Let’s look back at some of the highlights and achievements of this immense program.

After a busy 2018 procuring a new curriculum management system (CMS) and investing in the existing student management system (SMS), in 2019, the Beacon Board recognised that the streams of activities required to launch the new curriculum were interdisciplinary and created 6 sub-projects:

• Curriculum Management System (CMS) and Coursefinder
• Student Management system (SMS)
• Student Curriculum Implementation (SCIP) – Technical
• Student Curriculum Implementation (SCIP) – Student migration
• Student engagement and communication
• Organisation readiness and change management

By this stage, there were about 30 people on the Beacon team. Their aim to transform business enabled by technology was a new approach that brought together business and technology areas of the University.

This team of busy people completed over 30 project milestones, such as MQ2020 curriculum transformation and management, Coursefinder, Double degree advisor; personalised Mystudyplan; technical and student migration, implementation of the WAM (weighted average mark), TCSI (new event-based government reporting implementation), AMIS single sign-on (SSO) for staff and students, deployed the Applicant Portal/Enhanced Admissions, incorporated HDR management into one system, and integrated MI studylink with AMIS to assist with applicant management. The team even managed to build a small automation bot for HDR Scholarships for the Graduate Research Academy.

The AMIS single sign-on (SSO) was celebrated by our students as it removed the need to use a separate password to access eStudent – a pain point that had been reported by our students for years but never successfully solved. By deploying the MQ OneID, students also no longer need to contact the Helpdesk to constantly change their expired passwords.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the Beacon team also provided support for issues such as moving teaching and learning online and the early enrolment push; in addition to the projects they were slated to deliver. They delivered all the student and staff engagement and change management. They also improved 62 process pain points noted by staff while coming in under budget and delivering more than they were established to deliver!

“I congratulate the Program Beacon team on its work,” says Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton, “What has been achieved to date is of foundational importance for the ongoing work in modernising our approach towards an outstanding student experience in every way.”

It’s no surprise that the Program Beacon team have received the recognition they deserve. Dr Brad Windon and Roz Howard were nominated by ATEM (Association for Tertiary Management Awards) for Excellence in Practice awards; was highly commended in Innovation; and the Team also won the Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) Award for Excellence in Student Engagement.

Team members Nerida Lithgow, Kylie Ebert, Lilia Draganov and David Indge were particular called out by the UAC for establishing the Macquarie Rovers – an initiative that engaged students to support students through authentic messaging and visibility around curriculum changes. The Macquarie Rovers was seen as an excellent and sustainable engagement model that enhanced the student experience through peer support approaches.

Pictured: Two of our Macquarie Rovers team in action on campus in 2020, speaking with students about the curriculum changes.

“I am so very proud of the Beacon Team for delivering all our significant milestones,” says Roz Howard, Program Director for Program Beacon.

“It has been such a privilege to lead and have worked with such passionate, can-do and resilient colleagues. Thank you to past and present project teams, business colleagues across the University and Executives for your unwavering support.”