Innovative online registration and application processing using eWork

School of Accounting and Finance

University of Natal, Durban - distance learning programme

eWork to automate the business processes and cater for the expanding business requirements and aid the correspondence between the staff and the student.

Design the business flow to move the boundaries of the existing brick and mortar application system to a click and mortar environment. Replace a filing system used to store the students forms and the need to constantly search for a document when a student calls / queries an issue. Eliminate the need to send all the documentation via the post (therefore reducing timing delays and issues of the postal service).

Automated emailing facility to aid correspondence between the staff members and the students. Automated emailing of required documentation. Faster processing time per application therefore enabling the entire registration process to be handled effectively and efficiently.

The School of Accounting and Finance is a distance learning programme, enabling students complete their Bachelor of Commerce Honours (Accounting) in either a one year or a two year programme. The students are awarded the assigned course based on past results and studying history.

eWork has proved to be the most rapid and easy-to-use solution. The requirements were defined and then refined in a testing phase. Further enhancements were added when the system went "live" and it was shown that the students were not capable for accurately defining their academic history and other important details. eWork offered a fast and rapid development tool to adjust the process where necessary and accommodate any short comings.

The merging and emailing facility has proved to be an issue to be carefully spec`ed and carefully defined. Problems encountered include:

Emailing large scanned documents (required by the University on a specific format) caused an area of concern where the student`s email box sizes were limited and file sizes rejected.

Incorrect email addresses proved to be hazardous because the correspondence could not be sent.

Another aspect to consider is the use of either SMTP vs. IMAP. SMTP is preferred because the return email address facility can be utilised and therefore reduce the incorrect response emails being sent to the eWork server rather than the professor.

Students tend not to follow the well defined instructions.