WA TAFE Academic Quality System

Assisting thousands of Lecturers across WA TAFE meet their Registered Training Organisation (RTO) compliance obligations.

 

PROJECT SUMMARY:

With approximately 4000 Lecturers spread across 2.5 million square kilometres of the state of Western Australia, the WA TAFE sector was struggling to meet its key Registered Training Organisation (RTO) compliance obligations. Things were brought to a head following adverse ASQA audit findings on the sector’s compliance practices in combination with union action related to the burdensome workload imposition on College teaching staff.

Historically the WA TAFE sector managed their Training Assessment Strategies, Training Assessment Plans and Teacher/Assessor Competency for the hundreds of course offerings using word documents that required extremely high levels of data entry, manual processes and duplication of effort. These artefacts had no inherent traceability and were managed through different processes across each of the five WA TAFE Colleges taking hundreds of hours of lecturer effort to complete each year and producing outputs that were inconsistent and difficult to assess for quality or completeness.

In late 2019, these events triggered the WA Department of Training and Workforce Development (DTWD) to initiate an Academic Quality System (AQS) project that would respond to the demands of the five WA TAFE Colleges and deliver a better way for their 4000 lecturers to manage their key Registered Training Organisation (RTO) compliance obligations.

WP Global were well known to DTWD as experts in both the Education sector and as a Microsoft Gold Partner having developed and managed a suite of Power Platform / Dynamics 365 based solutions across the sector over the past decade and were engaged to deliver the AQS. In response we assembled a multi-disciplined team that had the domain knowledge and technical expertise to unpack and understand the problem and then deliver an elegant enterprise scale solution.

 

TECHNOLOGIES:

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THE GOAL:

The Academic Quality System (AQS) solution features a data driven approach to address the following needs:

• Ability to produce Training Assessment Strategies – allowing colleges to leverage granular level data from Training.Gov and input accredited courses
• Mapping and traceability of Assessments and Learning Resources within the delivery of each Unit of Competency
• Facilitate a structured solution to map trainers and assessor competencies to delivery

 

THE CHALLENGE:

This project presented a multitude of unique challenges:

Challenge	How did we address this challenge?
Although heavily reliant on the RTO 2015 standards as set out by the Australian Government for training bodies, the interpretations and scope were subject to variation in the detailed level. This included varying focus areas by State and Federal bodies (TAC & ASQA)	Active consultation with local and federal auditors as part of the ongoing development of the solution, and WP consultants acquiring a deeper understanding and interpretation of the standards.
There are multiple TAFE precincts based on location, including TAFE International, which represents international students, having individualised artefacts and compliance processes.	Under the basis of the RTO 2015 Standards, WP consulted with a working group featuring representatives from all the TAFE Colleges in order to produce a standardised sector solution, as an opportunity to use this Application for ANY Registered Training Organisation in Australia. The WP DevOps Model enabled the team to define, build, test and deploy almost 600 user stories / tasks and convert a prototype into a robust enterprise level solution with minimal rework. Despite COVID 19, this project continued in its build iterations with close stakeholder consultation and was delivered on time and budget.
COVID 19 Played a significant impact during the consultation and requirements verification phase of the project. AQS was identified as a COVID response application as TAFEs needed to be able to effectively quality assure Training/Assessment Strategy and Plan deliverables. Ensuring Compliance of Quality – Traceability for all Training Delivery changes during a pandemic.	Online and remote consultation occurred, and as part of a validation of the ongoing changes to training delivery of the TAFE’s, these items were included as a design factor of the solution itself. This includes providing information on industry and community consultation including dates and outcomes. Outline consultation undertaken with industry, licensing bodies or community groups to inform the development the TAS. Consultation includes, but not exclusive to: Delivery mode Workplace changes Target group needs Modifying and amending training delivery and to accommodate for remote access/assessment. Adjustment to the amount of training proportionality transitioning from Classroom-based training to remote/structured out-of-class training
Cumbersome paperwork and compliance overhead – Word Documents are written periodically to produce: Course Delivery Strategies – Training Assessment Strategies Lesson Plans – Training Assessment Plans Demonstrate that TAFE Lecturers are capable of delivery – Trainer Assessor Competency Matrix	Moving out of Docs to Data-Driven approach Prepopulate the Data as much as possible from Existing System (Curriculum) Integration with DTWD Systems Use as much of OOTB Power Apps as Possible Power Apps Features Wave 1 Features PCF Controllers Workflows Minimal Plugins Exhaust all options before taking a customisation approach

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OUR SOLUTION:

The Academic Quality System (AQS) solution features a data driven approach to address the following needs:

• Ability to produce Training Assessment Strategies – allowing colleges to leverage granular level data from Training.Gov and input accredited courses
• Mapping and traceability of Assessments and Learning Resources within the delivery of each Unit of Competency
• Facilitate a structured solution to map trainers and assessor competencies to delivery of training materials

Using Microsoft Power Apps as the backbone of the solution, PCF controls to provide enriched UI capabilities, Dataverse to store and structure the data and Azure frameworks to deliver the necessary integration, the team delivered a fully cloud based solution that fully met the needs of the sector.

 

THE OUTCOME:

The AQS represented the first system in Australia that delivered an integrated Training Assessment Strategy, Training Assessment Plan and Trainer Assessor Competency Matrix for the Vocational Education and Training Sector and represents a radical leap in business process by transitioning these practices for approximately 4000 lecturers in WA alone from documents to data.

Microsoft PowerApps provided the right blend of usability and enterprise integration capabilities to be the primary application component which when paired with WP’s skills and expertise successfully solved this sector wide issue by:

• Reducing time spent by lecturers and College staff on TAS, TAP and TACM tasks (from several hours to just minutes for each TAS, TAP and TACM).
• Increasing efficiencies in delivering compliance systems and process (through a sector wide implementation of a single system).
• Reducing the reliance on existing administratively burdensome process and systems (through the implementation of a system that provided integration with master data sources (such as curriculum and college facilities) and used of Power Automate for process execution).
• Reducing the risk of adverse audit findings for colleges (by providing clear traceability and real time compliance KPI dashboards for each College).

 

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