An electronic operating system for the South Karelian Vocational College (EKKY)

The quality management development group described the vocational college’s core functions.

In an Excellence in Vocational Education project, the vocational college received a lot of positive feedback but also plenty of development proposals. After assessing the feedback and formation of priorities, a quality development project was launched at the college in the beginning of the year. The main objectives of the development project were to increase the transparency of the institution’s core processes and to continue to integrate operations. Building an electronic operating system was seen as one solution to achieve these objectives.

Making common practices visible

During the quality review project it became apparent that the college’s processes were not sufficiently described. Existing common procedural instructions at the college provided guidelines for individual processes, but a more comprehensive presentation was lacking. So it became clear that the college needed a single system with which common practices agreed upon could be made visible at all teaching locations. Everyone should be able to see, regardless of location, how the colleges’ core processes are being executed, who is responsible for maintenance of each process and how each process is being developed. When activities are documented with one common platform in a common way, monitoring, evaluation and development would work out better than before.

The building of the electronic operating system was influenced also by a recommendation published in early 2008 by the National Board of Education regarding quality in vocational education. The recommendation states, for example, that "Education providers will have a documented operating system with which it comprehensively plans and directs its operations. The education provider will document central practices, processes and instructions in an electronic system which is continuously maintained.

Descriptions of an organization’s core operations in an electronic operating system

An electronic operating system is composed of parts which include process descriptions, process measures, operations manuals and other documents. In addition, the company's quality, environmental and occupational health and safety systems are also described in the operating system. It could be said that the central task of the operating system is to describe the way an organization works and direct its operations.

An electronic operating system introduced into all EKKY divisions

EKKY decided to implement the operating system with the help of a web-based development and management program so that content could be viewed outside of the institution’s own network. On the basis of a tender process, IMS Business Solutions Oy’s IMS Process was chosen to be acquired for the school district. At the same time it was decided that all district divisions would begin using the same program and build their own portions of the district’s common operating system. When the system is completed in the autumn of 2009, information on the core activities of all divisions of the South Karelian School District (EKKY) will be as near as the nearest web browser. In this way, EKKY's core processes, documents and instruments will be easy to find in one program. Workloads decrease and quality improves when you do not need to worry about in which file things are stored, which instructions are up to date and where information on core activities can be found. From the electronic operating system anyone can easily check how the district’s activities are meant to be performed, for example, how a new worker’s orientation should be conducted or what to do when students must create an IEP. With the operating system, it is also possible to monitor the process quality from economic, customer, process, personnel and development perspectives. The electronic operating system facilitates the development of quality within the educational district. Comprehensive monitoring of operations on the division and unit level is possible using the system.

Good results through the cooperation of a broad-based work team and system supplier consultants

Representatives from all the college’s educational fields and locations were selected to serve on a quality management development group to build the operating system. The included representatives were teachers as well as other staff and student representatives. In addition, multiple specialists from a number of fields participated in the group’s planning meetings in order to contribute their expertise to the building process. All together about 30 people from the college and district’s service centre were involved. The development project was led by project manager Pekka Turunen and, the College Executive Committee, as a steering group.

During the spring of 2008, the quality management development group held meetings in which an overall view was formed of the college’s activities and core processes were identified. As a result of process identification, a map of the college’s processes was created. This divides the activity of the college into three parts: “Creation of operation conditions,” "Operation planning and development" and "Degree qualifications and professional growth." These sets of activities contain the actual process descriptions. Degree Qualifications and Professional Growth contains the College’s core processes. Other processes support the core process implementation. Process descriptions were created by small groups of specialists. The groups’ descriptions were checked and polished in meetings held nearly once a month with system supplier consultants. Process indicators and documents were attached to the system according to the recommendation of the small groups during two-day consultation periods. The system was further supplemented in spring 2009 with respect to meter data and documents. A part of the Operations Manual will be ready in fall 2009, and environmental and OSH systems descriptions will begin in 2009. The operating system was presented to the college staff during the spring of 2009 and will be introduced for use at the beginning of the academic year 2009-2010. The quality management development group hopes for a lot of feedback and development suggestions from users.

Text: Pekka Turunen, Municipal Education Group Quality Director

This article was originally published in South Karelia Vocational College annual report 2008-2009