Introduction

International College of Musical Theatre (ICMT) is a small performing arts college based in London offering world-class musical theatre training taught by West End and Broadway professionals. The college caters to undergraduate students, has a sister college (SLP College) in Leeds, and is a multi-campus college.

The challenge

As with other colleges offering degree courses, HESA requires reports to be submitted annually. HESA’s new Data Futures format requires much more data than before, and in the near future, will require submittals every few months. Although in the past, ICMT produced these reports manually using the HESA-supplied data entry tool, the new requirements meant that this approach was labour-intensive and thus impractical for staff of their size.

ICMT tried to use iSAMS, which is designed for private pre-college schools, but this did not work for them, and was an expensive mistake. As a result, they needed to minimise costs too.

As an interim solution, ICMT’s record keeping was done mostly using Microsoft Excel, where much of the time manual copying from and and pasting to other documents was used. This method of document creation takes a lot of time, and is error-prone. ICMT had an online system for applying to the college. This created Excel spreadsheets which staff used to manage applicants every year and their auditions. Unfortunately it did not integrate with any enrolled student management system.

HESA is moving to reports being needed on a more frequent basis. The demands of administering the college were increasing, and their online application system was showing its age. So again ICMT looked at available software solutions. None met their needs and/or was affordable.

Our solution

Simply Digital proposed and developed a single integrated system using ADAM that would handle the complete student lifecycle from application to alumni following HESA standards throughout. In addition, the system would have the flexibility to accommodate other regulatory requirements with a minimum of effort.

The system went live in December 2023.

Benefits

• Candidate students create accounts and apply online using a computer or smart phone. 
• They receive feedback on the status of their application and personal audition details automatically in the web browser, as the application proceeds without any extra data entry.
• Successful candidate enrolment can be performed in bulk and takes less than a minute to set in motion. 
• Enrolled students get automatically assigned to course modules. Overall grades are
• instantly calculated from individual assessment grades.
• Simple HESA-compliant data entry avoids the need for looking up the correct code, and guards against most errors.
• No more searching around for the latest spreadsheet and potentially working on the wrong document.
• HESA report creation used to take two months. Now it takes 10 minutes and automatic analysis shows where corrections are needed before submitting to HESA.
• Careful attention to the user interface means that very little training or referral to manuals is required. As one of our clients said, “I don’t need to look at the manual. It’s obvious how to use it.”
• Security is built-in. No one gets access without logging in securely. 
• Full GDPR compliance.