ICAS System Implementation

The more than 100 qualifications offered at the NWU comprises of 5,890 modules that require constant change to keep them relevant and up to date with new developments. The modules, as well as the changes must conform to several stringent quality and legal standards, set by a number of internal and external certification bodies. To manage the average of more than 20 change proposals per month with the traditional paper-based process, became a major challenge.

The ICAS (the Institutional Committee for Academic Standards) system allows stakeholders to collaborate on a proposed change.  The potential impact of changes across the institution is shown via a dependency analysis, and rules for modules and programmes such as prerequisites are also defined.  Furthermore an automated workflow process for approval for internal and external proposals is provided.

The NWU development team played a leading part in creating the module for the Kuali Foundation in close collaboration with various academic support departments.  The ICAS system is based on the Curriculum Management module of the Kuali Student Administration system.

Once again we became the first university worldwide to implement the full Curriculum Management module.

24 July 2015