Eden Hall Process Model
In order to develop a model for Eden Hall’s Admission process, we interviewed the Dean of the Falk School of Sustainability, Dr. Peter Walker. During the interview, we gained valuable information that allowed us to construct a process model, which illustrates the methods used for recruiting, admitting, and tracking of a student's progress throughout the program. It is important for the administration of Eden Hall to understand their process model and relationship with the information systems involved in order to evaluate their program strategy's effectiveness and efficiency (Kroenke, 2015). While our process model illustrates in more detail the network of activities Eden Hall uses to accomplish their business functions, our discussion will assess the key roles and activities from beginning to end.
There are six different swimlanes that constitute Eden Hall’s process model. Each swimlane includes an actor, which is either a person, department, or information system that has a role in carrying out different activities during the business process. These actors are: Falk School of Sustainability Department, Chatham’s Human Resource Department, the Marketing Department, Administration, the Office of the Registrar, and the student. The process begins with Chatham’s Sustainability Department developing a sustainability program at Eden Hall that appeals to potential students, which is an activity. After developing the program, there is a control flow that leads to establishing a program budget. There are also multiple data flows that connect the program development activity with two other swimlanes, human resources and the marketing department. When HR receives a developed program, it then begins the activity of recruiting appropriate faculty to fill the program classes. While HR is in the process of hiring faculty, there are negotiation data flows between hiring faculty and calculating the budget under the sustainability department.
As data flows to the marketing department from the sustainability department with a developed program, they being to design a marketing campaign to attract potential students to the campus. Following the launch of a marketing campaign, there is a control flow into sending inquiries to those potential students the department has identified. The potential student information is stored in a Mailing List, a data repository, represented by a parallelogram, which is a collection of data that exists within the business process model (Kroenke, 2015). The repository is solely a housing area for data from which activities can stem from, but is not an activity itself.
Once the inquiries are sent to prospective students through a data flow, said student respond to inquiries by a control flow which leads to two other activities. Briefly, the process flows into a new swimlane, this one labelled Administration. Through a data flow, administration will review the application. Next the process model encounters a decision. In a business process flow model, a decision is a certain type of activity box, represented by a diamond, that gives two options and flows to two different outcomes (Kroenke, 2015). The decision is for administration to accept the student entry or deny them. If denied, the student is sent a rejection letter and the process ends, but if they are accepted, the student is sent information on making a deposit to attend. Now, going back to the student swimlane, the student will then visit campus, and from there they then have to make a decision being whether or not to attend. Much like administration’s decision, the student does not attend and the process is over, or the student decides to attend and pays the deposit.
The newly enrolled student then begins a new activity of selecting classes. This activity then flows into the last swimlane, being the Registrar. Once the student chooses classes, the registrar stores this information in another data repository labelled, “Student Database” which aids in keeping track of students’ progress and allows for the continuance of other activities related to the final step of the process model. Once information flows through the Registrar, it is up to the student to accomplish the final activity of graduating, which then effectively ends the model.
Works Cited
Kroenke, D. (2015). MIS Essentials, 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Pearson.
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