Project Title Business Area Project Sponsor Author

Alumni Web Portal Development & Alumni Catrin Tilley, Director of Development & Alumni Karen Goodman, Operations Manager

1 Background and Drivers Development & Alumni is responsible for raising charitable donations for University academic projects. We are currently running a major fundraising campaign and hope to raise 100 million within the next 4 years for the Medical Research Institute at Little France, scholarships, Informatics, and other programmes. A major part of this Campaign will be to increase activity in the US. Our 125,000 alumni are already one of the biggest sources of donations, and their support will be crucial to the success of the campaign. The web and internet will be an essential tool in expanding the frequency and content of our communication with them, and it is vital that we provide a web portal with services such as alumni directories, email networking, on-line donation facilities, and integration with our Visual Alms database. These services are available to alumni from other universities and are now considered standard requirements. We will also need to update our website, but our ability to provide these services are still hampered by lack of technical expertise, time and limited financial resources. Demand for services provided by portal type developments is very high amongst the alumni. Development & Alumni currently have a number of internal manual processes to provide these services, which take up a high proportion of staff time. Development & Alumni have funds available to develop the existing web site and services. It is critical that these services are improved as soon as possible, as it is believed that they will have a significant impact on the success of the current fundraising campaign, not only improving communications, but also providing an avenue for alumni involvement. Appendix One lists our short and long term expectations for our web site many of these developments are dependent on the portal. 2 Objectives We would like MIS to develop our web portal, enabling us to download alumni information directly to Visual Alms and the alumni directory, to make more systematic use of the internet for targeted communication, to enable alumni to make contact with each other and to make on-line donations. It is important, now that the Student Portal and Careers Service Portal are up and running, that an integrated access be developed, which will allow a seamless transition for users between the different facilities. Other University departments also require secure access to alumni information with many departments now setting up their own alumni directories, eg Management School and Law, it is becoming an increasing problem ensuring that updates are maintained across all systems. It is hoped that a portal type application would allow all of these facilities to be pulled together. 3 Justification Statement

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The portal will enhance philanthropic support for the institution as a whole. It will help the University achieve other objectives, such as increasing the number of overseas students by 40%, providing careers advice and placements, and enhancing the CPD programme. Offering a facility other departments can utilise will reduce expenditure across the institution. Experience gained from establishing the student and career portals can be utilised in this development. It is an opportunity to provide a seamless access for students and graduates. Development & Alumni will benefit from the culture of use developed by students, who will continue to use the facility once graduated. It will provide potential international students and graduates with a quick and easy link to the University. Development & Alumni are developing an intense programme of activities with the US and the portal will allow us to develop cheaper and quicker methods of communication. The longer the delay in developing the web portal, the less time there will be to assess the impact the web has on the Universitys capacity to raise funds. Development of the portal will ensure that Edinburgh keeps pace with other similar institutions. The introduction of online information through our existing site has, over the course of two years, already resulted in the reduction of mailed requests for information and this trend seems to have continued with the issue of our 2003 questionnaire. We currently process between 10-12,000 questionnaires per annum being able to receive this information online and import directly to VA will cut costs and improve our response time for requests. It takes DA 10 months to process the questionnaires and requires the recruitment of temporary staff. There would be significant cost savings, even if only 20% of questionnaires were returned electronically, DA would have real cost savings of around 6,000. It is difficult to estimate the long-term cost benefits at this stage, but the target for the current campaign is 100m if just 2% of this could be attributed to improved communications and publicity via the web, this would be a cost benefit of 2m. Currently DA has no means for publicising and acknowledging its successes timely to a large audience a web portal is essential for this. The early development of up-to-date news will allow DA to publicise its successes timely and thereby develop a buzz of activity. It will be essential that this is well developed and publicised for the public launch of the campaign. It will also play a crucial role in thanking and continuing our relationship with donors. Similar institutions who have developed online giving are now receiving 20% of their donations in this way. Currently DA does not have the resources to target all overseas alumni for financial support the ability to accept donations online will make promotion cheaper and more accessible to all. Alumni are already playing important roles in all these areas, and the portal is essential to help develop this. The portal would free up staff resource by eliminating the need to provide information manually. It would also allow the University to increase the

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number of communications i.e. bulletins and other publications could have electronic editions. 4 Scope Development of the web portal will allow Development and Alumni to use the internet to involve and inform alumni about activities at the University. Financial resources limit activity and currently the two-way communication between the University and its alumni remains predominantly by mail. The web portal will allow for speedier two-way interactive communications. We would be looking to provide: Interactive web pages, including online bookings for events, online giving, online updating, notice boards, chat rooms, etc Online publications and event promotion Links to other University departments e.g. Careers, International Office, etc Mass emailing facility Automated system for updating Visual Alms Interactive Alumni Directory Specific area for US alumni including alumni chapter management Benefits such as email forwarding (or listing) to alumni A World Wide community of alumni groups, promoting the internationalism of the University. 5 Deliverables An upgraded web site incorporating a portal for alumni access and interaction, alumni directory and forum, facility for contacting classmates and on-line credit card donations. A seamless link between the existing Career and Student portals, to ensure that alumni have a simple route to all services and other information. 6 Assumptions and constraints Development and Alumni is not able to spend any of the money it raises on its own departmental expenses. It is not a commercial activity able to reinvest income all proceeds are channelled to University academic programmes. It is assumed that the necessary DA and MIS infrastructure will be in place and will be able to accommodate the development. DA will make available any resources required to upgrade the existing VA software. Development & Alumni has resources available to develop the existing web pages as part of the current campaign. 7 Task Estimates To be provided once project approved/rejected.

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8 Financial Summary
5 Year Summary Costs Benefits IT Services 23,500 Central Support Services 8,000 2,027,000 Total MIS staff requirement 2003/4 Devolved Administration 2,000 Total 33,500 2,027,000
75 days

It can be assumed that DA will make some financial resources available to begin development of aspects of this project. Funds are available to upgrade the existing web pages. DA will allocate a member of staff to manage the project, including developments and meetings with MIS. Should the project go ahead, other staff may become involved in the developments as required. It is assumed that MIS will provide all technical support and know how.

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Appendix One Development & Alumni Web Developments - Contents, Features and Services Development & Alumni are committed to developing their existing web functionality and have resources available over the next four years to do this. Many of the developments are dependent upon the development of an Alumni Web Portal. Some of the existing services, etc will remain. The following outlines new or enhanced features. The web pages need to become more dynamic, with regular updates, to keep visitors to the site interested. Academic Year 2002/03 Work will begin on improving the existing web pages. The look and feel of the pages will be developed inline with the campaigns overall vision. The following facilities and services will be developed immediately: Transfer of existing pages as appropriate Campaign News updated weekly On-line giving and receipting via ERA Mass emailing utilise Universitys existing set-up (max 1000) Alumni Directory maintained Shared documents for various committees, etc Secure email for various committees, etc

Academic Year 2003/04 Email forwarding or listing services Alumni Directory further developed to include notes, photographs, chat room, postcard from, etc. Upgrades in place to allow publicity to be included in EDiT January 2004. News, both local and from the University, for alumni updated weekly, with links to full news story where appropriate, eg Scotsman On-line events booking, payment and receipting, etc via ERA On-line update of personal details and completion of annual questionnaire 2004, with automatic update to VA Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Links to Careers Portal, Student Portal, other alumni web pages eg Management School and School of Law Events calendar including seamless link to University Events pages All publications to be made available electronically, including EDiT, Friends Folio, Commitment to Excellence, etc. Management of USA and Canada alumni chapter system World Wide community of alumni groups

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Links to External Services On-line application for Passport, Affinity Credit Card and Cruises Expansion of easy access to group web pages

Longer Term Developments Email bulletin for alumni (fortnightly or monthly) news, upcoming University events (lectures, concerts etc), career opportunities etc. Alumni Forum on-line Online focus groups Virtual alumni summit Mass text messaging Cyber Mentoring Programme, in conjunction with Careers Your year what happened in your graduation year (eg 2002, Great Fire of Cowgate) Intranet resource for Colleges/Schools

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