JB Hunter Technology began using aXcelerate’s student management system to effectively track their growing student enrolments and make their facilitator guides and learning materials more accessible to trainers and assessors, no matter their location.
Background
JB Hunter Technology (JBHT) is a leading Telecommunications focused Registered Training Organisation that has been operating throughout Australia and the South Pacific since 1991. JBHT is a boutique RTO, in that it focuses on catering solely to the Telecommunications Industry. JBHT design and deliver training and assessment for all stages and aspects of a telecommunications career – from entry level, through to senior and project management skills.
Since JBHT’s inception, the organisation has had over 30,000 learners enrol. These learners can be individuals, members of small to medium enterprises or members of national and global businesses, but all are looking to start or enhance their career and skills base within the telecommunications industry. Because JBHT specialise in Telecommunications, their courses are appealing to both new and existing workers, especially the Certificate III in Telecommunications Technology Trade and the Open Cabler Registration short course.
A big drawcard for learners is that JBHT customise courses in order to suit the varied job specifications and tasks of the learner, their workplace and their preparation for future work in order for the learner to gain the best outcomes. JBHT is also dedicated to remaining at the forefront of technology (both in regards to the telecommunications industry and learning standards) as well as being up to date with changing workplace practices and standards. As part of this, JBHT is an NBN Approved Training Provider, which ensures that the direct assessment processes and the up-skilling/cross-skill training JBHT deliver, meets their standards and the workplace and individual learner requirements.
JBHT was also one of the first organisations within the telecommunications training industry to utilise eLearning options for generic core units of competency. To ensure JBHT remains up to date with the latest technology, these eLearning options are continually being fine tuned with interactive learning examples. These options help to optimise face to face classroom time as they provide the learner with added practicals and assessments. The addition of eLearning tools into JBHT’s modes of training delivery- which also include classroom blocks, evening and weekend classes and worksite and work-based delivery- ensure that learners can easily fit their training around their busy lifestyles and that all learning styles are catered for.
A big focus of JBHT’s is employability; ensuring that their students have the skills to either successfully enter the telecommunications industry or advance their career.To achieve this, JBHT cover a broad range of skills and verify existing skills through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). They have also partnered with several organisations such as ISGM, Telstra, Downer and Vision stream in order to help better prepare learners for the changing workplace. JBHT has also partnered with GTOs to prepare students for employment in smaller localised host organisations. These partnerships generally involve a number of steps. Firstly, the skills required for these organisations must be specified. Then JBHT ensures the students are trained in these skills, before then organising and coordinating work experience placements. Resumes are then provided as well as the overall results and feedback for recruitment processes.
Because of the varied services and training delivery options JBHT offers, the organisation began to find that effectively tracking student enrolments and results proved difficult. With the business growing at a consistent rate, JBHT realised they would need a more comprehensive student management system to better track their data for AVETMISS reporting purposes. After much discussion and research with a business consultant, it was decided that aXcelerate would be the best solution to handle their growing needs and training offerings.
Solutions
Like with any significant project, implementing aXcelerate involved new processes and ‘terms’ that JBHT staff had to adjust to, to create a more streamlined process. For example, JBHT often referred to short-course in-house terms prior to using aXcelerate, however once implementing the student management system they were forced to think in terms of qualification and UOC codes. While this took some time to get used to, using these more formal terms has made the reporting process easier in the long run.
There was also some adjustment to the workshop set-up in aXcelerate however, JBHT worked closely with both the aXcelerate developers and implementation team to assist in making the scheduling, combining and changing of workshops a dynamic and simple process.
Once the system set-up was underway, the administration team were able to see immediate benefits. One of these benefits was the ability to write and store more comprehensive data of their students on file, thanks to the student management system’s CRM and workshop functionality. This means staff don’t have to duplicate information as it is all stored in the one central location, which has saved them considerable time and has made the reporting process easier.
Because of the large number of courses and services JBHT offer within the telecommunications industry, aXcelerate’s streamlined enrolment tools has allowed JBHT to effectively track and monitor their different course offerings. They have also utilised the merge document feature -which allows bulk emails to be sent to a whole workshop or specified contact categories- to communicate more effectively with their varied student base.
JBHT have also utilised aXcelerate’s reporting tools to help streamline their state and territory reporting and ensure AVETMISS data is kept up to date. They have also applied the aXcelerate survey tool to process student and employer surveys effectively which has helped to keep on top of compliance requirements.
Ultimately, the biggest benefit JBHT has found since using aXcelerate is the level of accessibility provided through being a cloud-based student management system. Because all data is stored on the aXcelerate database, the JBHT trainer and assessor team are able to access the latest version of facilitator guides and learning material no matter their location. Because a significant amount of JBHT trainers and assessors are often training in remote areas, having this level of accessibility means that they can enter learner results as soon as they are known, which means feedback can be provided to learners much more efficiently than previously done.
Looking to the future
Since the inception of JBHT’s partnership with aXcelerate, JBHT has continued to grow and develop more service offerings for their learners. This growth has caused JBHT to look at better ways to monitor and report internally. aXcelerate look forward to working closely with JBHT in order to develop more customised reports that can effectively handle their growing compliance needs.
JBHT are also regularly developing new learning material for their eLearning units in order to cement their status as a ‘technology forward’ organisation. To maintain this status, they are looking to move towards the cloud-based platform Moodle and away from their previous system Talent LMS. Because one of aXcelerate’s leading integrations is with Moodle, the team aim to work closely with JBHT to ensure the data shown in their Moodle courses is reflected in their own aXcelerate student management system.
Both of these developments should help to enhance JB Hunter Technology’s efficiency, which in turn will allow the organisation to focus more time and energy on doing what they do best; delivering quality telecommunications training.
To find out more about JB Hunter Technology and the courses they offer, you can visit their website.