One entrance for course administrative questions at the ABE school
From 1 September 2021, the ABE school will have 1 (one) entry point for students with course administrative issues, regardless of the course's departmental affiliation: kursexp@abe.kth.se.
Cecilia Månson Blom, Education Administration Manager, sees benefits for both the students and the educational administration at the school.
What is the idea behind having one common entry point?
- An overall project is underway at KTH where the university administration and all schools together with the student union, THS, review the communication to KTH's existing students. There has emerged a need from the students for increased clarity regarding where to turn with what questions. It can be difficult to understand which department a course belongs to, and sometimes a question is sent around a few times before it ends up right. At ABE, we have now chosen to take this into consideration and make it easier for current and future students by handling all the school's course administrative matters through one entry point, regardless of the course's departmental affiliation. It is part of our ongoing work to make it easier for students to complete their studies, e.g. by making it easy to find and understand important study information.
Can you give some examples of course administrative matters?
- It can for example be questions about registration / re-registration for courses, requests to get access to example exams (exam questions and possible previous student answers), problems with access to the course in Canvas or exam registration for students aiming to get a higher grade ("plussning").
How will the new entry point work?
- All course administrative issues should be sent to the address kursexp@abe.kth.se which is set up in the case management system Edge. Previous department-specific email addresses for the Student's office (of the type studentexp@xxx.kth.se) will continue to function during a transition period but will be automatically be forwarded into the new common system. The course administrative matters are handled just as before by administrators at the course-owning department, but the system behind it will look different.
In addition to making it easier for students, are there any other benefits to this change?
- General issues will be handled through the 1st line at the School's Office of Student Affairs and each department has its own support queue in Edge and takes responsibility for its course-administrative issues. Hopefully in this way we can reduce the number of cases that end up being answered by several employees in parallel. All departments will also have insight into all support queues, which will create new opportunities for cross-departmental back-up opportunities in the future. The fact that we are now using the Edge case management system also helps us to ensure that no questions from the students can be missed.