Following recent meetings of the KentVision (KV) Project Board, I wanted to share with you some of the decisions that we have made regarding the future direction of the project, as well as some other significant updates.

It is important for me to stress that the University remains committed to delivering the KV project and to realising its benefits. Since we went live in April 2021, a number of very significant features and improvements have been developed and delivered (e.g., new functionality for students to view and maintain assessment deadlines and features for the processing of mitigating circumstance requests, board of examiner and post-board amendments), but there remains a large backlog of features and functionality requests yet to be confirmed for delivery.

The KV Project Board, in close cooperation with university central governance groups, has made the decision to move the KV work from a separate project to an IS business-as-usual delivery model by the summer of 2023.

As a consequence, between now and summer of 2023, we must re-focus the project on delivering features, functionality and data improvements in the following areas:

• Compliance (e.g., features relating to UKVI reporting)
• Statutory obligations (e.g., features relating to HESA Data Futures ensuring we maintain our link to UCAS)

When the compliance and statutory features and functionality in the backlog are assessed, the risk to the institution of not delivering these is extremely large. We must deliver changes on these areas by summer 2023 as a result to changes to regulations and a delay will present real risk in meeting our compliance obligations.

We know there are challenges for teams who are experiencing workload pressures. To try and address these, from January 2023 we are establishing a dedicated KV Operational Support Team to provide technical support during intensive operational processes, that require manual workarounds, throughout the academic year (e.g., online module registration and academic roll-over activities). We will work with local managers to make sure the impact is understood, and the right support and mitigations are in place so teams can continue delivering high-quality services with existing systems and tools.

A significant amount of work had already been completed across the six KV Functional Area Groups which has enabled delivery of new features and a greater understanding of our activities and operations; along with insights as to how we may best organise these activities within KV and across Central and Divisional Teams. The project is now reviewing the original planned activities and we are developing plans with Senior Leadership and the KV Functional Group Chairs to move forward these key areas of work, reprioritising the plan.

The possible options we will consider for addressing the remaining features in the backlog include:

• Further technical development work to KentVision
• An alternative existing software solution (e.g., Office 365)
• A process and or policy change.

The revised plan will prioritise areas where we will get maximum benefit for professional service, academic staff, and our students. I will update colleagues in January 2023 on how we intend to address the remaining features within the backlog.

KV has already delivered key features and functionality – this is down to the hard work and achievements of the many colleagues who have contributed to the project thus far. I thank them for that, and for their excellent work.

Our commitment to supporting our staff is unwavering, and as we are now moving towards the end of the KV project phase, we have to make changes to both our plan and our approach that take this into consideration. The KV Project Board is meeting frequently to monitor the impact of this decision and the mitigations being put in place, and we will provide regular updates to you moving forward.