Assuring quality using “moments of truth” in super‐converged services
Authors: Appleton Leo 
Published: August 2012

Purpose

Bringing together diverse areas of a university means having to work with several different methods and frameworks for measuring and assuring quality and identifying key performance indicators. The Business and Strategic Planning area of Library and Student Support at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has been involved in such a case study, and this paper aims to present the findings of this work, which may be of interest to performance measurement practitioners.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper applies a case study approach, in that the background of the institution and change management programme will be clearly presented in order that the subsequent overview of the performance management work can be placed into context. The newly‐formed department already had several quality assurance and user satisfaction measurement instruments which were being used within the constituent parts of the service area (i.e. LibQUAL, SCONUL benchmarking exercises, Matrix assessment, enrolment surveys) as well as the results of the annual National Student Survey. The work in question has allowed for an investigation into how to establish a framework for inputting measurement and key performance data from all of these instruments and being able to respond to them as a single department. Having consulted some of the university's external corporate partners (namely Shop Direct and Merseytravel), the resulting framework now incorporates embedding departmental values and behaviours, and identifying particular moments of truth within the student lifecycle, where Library and Student Support has a particular impact on the student experience. By identifying these “moments of truth” the department is better placed to measure its impact and subsequently assure quality. The paper will present the experience of Library and Student Support in their efforts to find a single framework, made up of constituent methods and instruments, by which it can measure and assure quality.

Findings

The findings of the paper bring together the method outlined above and allow for the dissemination of the first year's work of the Library and Student Support Quality Assurance Framework. At the time of writing, this is a work in progress, as the first year's data, analysis and resulting quality actions and responses are for the academic year 2010‐2011. This paper presents an opportunity to find out how the framework was developed, constructed and implemented, how effective it has been and what further development needs to happen in order for the framework to continue to be effective.

Originality/value

Super‐convergence of university support departments is becoming increasingly more common, and existing quality and performance measurement channels now appear less and less meaningful within this new paradigm. This case study should present itself as one of the first studies of a “whole service” approach to quality assurance within this new order, and will therefore be of great interest and value to anyone else currently working within the business, planning and quality areas of super‐convergence.