Helping to decide how many course groups to run with, for example. Again it depends on whose point of view you re expressing. For Teaching and Personal Tutors it cuts out some administrative tasks and it keeps them in close touch with what students are doing. It helps them to consistently implement good practice. For example, wNET has replaced our Red Slip procedure.
Most colleges have something similar.
If a student missed a class the Class Teacher was supposed to fill in a Red Slip , hand it in to the office or put into the Tutors pigeon hole for collection. Now there is no Red Slip, because wNET picks up the non-attendance automatically, and the information is available as soon as the Class Teacher has pressed the SEND button after taking class registration. A tutor can even log a message for the student via wNET which will be passed down to the Class Teacher taking the next class the student attends. Students skip classes for a variety of reasons. Once they start to do so, particularly if its early on in a course, they start to fall behind in course work.