News R3

Making great movies takes more than a talented director or a popular lead actor. Great movies are brought to life by the orchestrated effort of many hard-working people, from camera operators to caterers, each contributing their expertise to the project.

Similarly, a solid Student Information System (SIS) must be integrated with a variety of services to meet the needs of a community like ours. To achieve this, the R3 Project and Information Technology Services (ITS) are working together to integrate dozens of industry-leading solutions to Thesis SM, Algonquin College’s new SIS.

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Nowadays, when we need technical support, we go online and look for tutorials, articles, forums, chatbots—anything that can help us better understand what we’re trying to do. There are times, however, that instead of scouring the web, what we really need—and want—is another human being who’ll listen to us, understand our issue, and help us solve it.

We at the R3 Project understand this! Yes, we’re preparing a plethora of online help materials covering every imaginable task in the new Thesis Student Portal. But we’re also partnering with other teams in the College to deliver the Portal Pathfinder Program and offer more personalized help to learners.

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Algonquin College is working closely with Thesis to develop a cloud-based Student Information System (SIS) that is tailor-made for our community. Part of this collaboration involves creating dozens of highly detailed functional specifications—or specs, for short—that will improve the College’s business processes and elevate the experience of both learners and employees.

Igor Coelho A. S. Marques talked with Haya Majbour, Business Analyst, and Lauren Draper, Project Manager, Business Transformation, to learn more about their work, including a recent push to deliver over 90 functional specs to Thesis.

Here’s some of their conversation:
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The R3 Project is replacing Algonquin College’s current Student Information System (SIS), GeneSIS, with Thesis SM. This means that all the important data GeneSIS has stored for nearly three decades needs to be migrated to the new SIS.

Igor Coelho A. S. Marques sat down with Michael Kahil, a data migration expert on the R3 Project’s Data Governance team, to chat about data migrations. Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

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According to a group of Canadian researchers, taking regular micro-breaks at work can boost your performance and improve your well-being—especially if you can go outside for a little bit. Micro-breaks last only a few minutes, but they can relieve pressure and help us find the focus we need to tackle the challenges we encounter at work.

If you’re ready for a micro-break, we’ve got something to help you unwind and have fun: the R3 Project Crossword. Can you complete it in under five minutes?

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July’s Showcase event was a continuation of our May Showcase event, which focused on Course Registration. The event was hosted by Laura Stanbra, Vice President of Student Services and R3 Project’s Executive Sponsor, who welcomed more than 220 participants.

Charmaine Childs, R3 Project Manager of Engagement and Communications, provided an overview of which Thesis Student Portal communications will come from Algonquin College and which will come from the R3 Project.

Lauren Draper, Project Manager, Business Transformation, went over the purpose of Pre-enrolment and Re-enrolment and highlighted some popular questions asked during the May Showcase.

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In the past month, our team has analyzed dozens of questions we’ve received about Student Course Registration. We noticed some recurring themes and have created the following fictional conversation between a member of the College community (like you!) and one of us at the R3 Project.

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Some people learn by doing. Some learn by reading. Some like to watch experts at work and copy what they do. And believe it or not, some people even enjoy preparing for and taking tests.

What kind of learner are you? When Algonquin College rolls out its new Student Information System (SIS), Thesis SM, how would you like to approach your learning journey?

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This is an online solo version of the game we played with the Change Champion Network (CCN). Keep reading to find out how to play 🏆

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You probably already know about the R3 Showcase, right? It’s an event that we host every couple of months to share the latest R3 Project developments with the AC community. But did you also know that it’s the perfect place to ask questions about the R3 Project?

Ask away!

During these events, attendees can use the Questions and Answers feature—or Q&A, for short. You type in the question, and it gets added to the Q&A panel. Then, our team answers your question in one of two ways:

• We answer your question live during the Q&A portion of the event. We keep an eye on the most upvoted questions to answer first.
• We send you an email with the answer if we didn’t get to your question during the event.

If you think of a question after Showcase is over, that’s OK! You can also ask us questions between Showcase events by sending us an email.

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