The improvements made to Photo Submission were a combination of stabilisation of the face detection element, and enhancements to photo upload. As a result of these improvements the application was rebranded ‘Photo ID’ and deployed in July 2009.

Performance problems with the face detection element of the application had come to light when the application had come under heavy load during the previous year’s enrolment event. The cause of the problem had been identified as the inability of the face detection application to process simultaneous requests. This had not been an issue under light loading as the time taken to detect a face is sufficiently small to make the chances of two or more simultaneous requests being received negligible. It was decided that the best way to avoid any future issues with the application was to implement a queuing system, such that simultaneous requests could be accepted as they would be queued and processed in a ‘First In, First Out’ manner.

This work was viewed as maintenance and would have been carried out in any event, but a request was received from Martin Lammertsma – Assistant Registrar (Management Information & Planning) for further enhancements identified during evaluation of the previous year’s Enrolment project as follows:-

• Make it possible for students to upload a new photo if the previous upload failed
• Include a viewing facility on the Online Photo Submission page where students can see their own uploaded photo (this was extended to a history of photos which could be selected from during the design phase) and receive information about the progress of the photo upload and card printing process. Students may print this information to show they did upload a photo. To view the information students need to logon to the page using their university number and their date of birth (required changes to Web Single Sign-on).
• Provide management information on a daily basis:
  • Number of printed cards on day x
  • Number of printed cards between day 1 (when photo submission opens) and day x
  • Number of uploaded photos on day x
  • Number of uploaded photos between day 1 (when photo submission opens) and day x

A business case for the stabilisation and enhancement work was put to the Staff and Membership Application Management Service Board in February 2009 with a project ‘kick-off’ meeting in March 2009 where the deliverables and timescales were agreed.

Over the next few months the design was agreed and the application stabilised, developed and stress tested. In total 41 days were booked to the project between March 2009 and live deployment of the application in July 2009.

The result of the stabilisation and improvement work was a marked increase in student satisfaction. Between July and November 2009 nearly 9,000 students uploaded over 22,000 photographs. In 2008 nearly 50% of students were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the process. In 2009 over 80% of students were satisfied or very satisfied, as demonstrated by the survey details below:-