Acknowledging Resources that Make the Big Difference to Your Department

Connect2 provides essential resource utilization intelligence. It lets you see instantly how many times an item or category of equipment has been used in a given time frame, and the number of student users involved.

With this data at your fingertips, it gives you much greater opportunity to invest in more kit when needed and, not least, get recognition for resources and services when it’s due. It’s a big help for raising the profile of your department, and gives invaluable data for business cases, funding applications and management meetings.

So how do Connect2 customers use this data? Here are some examples shared by our customer universities:

• Some media stores analyze reservation data by course or module. They report on how many times allocated resources have been used and the number of students benefiting in each case
• The data gives opportunity to publicize when high-end equipment items are helping to win awards for the institution or contributing towards improving student grades, highlighting the number of times they are being used within a module
• Many media stores run resource reservation services for all students irrespective of course or department. Sharing the usage data on this general lending activity helps get more funding each year to invest in equipment for everyone
• Some institutions convert the number of reservations for items during a semester into typical commercial hire costs for the types of equipment in question. This calculates a value for the resources provided which can be shared with senior managers. This data can also be used as part of a service review to calculate ROI for new kit purchased: money spent on new kit vs value to students
• If a media store is finding that they need more equipment items to meet student need, the data provided by Connect2 is invaluable for including in a business case to purchase more. Simply put, it shows you how the store is coping with demand, and how often it is falling short, identifying which equipment is heavily used.

With Connect2, there are no constraints over when you can review your inventory. It doesn’t need to be a time intensive exercise carried out only once or twice a year. A thorough review can be made at the drop of a hat, at any time, to the advantage of your service and the students it supports. Why not get in touch to find out more?