Credit: Australian Islamic College
Data#3 overhauled a vast array of legacy technology for the Australian Islamic College (AIC), providing a full digital transformation into Microsoft.
The Western Australian religious institution turned to the Australian IT services provider to digitalise its core processes and set it up for hybrid learning.
Previously, the college was using TASS for its core systems, as well as Office 365. With the latter, however, according to Data#3, the school was not using the technology to its "full potential”.
It was also suffering from poor, manual reporting processes, a lack of digital collaboration technology and insufficient security controls.
“We simply weren’t using best-practice processes and technology,” said Tamjid Aijazi, the college’s chief information officer. “We had grown quite quickly and our existing technology wasn’t able to facilitate the needs of a school of our size. We were experiencing bottlenecks and it forced us to go to market to look for better solutions.
“We had already implemented Office 365, and it had grown organically within the college, but we realised that we needed some guidance to ensure we were working to a standard that is best practice. It was important that we found an expert technology partner to provide the support and guidance we need and that was when we turned to Data#3."
Following a consultation period, it was decided that the school would transition from Office 365 to Microsoft 365 Education A5.
Carried out over a period of weeks, the transition project also saw the AIC adopt Microsoft Teams for collaboration and virtual learning and simplified onboarding and remote management.
According to Aijazi, the school was forced to make "a lot of phone calls” before the transition to Teams.
"This meant there was a lot of excessive communication noise, which can be distracting," he said. "Something that could probably be resolved in a few seconds was taking at least a few minutes. It proved very inefficient."
It also streamlined data-led reporting with Power BI and provided a "robust and secure foundation for ongoing digital transformation".
With the new technology now rolled out to all staff, teams such as the finance department can automate reporting for the board. Another benefit of the automated reporting is that the colleges operational staff are now able to better manage student attendance and Australian Tertiary Admission Rank performance.
“Power BI has been fantastic. Our staff are always excited by the endless opportunities now open to them," said Aijazi.
"We are constantly getting requests for more reports they want to see. As well as saving us a lot of time, it’s also providing the school with some very valuable insights to help us improve the way we operate and that is something we haven’t been able to visualise before."
Although Aijazi said the school had a robust cloud-based infrastructure in place before the pandemic started, it is now in a good position to transition between in-class and remote learning due to Data#3's digital transformation.
"There were a limited number of schools in Western Australia that were able to do this," Aijazi said. "Now, over a year on, we have embraced remote or hybrid learning and it has become part of everyday life. We can transition without disrupting the learning experience, which is very important and helps keep our students engaged in learning.”
In terms of security, Aijazi said the college has upgraded its network and cloud monitoring tools and is now focusing more on regular exception reporting around areas of concerns.
Now, the AIC is looking at digitalising all of its current processes, from teachers’ performance appraisals to coordinating student transport.
“The biggest benefit of all is that we now have an ideal foundation for our staff and students to achieve incredible things both now and into the future,” said Aijazi.
"We’ve experienced full lock-downs with entire staff working from home, partial lockdowns, absences of some students and teachers, and now getting them back to in-person classes while supporting hybrid learning.
"For the future, we are looking at ways to improve truly hybrid learning and making it easier for teachers and students both, whether they are in class or at home."
