About educational management at the Conservatoire National Des Arts Et Métiers (CNAM)

Training, promoting innovation and disseminating scientific culture: CNAM offers a wide range of activities. The first operator of adult vocational training in Europe, CNAM welcomes over 100,000 students annually in its 150 offices located across 28 regional centers in France. In particular, students continuing education come from a broad range of professional experiences, backgrounds, locations and age ranges. During their studies, most students are also engaged in a professional activity. The workforce consists of 2,000 permanent employees (teaching and administrative) and 7,000 professional suppliers.

The challenge

The project objectives can be summarized in a few words: unity, openness and quality of information. Indeed, since the law concerning the freedom and responsibilities of universities was passed in 2007, the government has identified three main target areas: “Make university attractive,” “break free from the paralysis of the current governance model” and “make academic research visible internationally.”

CNAM has striven to respond to the first two objectives through actions aimed at enhancing its attractiveness to potential students, teachers and the professional world, while equipping them with effective management and reporting tools.

In particular, it sought to streamline its operating procedures and the information between its various centers. Since each institution has a strong identity of its own, the CNAM communication system can become scattered. Moreover, the split of the information systems resulted in the institution having no clear indicators, making its management less efficient. In addition, as the rules and management methods varied between institutions, it was often difficult for students to progress there. Therefore, one of the major goals has been to centralize the operation, the data-processing, and the training course catalog of the various institutions involved.

Furthermore, with the target audience having professional activities outside the CNAM, it was necessary to find ways to keep in direct contact with these people, both inside and outside the institution. Optimizing the use of web tools therefore became a strategic concern.

Our answer

The project, named SISCOL, is part of a continuous improvement strategy. It is therefore subject to continuous development implemented on an incremental basis. The aim of the first release is to make a tool available to the institution for managing all activities centered on structuring the educational management, including: the education offer, planning courses and exams, student registration, managing attendance, managing grading, and student finances (pricing, billing, accounting). This first release was rolled out in institutions based in Paris.

The tool chosen by the CNAM is SAP’s Student Lifecycle Management (SLCM) module. The institution was particularly impressed by the broad functional coverage of the product, the flexibility it offers in modeling the training courses, and the strong commitment of the integrator/editor partnership on the subject.

Constrained by tight deadlines and uncompromising completion dates (the enrollment period coming a year after the launch), the project is a real challenge. The CNAM and CGI teams work harmoniously to support the transformation of CNAM and deliver a product that meets the requirements on time.

Following the success of this first implementation stage in June 2010, less than a year after the project began, a new version was designed to add and optimize certain features. More specifically, this stage aimed to broaden the scope to include new institutions and to implement a web portal in line with the latest market standards, thanks to Microsoft SharePoint technology. The aim was to enhance usability and to integrate the system into the migration path of the CNAM systems over the long term.

In June 2011, six months after the project began, the new version, SISCOL V2, was in production.

Key benefits

  • Enrollments transmitted freely and easily
  • Time is freed up for managers
  • Quality of the data has improved
  • Enrollment, planning and recording of grades into a single tool

 

“It was ambitious to try a SAP implementation project in education in only one year. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of all involved, the SISCOL application has been completed on time, a significant strategic accomplishment for the future of CNAM. A milestone that will be remembered.”
Denis Coree, Director of Information Systems, CNAM

A success story

CNAM can now showcase their enrollment portal. Enrollments are transmitted freely and easily. Managers devote less time to processing enrollments and can now dedicate themselves to their core business, student support.

Process management has improved the quality of the data and facilitated immediate synergies between the functions and the benefits that come with this. In fact, the enrollments, planning and grades can be saved in a single tool, the information is directly available to facilitate the work of the managers and enable them to better advise students. Lastly, there is quality data on 19 institutions available to CNAM, which enables them to develop the most relevant indicators for managing the institution.

Why work with CGI?

This sidebar is anchored to the heading 1 title in the main copy area. You should not delete this title or you will lose this sidebar. “Insert a quote from your client using the sidebar – quote style.” Name, Title, Client WHY WORK WITH CGI? In listening to the needs of CNAM, CGI was able to offer an innovative solution based on a module that had never been implemented before in France, but had been implemented successfully in many foreign universities such as Maastricht, Amsterdam and Newcastle. As a result, CGI became the partner of choice to assist CNAM in its task of disseminating innovations to the public.

Our ability to listen, offer support and the close relationship and trust that was built were a recipe for success for CNAM. CGI and CNAM have nurtured a mutual understanding. This strong and durable partnership allows CNAM to master its tools and control its development, while benefiting from the expertise and training of the CGI teams.

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(Published 2013)