Academic Operations Division

The Student Records and Information Systems team in the Registry is responsible for the registration and progression of all students, management of the University's student database, and the promulgation of examination results.

Due to staffing problems 2000/2001 was a difficult year for the Student Records Team. A new Student Records Officer was appointed in December 2000. The focus for the year was on stabilising the staffing crisis. With five staff in place early in 2001, efforts to increase the knowledge base (as all members of the team were relatively new) and to establish procedures for core activities could begin. Semester two involved semester one promulgation of examination results, Oscail examination results, Oscail registration, and the Summer Examination Result process. There were some difficulties throughout as new procedures were adopted but successful operations were documented as 'Standard Operating Procedures' for future reference.

11,525 students were registered during the 2000/2001 academic year.

Examinations

Semester one examinations were held from 15-24 January 2001 and semester two examinations took place from 14-26 May 2001. Close to 400 examination papers were processed and reproduced for each diet of examinations. On average 7 exam centres were in operation daily, three times per day. Over 100 invigilators were employed to supervise the exam centres. Approximately 4,500 students took examinations during each diet of examinations in 2001. The autumn (repeat) examinations were held from 20th August to 1st September 2001 and students studying through Oscail took their examinations over three weekends in November 2000.

The International desk

International exchange links
DCU has active exchange links with ca 118 universities across 22 countries worldwide. The total number of incoming exchange students during this year was 278, and the total number of outgoing DCU exchange students was 225.

EU SOCRATES programme
Student & Staff Mobility: A total of 226 DCU students were funded, under the Socrates programme to carry out a recognised period of study abroad. Of these, 162 were year abroad students from International Marketing and Languages, Applied Languages, Computational Linguistics, Chemistry with a Language and Physics with a Language). A series of meetings were held with these students concerning their year abroad.

Others funded include those going to France for two years as part of their European Business degree, and students from Journalism, MSc in Science Communication, Engineering and International MBA.

Countries of destination were: France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Austria, UK.

The total grant amount received for student mobility was Euro 276,785, an increase of Euro 57,785 on 1999/2000.

Three lecturers in DCU received funding under the Socrates programme to undertake periods of teaching in an EU university.

Some 249 Socrates exchange students were at DCU during the year. Two Orientation Programmes were held for the new students - in September 2000 and February 2001.

Japan
During 2000/2001, 22 DCU students spent the third year of their degree programme in Japan (i.e. students from International Marketing and Languages, International Business and Languages and Applied Languages). Declan Collins, Director of the Irish Trade Board in Tokyo, continued his liaison with DCU in the organisation of student visas.

International policy
February 2001: A Working Party chaired by Dr Anne Sinnott submitted a report to Executive on "International Policy - A discussion paper on DCU's Strategy on International Issues" which was approved.
June 2001: This was followed by an "International Office Business Plan" prepared by Dr Anne Sinnot and Ms Christine Burke, also approved.

China education fair
The International Desk was involved for the first time in the joint IEBI/EI education fairs held in China. DCU participated in the fairs in Beijing and Shanghai, and met with local agents and embassy representatives. The DCU stand, under the "Education Ireland" banner had a constant heavy flow of visitors.

Visitors to DCU:

March 2001	Fr. Donal Doyle & Fr. Deely of Sophia University made his annual visit to DCU with 18 of his students. DCU has a long-standing exchange agreement with this University.
April/May 2001	Visits of Shenzen Delegation from China to meet with President and colleagues from School of Computer Applications.
May 2001	Prof. Michael Gregory, Dean of the College of Administrative Sciences in the Sultanate of Oman.
June 2001	Visiting delegation led by Vice-Mayor of Dalian, China.
June 2001	Dr. Griffin Walling, Assistance Vice President of Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York
July 2001	Mandy Weyer Brown of Ecole Nationale des Telecommunications, Paris.

Graduation

The University conferred 1,753 students at the November 2000 Conferring ceremony and 478 students were due to be conferred at the March 2001 ceremony. Due to the restrictions, at the time, on large meetings of people from various parts of the country arising from the Foot and Mouth emergency, it was not possible to convene the Graduation Ceremony planned for the 24th March. A formal Convocation Ceremony took place in the University on 24th March with the appropriate people who were legally required to be present, i.e. the Chancellor, President, Registrar, Assistant Registrar, Deans and Directors of Programmes. Parchments were posted to those graduands who selected to be conferred in absentia. Graduands who selected to be formally presented with their parchments were invited to a future conferring ceremony in the university.

Research student administration

The University currently has over 420 registered Masters and PhD research students.

A total of five Master's and thirteen PhD research students graduated in March 2001 and sixteen Master's and seventeen PhD research students graduated in November, 2001.

A total of approximately 180 postgraduate research applications were processed through the Registry throughout the 2000/2001 academic year. The review of academic regulations for postgraduate degrees by research and thesis is ongoing.