How NashTech helped Aston University complete around a year’s worth of SITS eVision modernisation in one focused project, creating a more consistent mobile experience without pulling its internal team away from other priorities.
At Aston University in the UK, SITS and SITS eVision support the full student lifecycle. Registry and admissions teams rely on SITS to manage student administration from application and enrolment onwards, and applicants, students and staff use eVision through what the university calls My Aston Portal (MAP).
MAP (eVision) is one of the first digital experiences many applicants have with Aston University and remains a regular touchpoint throughout their studies. However, the university had been running an older version of the MAP user interface (UI) for some time, affecting the student experience.
As James Longmore, Director of Digital Services at Aston University, puts it:
“SITS eVision, or MAP as it’s known at Aston, is at the heart of our applications architecture. When the experience feels dated or inconsistent, students notice. Student experience is absolutely crucial to us.”
Aston wanted to move its MAP screens into responsive mode. Responsive mode would provide a more modern, enhanced interface for eVision pages and forms. This was one of the key building blocks enabling the university to clean up the UI and provide a more modern, consistent look to the portal and make forms and pages much easier to use on mobile devices, critical for Aston’s students.
“Having a mix of differently rendered screens didn’t give students the consistent, modern experience they expect — especially on mobile. By moving fully into ‘responsive mode’, we’ve been able to create a much cleaner, more accessible experience that better supports students throughout their journey with Aston.”
James Longmore, Aston University
The university knew what was needed, but its capacity was constrained after losing a member of its SITS team and having many competing priorities for the team’s time. Completing the work internally would have meant fitting it around business-as-usual responsibilities, stretching delivery over a long period and diverting specialist staff from other priorities.
“It was about packaging up probably a year’s worth of work to deliver it in one step, quickly and easily, without taking up our internal team’s time.”James Longmore, Aston University
The alternative was not as simple as hiring a contractor. Experienced SITS capability is difficult to secure, while using a premium UK development house for repeatable eVision interface work would have been disproportionately expensive. Aston needed a partner with the right platform knowledge, a reliable delivery model and the ability to take ownership of a defined body of work – without leaving the university to manage every detail.
After hearing about NashTech’s experience with SITS eVision at a nearby university, Aston engaged NashTech through the G-Cloud framework for a fixed period. The objective was to convert the remaining eVision forms and pages into enhanced mode in one coordinated project, creating a more standardised and modern experience across the portal.
The engagement began with deliberate preparation.
NashTech helped Aston’s team understand how to define requirements, use the agreed pro forma and set a clear definition of done. Regular planning sessions and delivery meetings created a predictable rhythm, while the NashTech team in Vietnam worked as an extension of Aston’s SITS systems team.
“I was impressed with how easily the NashTech Vietnam team integrated into our systems admin team. It was certainly easier than any other engagements we've had with development partners.”
James Longmore, Aston University
This was important because Aston had not previously used an offshore delivery model within this team. Rather than asking the university to invent a new process, NashTech brought established ways of working and coached Aston’s colleagues in how to get the best from the engagement. The up-front effort paid off: work flowed smoothly, questions were resolved through clear points of contact.
“The regular points of contact, the scrums and the meetings worked very, very well.”
James Longmore, Aston University
Initial uncertainty within the team quickly gave way to confidence. The two teams integrated easily, and NashTech was able to progress independently once each piece of work had been specified.
Head of Enterprise Applications, Lee Boehm worked closely with the NashTech team and said:
“The main contribution to the success was that NashTech stood up BA, developer, quality assurance and project management resource. This meant that we could ‘bookend’ the development cycle, feeding in requirements and answering questions and then receiving back a completed piece of work to feed our test and release cycle.”
During Aston’s Christmas closure, the delivery team continued working through the agreed pipeline; when Aston returned, the prepared work had been completed, and the internal team could immediately move on to the next set of priorities.
“One of the practical benefits for us was the way the timing worked. Like many UK universities, we have a decent Christmas break, and because the NashTech team over in Vietnam was working to a different holiday schedule, they were able to keep momentum going while we were away. We made sure they had a good pipeline of work before we broke up, and when we came back, they had worked through it. That meant our team could pick things straight back up and move on to the next priorities.”
James Longmore, Aston University
By packaging the work into a focused engagement, Aston completed around a year’s worth of eVision activity in a much shorter period.
All of its non-reactive pages were moved into enhanced responsive pages, replacing a mixture of old and newer interfaces with a more consistent experience.
The practical difference is particularly valuable for students using smartphones. Tasks that could previously be inconvenient on a small screen, such as submitting a request for an assignment extension, can now be completed more easily on the device students already use.
A student commenting on the wider ‘student view’ improvement project, of which NashTech’s work was a part, said
“Absolutely brilliant, keep it up. This was the change I wanted when I first joined Aston, and I finally got it as I was leaving. It's nice to know a new generation of students will experience something much better than what I detested for four years.”
Aston University Student
The result supports Aston’s wider ambition to simplify digital touchpoints and present a modern experience from the application stage onwards.
Just as importantly, NashTech took responsibility for delivery of key project components while Aston’s internal specialists continued with other deliverables and the important operational work that only they could do.
NashTech provided platform-relevant eVision experience, the flexibility to mobilise for a defined period and a managed team that could deliver without adding any administrative ‘management’ overhead.
“NashTech's offshore offering really gives you a fair price point but without the management overhead, admin concerns and the considerations you need to have when working with UK contractors.”
James Longmore, Aston University
This gave Aston confidence that it could call on proven capability when a specific need emerged, rather than waiting for scarce individual resource or allowing important work to remain stuck behind other operational priorities.
The engagement also built trust beyond the immediate project. Aston has already explored other areas where NashTech could help, and James has recommended the NashTech team to peers – perhaps the clearest sign that the relationship delivered more than additional capacity.
“It turned out to be a good engagement for us. It showed us what NashTech could do. I’ve already recommended NashTech to other university technology leaders.”
James Longmore, Aston University
If scarce capability, competing priorities or the management burden of contractors is slowing down your student systems roadmap, NashTech can help.
Our teams bring specialist SITS eVision delivery capability, dependable ways of working and the flexibility to tackle a defined project or support a longer programme.
Talk to us about your SITS and eVision priorities or learn more about our work in the education sector.