Today@Dal

Over the past few months, many of you have heard about Dalhousie’s participation in the UniForum program — whether through your Faculty/unit, through meetings with groups like DPMG members, or through participation in the Service Effectiveness Survey.
 
The UniForum program enables Dalhousie to compare the quality and cost of 70 administrative services with other universities within Canada and around the world — helping us ensure we’re delivering effective, efficient supports to our faculty and staff who rely on them in their daily work. You can learn more about UniForum at dal.ca/uniforum
 
The Service Effectiveness Survey was the first part of this year’s process. It assesses satisfaction with administrative services. Approximately 2,000 faculty and staff who, based on their roles, are likely to interact with a wide range of administrative services, were invited to participate. Part one was conducted in November, while part two concluded last month. To ensure the data is representative and useful, UniForum requires a minimum percentage of responses.
 
We are pleased to share that Dalhousie met our targets in both the fall and spring surveys. In fact, the April survey received one of the highest response rates of any university ever enrolled in the UniForum program.
 
Thank you to everyone who participated in this important process. We know finding time to respond to a survey that coincides with financial year-end and the conclusion of the academic year can be challenging. Because of your thoughtful responses, we have wide participation across Dal’s departments and can be confident when using the data to inform our decisions.
 
The next phase of UniForum will take place this June and July when many Dalhousie administrators will be asked to contribute to a data collection exercise. This will gather information on how administrative services are delivered across the institution. Together with the results of the Service Effectiveness Survey, this will provide a more wholistic picture of what services are working well, suggest areas where services can be more effective and efficient, and help ensure we’re making the best use of our resources in support of our mission. Individuals who will be asked to participate in this data collection exercise can expect to receive more information in the coming weeks.
 
Thank you for your support of the UniForum process.  We look forward to working with you to achieve our shared goal of co-creating exciting administrative services!
 
If you have any questions about UniForum, please contact uniforum@dal.ca and we’ll be happy to answer them.
 
Thanks again,
 
Angela Scammell
Senior Director, UniForum
uniforum@dal.ca