A semantic-based approach for automating compliance by the design of digital services - a case study in the academic sector

Abstract

Monitoring University students’ progress, in an interactive, synchronised, and coordinated way across a given study program is a challenge. Indeed, for a given student journey, University actors need a service offering personalised views and actions depending on their role (students, study advisors, scientific committee, faculty members, admission office), all linked to the same underlying information system, and abiding study regulations. The challenge is even greater when it comes to scaling up and providing such service for the whole University community (approx. 23K members in Geneva). Following a service science approach, we derived a method for automatically generating a service, compliant by design to study regulations, and offering personalised views to the various actors. The automatic implementation of the study regulations is based on the definition of generic rules able to define the different elements of the regulations that need to be respected across all curricula and programs. We provide a case study based on the PhD students regulations. We describe a proof-of-concept instantiating the service from the rules, role-centric views of the interface, as well as the underlying architecture relying on a semantic reasoning engine. The work presented in this paper has the potential to alleviate and improve the tasks of all the various actors involved in students monitoring, going beyond PhD students. This approach automatises the implementations of any study program and can be applied to any University.