CASE STUDY The efforts of public higher education institutions to provide society with access to tertiary education are complemented and supplemented in a significant way by private higher education institutions. Contrary to public higher education institutions, private institutions are profit-driven businesses where earning a profit is just as important as offering students a top-notch education. To draw in students, it's crucial to build and maintain a reputation because many were started by motivated individuals. The institutions can become more competitive and continue to operate with more students enrolled.

Pride University's goal is to offer and deliver high-quality instruction to all of its students. It holds that every student possesses a hidden talent that can be developed and refined. The university, which is situated in Peninsular Malaysia's southern state, provides undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral social science programmes. There are 1,570 postgraduate students enrolled there right now. 320 of these students are enrolled in doctoral programmes. Students must complete their doctoral studies within three years. For doctoral students, the university's administrators created a specific plan known as milestones so that they could finish their studies within the allotted time. The milestones state that doctoral students must defend their final theses in the sixth semester and their doctoral proposals in the second semester. Along with the advancement of their studies, they must also attend conferences and work on publishing journal articles. At Pride University, developing a network is seen as crucial because it enables students to meet professionals in their fields and unintentionally raises awareness of Pride University among business and society. Like all other higher education institutions, Pride University faces difficulties in achieving its objectives. There are many instances of doctoral students performing below par. More than half of them are unable to finish their studies in that time. Even some students failed to present their work for defence in the sixth semester. Students discovered they lacked the skills they needed to successfully complete their studies in the doctoral programme, despite their initial enthusiasm for beginning their journey. For instance, they are unable to write the thesis in accordance with academic standards. In comparison to master's and undergraduate studies, the standard for language use in doctoral studies is higher. Other factors contributing to this issue include sabotaging efforts, losing motivation, and abusing study leave privileges. As a result, a lot of students had their enrollment terminated for not finishing their studies within three years. The argument is that the student is ineligible to pursue a doctoral degree. "Not everyone qualifies to pursue doctoral study," one of the professors said. The Board of Governance at Pride University holds a different viewpoint. They are not pleased with how many students are being expelled. It's because an increasing number of student dismissals would damage the university's reputation. Additionally, if it continues, fewer students would enrol, which would ultimately have an impact on how much money was generated. They came to the conclusion that all faculties should refrain from simply dismissing the doctoral students who are not meeting the milestones after discussing this matter in the most recent Board meeting in July 2022. Instead, the faculty administrators must take initiative to make sure that the students can perform well and finish their doctoral studies on schedule. The Pride Business School responded well to this challenge. Following a directive from the Dean to put together a task force to develop potential solutions, the Director of the Doctoral Program, Dr. Hameed, did so right away. One professor, two associate professors, and three senior lecturers made up the team. Their main responsibility was to identify the issue and offer solutions. The Dean advised Dr. Hameed to not rely on the current solutions but rather to seek out fresh, innovative ones. The task force was also asked by the Dean to deliver the new solution one month prior to the December 2022 meeting of the Board of Governance. Dr. Hameed and the team members made sure the Dean and faculty leaders were fully behind them. The Dean said to Dr. Hameed when he inquired about financial aid, "Let's see what you have in the plan first." The task force immediately gathered all the data required to begin working on their assigned task after the team's discussion. The academic department of the school provided them with student records and progress reports, and they also conducted interviews with a number of lecturers who served as the doctoral students' supervisors and had a variety of professional backgrounds. The University's Research Publication e-information Repository's on registered publications and doctoral milestones served as another primary source. The task force discovered that there was no comprehensive system connecting all the resources to gauge student performance. Only a few students actually did this, despite the requirement that the discussion points between a doctoral student and his or her respective supervisor must be recorded in the manual Meeting Record Book. It was too late for students to take corrective action because they were only informed of their performance at the end of the semester. In order to track the progress and performance of the doctoral student over a three-year period, the task force developed a prototype dashboard that linked all crucial variables. The task force developed the prototype for Pivot Tables and graphs using Microsoft Excel VBA (Visual Basic for Application). The dashboard, called MyXS, included the following features: daily progress, publication progress, achievement of milestones, and overall performance. With the help of this dashboard, each student in the doctoral programme at the Pride Business School was able to monitor their progress ever since they enrolled. However, in order to submit their theses for the final thesis defence or viva, students had to reach the milestones (see Appendix). If students don't meet the milestones within the allotted time, corrective measures must be taken. Dr. Hameed tested the prototype with a number of doctoral students and their advisors before presenting it. Overall, they were all pleased with the MyXS prototype. It would be better if you could automate everything here, said one lecturer. It is simpler for us to frequently check the progress. Another lecturer commented, "I assume the corrective actions are taken arbitrarily by the respective supervisors," in response to the feedback. All of the participants were thanked by Dr. Hameed for their feedback and ideas. He and his team viewed it favourably because they were aware that once the system was put into operation, users might be interested in adopting it. Dr. Hameed and his team presented the prototype during a faculty meeting in the first week of December 2022. The attendees of the meeting praised their efforts. To Dr. Hameed, the Dean repeated the same comment, saying, "I love your prototype, but it depends on the Board of Governance's final decision. You could submit your system development budget if they agree. If not, we'll look into how we can help.

Observation:

Figure 1 depicts the final sunburst chart when a student has completely failed to meet the requirement. When a student first enrols, this image is anticipated. 2. The final sunburst chart is shown in Figure 2, showing some good development. When a student has begun their doctoral journey, especially if they are already in semester 3, this visual is expected. 3. The sunburst chart that results after a student completes all the requirements is shown in Figure 3. A student in their final semester should have this visual.

QUESTION 1:

What factors led to the founding of MyXS? Defend your position.

QUESTION 2:

Assess the MyXS prototype's usefulness.

QUESTION 3:

Describe three (3) significant structural or personal obstacles to implementing MyXS at the Pride Business School.