Figure 1 Stakeholders and Services in the Student Dashboard.
"Jonathan is a Senior Academic and Tutor at the University of Southampton. One of his first-year tutees, Andy, is having a problem with his fees and as a result the central University finance department has followed standard procedure and issued a warning letter to Andy and a notice to the School to terminate Andy's studentship if payment is not forthcoming. Andy is in halls and the Accommodation office is also alerted to the situation. In fact it is the fault of the Student Loans Company that the fees are late and Andy was not aware that there was a problem until he received notification from the University. He is worried and upset at being caught in the large University machine and brings the matter to Jonathan's attention and asks for help. Unfortunately Jonathan is unable to easily find out the status of Andy's studentship, the status of his fees payment or his accommodation situation without liaising with three separate administrative departments, all of which have only part of the picture. As a result it takes several weeks to untangle the situation, during which Andy receives several more alarming warning letters about his studentship and accommodation.
Figure 2, an example of a dashboard showing loosely coupled integration of services and the surfacing of data.