Microsoft Innovation Award for Otago Polytechnic

Microsoft Innovation Award for Otago Polytechnic

Otago Polytechnic has won a prestigious Microsoft Innovation Award for its online Performance Portal, a resource that has become a central location for the institute’s educational and financial performance data.

The Performance Portal is accessible by all Polytechnic staff, but the data it provides is mainly aimed at Heads of Schools, Programme Managers, Leadership Team and Council.

The Polytechnic’s Business Solutions Manager, Gayle Reihana, says it is a resource that enables Schools and Service Areas to quickly and accurately gauge their performance.

“Making key information more accessible and readily available is a pet passion of mine. Nowadays, organisations constantly put data into systems, and yet when it’s needed quickly it can seem so hard to extract the information required. The Performance Portal has really changed that at Otago Polytechnic,” she says.

The Performance Portal has been awarded the Microsoft Award for Innovation in Integrating Everything for the Organisation, with judges commenting that they were impressed by the pragmatic approach taken by Otago Polytechnic.

“We’ve succeeded where others have tried and failed,” explains Gayle. “This means there is also the potential to offer our services to other tertiary institutes wishing to set up similar systems.”

Otago Polytechnic’s Chief Executive, Phil Ker, is delighted the initiative has received national acclaim. “Our Performance Portal has vastly improved the transparency of our performance data and the ease with which we can assess performance across our Schools and Service Areas and respond accordingly,” he says. “It’s a truly valuable resource and we’re pleased it has been recognised as such by Microsoft.”

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