A study on stakeholder’s satisfaction of using Education Business Management Information Systems (EBMIS) tool in the University of Rwanda

Abstract

A study aimed to investigate the role of the Education Business Management Information Systems (EBMIS) tool plays in the operation and  management of the University of Rwanda focusing on staff and students. We carried out a mixed-method study in five colleges of the University of Rwanda including headquarters targeting students and staff. On the one hand, the study finds out that through EBMIS, timely application and registration online were good services whereby 25.7 % of students and 27% of staff were satisfied with the services respectively. The 10.7 % of students highlighted that Information technology is able to check the history of the payment process of tuition fees and 8.8% were able to access the passing modules. In addition, 55.8% of students failed to use the system during registration and application during holidays. Consequently,  students come to the registration offices for assistance by staff in each college, which is costing, and time-consuming. On the other hand, the  majority of staff met the difficulties of using the EBMIS to render services in between as well as to the students due to the low skills on the system. Therefore, the students’ big lines in front of offices such as offices of Collegesꞌ registrar and repeatable claims from students are still unavoidable.  Hence, the use of EBMIS is not common practice in the whole services of the colleges in University of Rwanda. About, the knowledge gap, 56 % of staff do not know Information Technology System and hence 77% have not been trained at all on Information Technology System, among the  trained staff, 55.1 % used at least 20% of EBMIS. The findings of the study showed that the Information Technology System is under exploitation at the University of Rwanda. However, the management of all data information from merged colleges is still critical due to the lack of technical skills  and knowledge among users. Although, the University of Rwanda supports students and staff to explore this system through pieces of training in-country and abroad. Yet, there is still a big gap in skills of efficiency using the EBMIS and therefore, its productivity is still sub-standard.

Keywords: Information Technology (IT), students, staffs, service delivery, operation