Since the establishment of the HKIEd in 1994, there has been an increasing need for the Institute to develop an equitable and accountable policy to facilitate and inform academic manpower planning, forecasting and allocation of resources to various departments.

The Directorate (it was renamed as the Offices of the President in 2002) formed a joint workforce in March 1997 to review the policy and principles for workload calculation, practicum loadings and staff-student ratio (SSR). Members of the workforce included the Chairmen of the four Board of Studies and Directors of the three Divisions (now replaced by Schools).

The Head of Academic Implementation (renamed as Head of Planning and Academic Implementation in 1998) and the Senior Computer Officer (MIS) of the Office of Information Technology and Services have subsequently been in charge of the development of a management information system on academic manpower planning and monitoring. This is the first management information system developed in the Institute.

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In 1997, after the Institute adopted the principles for workload calculation, MIS/ITS began to build up a prototype of the AMIS in MS Excel environment by using teaching and practicum data of 1996/97 academic year.

The academic manpower plans for 1997/98 and 1998/99 were worked out on the basis of this prototype. Subsequent refinements were made in response to feedbacks from Schools and other users. At the same time, the PAI Office and the MIS/ITS have initiated the development of AMIS, a computerised database system which aimed to enhance the efficiency and reliability of our work.

The development of the AMIS was undertaken in two phases.  The first phase, being completed in April 1999, included development of features in system security, planning parameters, ADP, programme and practicum information, and Workload Adjustment.  Functions like reporting and inquiry, forecasting and information for UGC CDCF returns were developed in the second phase and had also been completed in mid-2000.  During the development stage, the PAI and the MIS/ITS had to handle the outstanding functions manually to provide necessary information for use by the senior management and other user offices.

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The AMIS aims to provide computer aided/automated functions to support yearly and triennial academic manpower planning and monitoring, which involve calculation of academic staff establishment based on programme and practicum load data and functional appointments. The System will also provide timely information to support strategic planning of the Institute.

Specifically, the AMIS supports the following planning functions and operations of the Institute:

• Decision making related to academic staff recruitment, deployment and re-appointment

• Monitoring of departmental staffing plan implementation

• Forecasting staffing requirement of the Institute

• Analysing workload information in terms of teaching and practicum

• Calculating of workload requirement of programmes

• Supporting financial budgeting and library book funds allocation

• Providing information for UGC CDCF Returns, particularly in the mapping of cost centres and Academic Programme Categories (APC)

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Training Sessions 

As the AMIS was developed under different phases, a total of 5 tailor-made training workshops had been organised for each phase throughout April 1999 to January 2000.  All the workshops were well received by around 93 colleagues who were mainly from the Schools, academic departments and administrative offices, e.g. Finance Office, Library, Human Resources Department and Registry.

Training workshop held on 

19 April 1999

8 June 1999

17 January 2000