Win SUMS, lose some
ICU’s digital transformation in line of fire as new Student Group Shop underdelivers.
The move of the online Student Group Shop from eActivities to SUMS, a third-party platform now favoured by Imperial College Union, has been criticised by some representatives of the College’s clubs and societies (CSPs), with one calling the new interface “clunky and harder to navigate.” The shop is used by CSPs to put items such as membership, merchandise, or event tickets on sale.
The eActivities-hosted Student Group Shop stopped supporting new product entries on January 31st, and the payment system behind it will no longer function past 31st March.
Management group representatives who attended the 19th February Activities Forum were unanimous in speaking out against the change, and plans to draft a Council Paper opposing it were floated. Calls were also made for Union staff members, who were absent at the forum, to meet with student representatives.
A petition in the form of an open letter from “a collective of student leaders, CSP committee members, and CSP members” to the ICU Board of Trustees was circulated earlier in the week, collecting 74 signatures as of Wednesday 25th February. Arguing that ICU has “continually provided poor systems for the student body,” the petition demanded a formal apology from ICU and called for greater transparency in its “digital decision-making” process.
The new SUMS-based shop requires all new products to be approved by Union staff, whereas previously products were automatically uploaded. The letter noted that approvals were “significantly delayed”, noting that “[a]t the time of writing, nothing has been approved for over ten days.”
Other shortcomings in the letter’s line of fire included the loss of options to add product descriptions, photos, or drop-down selections for products. The loss of this last feature notably means that multiple sizes of a same item of clothing must be listed separately as individual entries. Moreover, products can no longer be marked as non-refundable or edited after publication.
“This frustration is not ideological resistance to channge,” the letter insisted. “It is based on clear, operational shortcomings which are already affecting students.”
A spokesperson for ICU said: “Student experience matters to ICU, and we take the concerns raised in the open letter seriously. We’re grateful for the feedback and for the opportunity to talk and make improvements for the future. With regards to the shop transition, we are actively working to address issues raised and learn from this experience.
“Our Interim Director of Membership Services has already met with one of the students behind the letter to discuss the issues and explore solutions. The letter was also discussed at ICU’s Board of Trustees meeting. We have implemented quick fixes to address immediate shop operation issues and are developing an action plan that includes clear communications about services and changes, students’ union representation at student meetings, including council forums, to discuss these issues and ongoing dialogue with students to ensure continuous improvement.
“We remain committed to working collaboratively with students to ensure our services meet expectations.”
Nathalie Tedfors Lindell, the Arts & Entertainments Board Chair, said the ability to edit products after their submission was “crucial for student groups,” and often used to update ticketing availabilities in the lead-up to an event.
Tedfors Lindell was also critical of the disappearance of product descriptions, which she said were an “incredibly useful way” to communicate details such as accessibility information with potential buyers. “Not only does the swap to SUMS drastically worsen the process for student groups, it also forces customers to make less informed decisions about their purchases,” she warned.
“From the buyer’s side, the new shop interface is also clunky and harder to navigate, only allowing people to purchase one of an item at a time,” Logan Brooks, the Royal College of Science Union (RCSU) Treasurer, told Felix.
Digital dithering
The move is the latest change enacted as part of Imperial College Union’s digital infrastructure upgrade.
eActivities was originally introduced in 2009-10 to digitalise paper-based claims processes and give CSPs access to live financial information. The custom-made system later grew to facilitate a range of financial and non-financial CSP processes, including room bookings, training, and credit card requests.
Beginning with its 2021-23 Strategic Plan, ICU started to “explore a wider range of more modular third-party applications” to support its bespoke systems, with SUMS selected in 2023 as “a future supplier of a general Union management system.” SUMS, which stands for Students’ Union Management System, is used by over twenty student unions, including those from the universities of Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Reading.
“Our Student Union is one of a kind, and SUMS is not tailored to our students’ needs like eActivities, which was custom made for ICU,” Brooks told Felix. “The Activities Team needs to avoid taking the easy way out and need to invest some time, money, and effort into eActivities, the system made for Imperial students and CSPs,” he added.
The letter to the Board of Trustees also referred to more general issues with ICU’s current digital systems – including “incorrect documents” being posted on its webpage – and took aim at a “dysfunctional” ICU Orders app.
“Overall, the simple solution is to find a new payment provider and revert to eActivities, while the longer solution would hold the Union accountable to a deadline for processing event items for students as well as ensure financials powers are not taken unilaterally from students without any student input,” Brooks said. “Imperial College Union is supposed to be an organisation that supports students and their activities, but all recent actions by the Activities Team completely undermine that.”
