University ASPs can benefit both the host institution and smaller client colleges, but there's a cloud on the horizon.
The Houston Community College System is operationally decentralized, with six colleges and 26 campuses spread out across 660 square miles. With faculty and staff running their own reports in different formats using data from various sources and time periods, it was not uncommon last year to find six different versions of the same report. HCC’s Vice Chancellor of Information Technology explains how a BI solution implemented in the past year has provided centralized online reporting, a dashboard, and consistent information for better decision making.
Edison State College has added Higher One's CASHNet ePayment to allow students to make electronic payments.
The California Community College system is turning to business process management software to streamline the work behind issuing grants to schools to help students in healthcare fields.
SunGard Higher Education has introduced a repository where customers can share functional enhancements, scripts, tools, and other contributions with each other. The Shared Code Repository is part of SunGard's Community Source Initiative and will include contributions from the company as well.
TopSchool has begun rolling out version 3.0 of its student lifecycle management suite, TopSchool SLM.
In the push to improve student performance, two universities institute comprehensive, data-driven systems to assess their departments.
Managing myriad institutional goals and objectives is complicated. Dashboard software can provide top-level metrics at a glance, with easy access to more detailed data below the surface.
While it would be naïve to think that every CIO can achieve such a rapport with his CFO, understanding the importance of a solid relationship with the head of finance is critical to success, both for the IT department and the institution as a whole. Never has this been truer than in today's bleak economy, as CFOs become increasingly cautious about initiatives that involve significant expense, yet information technology can help achieve efficiencies that will improve the bottom line.
The University of South Carolina has embarked on an ambitious ERP project that will bring the institution's IT infrastructure out of the dark ages.