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Features
No University is an Island
10/2/2001
Hawaii Pacific University, a multi-campus university based on the island of
Oahu, recently won the Pono Technology Award for its successful implementation
of an academic technology plan that overcame both geographic and technological
hurdles. The Pono Award recognizes Hawaiian organizations that successfully
implement information technologies that improve the institution. Hawaii Pacific
redesigned its campus information technology program, creating a solution that
combines implementation of a campus portal to more efficiently transfer information,
and a plan to take the university wireless within a couple of years.
Hawaii Pacific is spread over nine sites, and getting to each one is time-consuming. There are two primary campuses of HPU. The downtown campus is in central Honolulu and is much like any other urban campus in its layout. The Windward campus, tropical and suburban, covers 135 acres 15 miles from the downtown campus. In addition, HPU operates seven other facilities at military bases spread all over the island. According to J'e Schmiedl, HPU’s Assistant Dean for the Adult Service Center, HPU was wasting a lot of resources trying to connect the many sites through traditional means. “Because students may attend classes at any of our campuses, and because we need to share information from site to site, we were spending a great deal of time and energy providing services to each location.”
The university of 8,800 students and 1,200 employees had been relying on mail, flyers, and other printed materials to communicate with all of its “customers” at each site. After some research, HPU decided to move most of its services online, providing a friendly interface where all of the campus constituents could find information on an as-needed basis. HPU’s Chief Information Officer Justin Itoh calls this “self service,” a trend he has seen in technology implementation for some time. To provide the interface, HPU turned to Campus Pipeline, which created a custom portal called HPU Pipeline. The Campus Pipeline platform integrates with existing SIS systems and SCT, which produced HPU’s registration software.
Schmiedl notes that the Pipeline system frees up people who provide campus services such as the registration and financial aid staff, and gives them the capability to deliver services to students in a convenient, timely manner. “We reduced the time it takes to process grades by 11 days,” he says. “Now this happens much faster, giving students immediate access to their results, and helps us get information like the Dean’s list and suspension and probation lists faster to offices who need that information, like financial aid.”
Citing another example of the efficiency of the new system, Schmiedl points out that recently he was able to fill a campus staff position in three days rather than three weeks because he posted the vacancy online and response to the posting was immediate.
In addition to moving information more efficiently, the new system has helped HPU realize some cost savings in terms of printing, postage, and staff salaries, as less personnel time is taken up with the transfer of information.
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