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Collaboration Brings Students, Schools Closer Together

10/7/2004

By Linda L. Briggs

Lansing’s multiple databases in the previous system meant that collaboration between systems was impossible. “We had multiple systems, and obviously with multiple systems you’re getting multiple answers to the same question,” Cerny says. For example, Lansing had over 4,000 Access databases querying the same information but getting different results.

Now, Lansing couldn’t be more please with its solution. The integrated system means data is accessible by different people at Lansing with different needs—meaning that collaboration between various workgroups who need to share data can happen. E-mail, calendars, and files are all stored in the same database. That also makes maintenance much easier. “Integration was our key,” Cerny says. “We wanted things to be simple and integrated for the user and also simple for our staff to be able to maintain.”

As an example of how the collaboration possible with file-sharing is saving Lansing time and money, Cerny cites monthly board meetings. Documents can now be distributed electronically by pointing all attendees to a central shared document, where they can review and comment on them well before the meeting. That saves someone having to pass out paper copies by hand at the last minute, and allows comment and discussion beforehand. That kind of collaboration “has been a tremendous win for our campus,” Cerny says.

USD: Reaching Students Early and Often

At the University of San Diego, a 4,800-student private Catholic university in San Diego, the desire to make a dramatic change in how the school reaches out to prospective students was a key factor in moving to new, collaborative software. The school was looking for nothing less than “the ability to change how higher education d'es business,” says Director of Admissions Steve Pultz. After extensive research, the school selected Oracle Collaboration Suite, and is gradually implementing more and more modules.

Before moving to the Oracle system, USD was running a number of individual homemade systems on a mainframe. “We had [separate] systems for admissions, financial age, records—all sil'ed,” Pultz says. Although some of the systems were best-of-breed vendor products and did their individual jobs well, USD lacked the ability to integrate completely, to grow effectively and efficiently, and to provide an all-important Web interface.

It was what Pultz calls “just an information collection system”—very limiting in terms of growth, and not Web-compatible. Education has become “a very competitive business environment,” Pultz says, and the school wanted a system that let them apply standard business practices to areas like recruiting and student services. Prospective students and their parents are bringing a certain consumer mentality to the college selection process, Pultz says. “They’re shopping… Schools need to be out front about their message.”

USD has done that in a number of ways. First of all, Pultz says, Oracle’s software has allowed more automation of many tasks in the admissions office. Because the system is now integrated with the Internet, students can apply to USD online. Close to 70 percent of applicants took advantage of that last year, thus reducing the school’s data entry requirements by 75 to 80 percent. That efficiency is important because applications to USD have been rising steadily, and “the volume of applications was increasing faster than our ability to process them,” Pultz said.

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