University of Colorado’s System Replacement Projects

1. University of Colorado’s System Replacement Projects Student Information System Degree Audit System

2. Current System • Has been in place since 1988 (since early ’90’s for degree audit). • Core system of record for Admissions, Advising, Student Records, Student Billing and Receivables, Financial Aid. • 4,000 faculty/staff/administrators use it. • Over 60,000 students use it.

3. Why does it need replacing? • Our current SIS is 20 years old and uses outdated technology. • The needs and expectations of our students, faculty, and staff have changed considerably over the last two decades. This was confirmed during various demonstrations and town halls that we’ve held over the last few years. • Vendor support for our current system ends in 2009. • Due to retirements and evolving technology, fewer people have the programming skills needed to keep the current system running. The university faces a significant risk of SIS failing or being out of compliance beyond 2009.

4. Objectives of the new systems • Provide a system that substantially improves service to students, faculty, staff and other users taking into account growing service demand and stable or shrinking staffing and fiscal budgets. • Implement one integrated University system of record for student and program data but yet allow for flexibility to meet campus and academic unit needs. • Improve the quality and timeliness of the data that is stored and empower end-users with access to tools for data analysis.

5. Principles of the Project • Formal project management structure – includes project teams, advisory & steering committees, etc. • Inclusive governance – faculty, staff and students as well as campus administrators and executives. • Decision making at multiple levels. • Open and effective communications. • Balance between technology replacement and business improvement.

6. What is Degree Audit? • Tool that can assist students, faculty and advisors in: • Measuring progress towards degree. • Tracking student coursework towards individual requirements (MAPS, Core, major, minor, etc.) • Storing course equivalencies (to course level, core area, individual course) in tables, both from inside and outside of CU, especially for known “feeder’ schools. • Provide support for automated graduation checkout. • Can provide course demand analysis. • Assist in recruiting and retaining top academic transfer students.

7. Who can use degree audit? • Enrolled students to track progress towards degree and requirements and can get advice on changing majors through “what if” audits. • Prospective transfer students could use this to see if their courses from other institutions would be accepted. • Faculty and Professional advisors can use this to advise and eliminate unnecessary paper work to track progress towards requirements and degree. It could also perform an automated graduation checkout.

8. Degree Audit Timeline • RFP sent – September 2006 • RFP due – Early October 2006 • Scripted demo – October 31 – November 2 • Evaluation team arrives at vendor decision in November 2006. • Contract signing in process, January 07. • Project begins January 2007.

9. What is the Student Information System? • Tracks student data from the prospect stage all of the way through graduation or last attendance at any CU institution or site. • Also tracks course, faculty and room scheduling data. • Hundreds of thousands of student records, primarily 1988 and beyond.

10. Student bio-demo Student & Parent/Emergency contact info. Stops/Probation info. Program info (major/minor/class) Enrollment information Academic History Transfer Credit Admissions data Transcript Financial Aid data Student employment data Billing data Progress to Degree Student Data Includes:

11. Inventory of all courses offered, primarily since 1988 Characteristics of the course – lec/lab/rec, etc., core content, cr. hrs, enrollment history, etc. Courses offered each semester Course catalog descriptions Instructor Data Classroom Inventory Specific classroom request for term Assigned classroom Ad hoc classroom scheduling Faculty/Course/Room Data includes:

12. Who can use the Student Information System? • All students use it at least one time each semester (when they register and pay their bills), and most likely many, many times through CUConnect or ChooseCU portals. Financial aid award notification, bills, degree audits, schedules, grades and address changes are all SIS data. • All faculty with portal or web access for their class rosters, view degree audits, get reports of students like grade sheets or other reports. • Approximately 4,000 staff members who view and update SIS on a daily basis.

13. SIS Replacement Timeline • RFP sent early September. • RFP is returned by late October. • Scripted demos occurred. • Decision made on vendor early January 2007.

14. SIS Replacement Timeline (cont.) • Fit/gap analysis in February through May 2007. • Contract signing in May 2007. • Project begins July 2007.

15. Implementation TimelineGo Live Dates! • Degree Audit - 2007 • Admissions and Course – Summer 2009 • Financial Aid – January 2010 • Student Records/Registration (for Fall 2010 registration) – Spring 2010 • Student Billing – Summer 2010

16. Chosen Vendors • Degree Audit – • DARS/DARwin (Degree Audit Reporting System from Miami University of Ohio) • SIS Replacement - • Oracle Campus Solutions

17. Project Scope • Admissions, recruitment, Customer Relationship Management • Degree Audit/graduation checkout/transfer credit • Course and classroom scheduling • Course inventory • Student Registration and Records • Financial Aid/Student Employment

18. Project Scope (cont.) • Billing and Receivables System • Data on course instructors and teaching assistants. • Academic Advising • Workflow and automation tools to enhance productivity. • Self-service functionality for students, faculty, staff and others.

19. Project Scope (cont.) • Data warehousing and reporting. • Interfaces to other internal and external systems, to be defined in a later phase of the project. • Implementation of portal strategy, either by integration with existing portal implementations or through the vendor provided portal.

20. Possibly in Scope • Document Imaging/Management • Better integration with or incorporation of campus shadow systems

21. Not in Scope • Learning Management System • Housing Management System • Library Management System • fsaAtlas for SEVIS compliance • But integration with all will be required.

22. - Ability to query much more data in the system real-time. A more user friendly system, so training should be easier Ability for faculty and staff to view what students are viewing. Easier to audit data. Significant improvement in communications to students through: Ability to set-up communication plans. Automation of manual processes today. More efficient means to track correspondence. Potential for cell phone messaging, easier web/portal updates, pod casting and blogs. What can a new system do for us?Easier to use/more efficient

23. XML generated e-mails and PDF’s to allow better communication. Student tracking of in-progress grades through instructor gradebook. Course planner that allows students to integrate their plan with registration for the semester or into the future. Conditional drop/add Ability for prospective students to view what courses might transfer in to CU. Ability for students (as well as advisors and faculty) to get separate degree audits for courses still needed and courses completed. Ability for the audit to find the shortest path to fill the greatest number of degree requirements. Greater workflow in the portal which will require less running around. Ability to register from the schedule planner. What could a new system do for us?For students -

24. Electronic gradebook Web-based grading On-line prerequisite checking at registration. Better notification to the student if they are repeating a course they have already completed. Student photo rosters for classes or advisees. Use of workflow for processes such as change of grade, course proposal, late drop and add, etc. Ability to predefine a template of courses students can take based upon major requirements, then link into registration. What can a new system do for us?Faculty/Advisors

25. Create new fields and define new data elements within core offices. Ability to schedule batch jobs daily without UMS assist. Expiration dates on stops. Improved user security to view or update student records. Electronic transcript process using XML or PDF processing. Integration with a common imaging system. Ability to store multiple majors/minors/certificates Multiple GPA’s can be stored. What can a new system do for us?Core Student offices

26. More control over how tuition and fees are assessed. Greater flexibility and automation of billing. True non-student (parent/relative/guardian) interaction on payments, account detail, refunds) through self-service. Easier and more accurate setup of tuition and fee parms, finance charges, billing, stops, refunds. Ability to award financial aid according to more complex rules and automate processing for more complex programs. True third party billing processing. What can a new system do for us?Billing/Financial Aid -

27. Project Budget • Current estimated budget is $47.5 M, which includes internal reallocation of funds of $1.9 million. Budget will be finalized next spring. This budget is very comparable to similar projects at large research universities. • $20.0 M Project Staffing • $12.5 M Hardware and Software • $11.8 M Vendor Consultants • $1.5 M Degree Audit System • $1.2 M Project Operations • $.5 M Gap Fit Analysis

28. Project Funding • To date, the President has committed about $22 M from his initiative funds towards funding the project. • Additionally, President Brown has a strong preference of providing additional initiative funds to further support the project, but needs to balance the project needs with other competing needs in the university. • Given that, other funding options, which include use of student fees and/or additional campus funding, are being considered. • Over the course of the next several months, the Vice Presidents, campus CFO’s and the President’s Executive Team (including the Chancellors) will evaluate the options, leading up to a presentation and recommendation to the Regents in the Spring of 2007.

29. We are not alone… • Other institutions implementing or recently implemented new student systems: • Colorado – Colorado State University, community college system, University of Northern Colorado (all implementing Banner) • AAU Institutions – Illinois (Banner), Indiana (Oracle), USC, UC Santa Barbara, Cal-Berkeley (Various), U-Chicago (Matrix), North Carolina, Ohio State (Oracle), Missouri (Oracle), Virginia (Oracle), Kansas State (Oracle)

30. Why Oracle over Sungard? • Profound functional differences between the products • Oracle one or two generations ahead • Strong areas included: student self-service, prerequisite checking, concurrent registration, enrollment management and overall flexibility • Strong Higher Education user group with universities like CU • Significantly lower price than Sungard

31. Evaluation Committee Quotes • “Simply put, Oracle seems a better fit for a multi-institution environment such as ours. In the written requirements, and particularly in the demos, Sungard seemed to require substantial customization for even basic cross-institution functionality (e.g., viewing academic history from all campuses on a single screen). While Sungard’s customizations could eventually meet these needs, it is hard to see how this could result in a better product than one, such as Oracle, that handles this core requirement much more natively.”

32. Evaluation Committee Quotes • “The Academic Administrator & Faculty work team is confident that the functionality provided by the Oracle/Peoplesoft product best fits the complex needs of the CU system.” • “Oracle offers greater flexibility and functionality in the definition of the academic structure itself, particularly in the variety of academic outcomes (majors, minors, certificates, etc.) that can be defined. Oracle also handles associations of outcomes with responsible units (colleges, departments) more flexibly. Potentially stronger integration with the HR and GL systems also gives Oracle an edge.”

33. Different from the ASP Project in Significant Ways The Administrative Streamlining Project (ASP) was launched in1996 to reengineer the university’s financial and HR processes, and implement Peoplesoft Finance and HRMS software. The focus was on reengineering with the system as a tool to accomplish that goal • Grassroots desire for replacement of SIS. SIS Replacement much more campus-driven. • Replacing old technology; improving business processes, not top-down reengineering from CU System Office. • If desired, an individual campus, school or department may decide to take advantage of new capabilities to reorganize how their work is done. We will seek ways to take advantage of the new system to improve services and be more efficient and effective

34. Different from ASP, cont’d • Inclusive project governance, open decision making, open communication • Wide range of participation from university community • Major “Fit/Gap” process before implementation “No surprises” is our goal.

35. Keep in Mind • The functionality of the software will necessitate some changes in how we do our jobs.   Software implementation is never easy! We should expect to have some difficulties along the way.

36. Overview Demos in February • On each campus – if you haven’t seen the software yet, please come see it. Location and date TBA.

37. Project Team Dave Makowski, Asst. VP for Computing and Information Systems –303-492-9156, dave.makowski@cusys.edu Trish Pottersmith, Director, SIS Systems Development – 303-492-1971, trish.pottersmith@cusys.edu Campus Project Liaisons Boulder – Barb Todd, barbara.todd@colorado.edu, 303-492-2459 Colorado Springs – Steve Ellis, sellis@uccs.edu, 719-262-3375 Denver – Teri Burleson, teri.burleson@cudenver.edu, 303-556-2734 or Kaye Orten, kaye.orten@cudenver.edu, 303-556-6153 HSC – Ingrid eschholz, ingrid.eschholz@uchsc.edu, 303-315-4352 Contacts