Now, higher education institutions can merge processes such as human resources, finance and student enrollment, provide information needed to make good, timely decisions and use desktop reporting and analysis tools. For internal staffs, this brings a willingness to enter previously local office data in the system-wide databases in exchange for being able to retrieve information that cuts across the entire operation. The availability of data sets the stage for expanded web access for students, faculty and staff and opens up the potential for broadcasting key reports to all relevant parties. For students, self-service means faster enrollment and grade lookup. For school executives, it means real-time inquiry.
Faculty has more access to administrative data that helps predict student academic needs.
In fact, the new systems are expected to bring better decisions on all aspects of student services. Tom Hyatt, Associate Vice President for Technology at MICA, says his college is still in implementation, but, for the finance piece that has been done, they have a very pleased internal client. In fact, the new system is better than predicted, so the users expect that the other applications to follow will continue to reengineer and improve operations. Although implementing PeopleSoft brings changes that improve everything in a very competitive market, small and medium institutions do not have the staff to install systems that are a radical departure from the ones they have. IBM is one of most successful implementation partners in the business.