But there would be a net loss to the deans, and they don't want to lose the money. People would have a really hard time giving up even a small percentage of that. Ed Coate, vice president of business and administrative services at MiraCosta College in California, said that universities need to develop e-commerce campus strategies to avoid the pitfalls that can occur when different vendors working with different units within the university end up competing against themselves. We're just reflecting what's happening in the commercial world, and a lot of us haven't developed good enough integrated information systems. Universities often face other organizational challenges in developing systemwide e-business functions that benefit faculty and staff members, as well as students.
People like to do things their own way.
It's easy to go off and solve the technical problems, but you also need to pay attention to the organizational problems and where you're going to get the data from. Strauss refers to. My job is not to fight them but to bypass them. It's getting all the parts together and getting everyone to work together, that's the real challenge.