the case for an oPen digitaL camPus: Part one Working smarter. Working faster. Working more efficiently. That’s always been the promise of technology. But it hasn’t always been the reality. Today, technology on higher education campuses is pervasive, supporting academic and administrative functions well beyond student information or learning management. And while virtually every college and university now has a central IT organization to manage that web of supporting technologies, it seems a new piece is added to the puzzle board daily—challenging even the best IT organization with how to manage resources as effectively as possible. As a technology partner serving 1,800 institutions across the globe, we hear from our higher education customers every day about what they need to manage their campus communities more effectively. Our customers tell us that even while the technologies available to them have proliferated at a dizzying pace, there remain key shortcomings that hinder their ability to sustain and support their missions. Large, monoLithic erP systems. Increasingly our customers want to be more selective about the software they adopt—using only those systems or features or functions that help them pursue their institutional mission more effectively. They want that functionality when they need it—not six months or a year later. They want us to think harder about how we can make our systems more open, flexible, and standards-based. They want delivery options that don’t require an across-the-board purchase
of systems that don’t meet immediate institutional needs. In short, they want more choice. And that means radically rethinking how enterprise class systems are designed, developed, and deployed. costLy, time-consuming, and PainfuL imPLementations and uPgrades. Even the most well-orchestrated implementation comes hand-in-glove with opportunity costs, as your staff scrambles to fulfill its daily obligations while assessing needs, building policy, and mapping, transforming, and loading data into new systems or modules. While expert project planning and management can reduce implementation risk by allocating and using resources effectively, we know our customers need more: implementations that don’t drain critical resources or disrupt important priorities as well as upgrade processes that are simple, straightforward, and reliable, yet still accommodate the functionality you need to maintain your institutional distinctiveness. high costs to buiLd and maintain modifications. Over the years, higher education IT departments have tried to embrace a “one-size-fits-all” management philosophy about their ERP systems and other technology assets as a way to keep control of IT costs, manage upgrades more effectively, and provide a level of fiscal discipline to an everincreasing IT budget.