Administrative Systems Migration Project
Rationale, History and Status Report

Ross Peacock
Chair, Administrative Computing Advisory Committee
October 1996

In the fall of 1995 the Information Technology Policy Committee (ITPC) charged the Administrative Computing Advisory Committee (ACAC) with the task of exploring various vendor driven administrative systems solutions and bringing a recommendation to ITPC in June. With mutual agreement that deadline was pushed back until October 8. This charge is consistent with a major recommendation contained in the Fleit report and was given for the following reasons:

Because of the "year 2000 problem", we have no choice but to engage in a major upgrade to our administrative systems. Although this in a sense is a crisis, it is also an opportunity to follow the trend among colleges and universities and move away from in-house development in favor of out-sourcing this development to a vendor specializing in software for higher education. Although the up-front costs are significant, the productivity gains will be substantial as data will be stored in one central database, access will be improved across the campus including to students and error rates will decline. Generally, a new, integrated database would help Oberlin provide improved customer service, make critical management decisions based on more accessible and timely information and encourage streamlining of administrative processes.

Consistent with the charge from ITPC, ACAC believes that migration to a vendor driven administrative systems solution is the best and most efficient way to meet the information technology goals of the institution. We urge in the strongest terms that Oberlin place this project among the highest priority capital budget items.

Late in 1995, ACAC contacted the leading providers of college and university administrative software: CARS, Datatel, PeopleSoft , Quodata, SCT (BANNER and Information Associates) and TRG. Later we added a new firm, Buzzeo to the list. They will be addressed later in this report.

Several criteria guided our evaluation. First and foremost was ITPC's charge that the vendors under consideration be well established, provide a total and fully integrated solution and support technology that is "middle of the pack" as opposed to leading edge. ACAC had additional criteria including a commitment to higher education, the database engine must be non-proprietary and the software must run in both the Mac and Windows environments.

ACAC very quickly narrowed down the list to SCT's BANNER Series for Higher Education and Datatel's Colleague system. About the same time, a new firm called Buzzeo came to the committee's attention with the promise of truly rules-based processing and technology that was state-of-the-art. ITPC gave ACAC permission to pursue Buzzeo with caution.

In January 1996, ACAC constructed a number of task forces representative of the major administrative units requiring computing support. These task forces were subdivided into teams populated by some sixty administrators and, to a more limited extent, faculty members. A list of the teams follows this report.

These teams and task forces met extensively to learn about the migration project and to develop detailed sets of requirements and methods to evaluate the extent to which various products met those requirements. This process had the positive residual effect of teaching all of us much more about what other offices do and what information they need that cross departmental boundaries. A complete summary of system requirements developed by each team is available on the web at http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/system_requirements.html.

While the teams were meeting ACAC contacted representatives from SCT and Datatel and scheduled two-day on campus demos of their products in June. These were followed by more detailed call-back demos and technical sessions in July and August. Because of the uncertainty of deliverability and financial security of Buzzeo, ACAC invited that firm to a committee-only demo to better understand what their solution had to offer Oberlin. After completion of the demos, ACAC called a meeting together of all team members to preliminarily evaluate the functionality of Colleague and BANNER.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) was sent to SCT, Datatel and, with permission from the Vice President for Finance, to Buzzeo on August 20 with a due date of September 20. The functionality portions of the completed RFP's were distributed to team members for evaluation. On October 8, an all team-members meeting was called to summarize how well each vendor met each team's functionality requirements.

Before the meeting Buzzeo was eliminated as a viable candidate due to uncertainty of deliverability and risk of going with a new company with very little assets and small customer base. ACAC will continue to monitor their market presence however.

At the end of the meeting it was clear that BANNER was the preferred product based on functionality for most of the teams. Both the anticipated quality of the product and the process by which it was selected were affirmed by an enthusiastic round of applause at the end of the meeting.

Now we enter a new phase of the migration - moving from evaluation to planning and implementation. We will continue the grass-roots approach that has successfully taken us to this point. We will also continue to count on support from administrative assistants, senior administration and faculty. All parts of the college will be touched by this project. The benefits of integrated, reliable data and easier access to it will be many but the road there will be a difficult one. We have full confidence that the spirit of collaboration and collegiality that has defined the process so far will continue.

ACAC Membership

System Task Forces

Student Records Task Force

Financial System Task Force

Administrative/Operations Task Force

Technical Group Task Force

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