Reduction of Higher Education Technology Costs using the Power of One and Collaboration

Higher Education has always collaborated.  Collaboration happens at every level.  Students from different schools collaborate from project and research to partying during spring break together.  Professors use their colleagues to peer review their research and provide valuable input.  And on the Admin side, we have conferences and collaborate on how to solve problems.  

The reason we in Higher Education are different than our Commercial counterparts is our mission is different.  By collaborating we can advance research and improve the learning environment.  We really are not in direct competition.  In many cases by sharing information schools could recoup costs or reduce their own program development costs.  

Technology has always been the one area that universities have had a harder time collaborating.  Different software packages are just the start of the issue.  Banner Student is configured one way, while PeopleSoft student is configured another way.  On the plus side, very few vendors exist for Student Systems so it is easier to find other schools on the same product.  But the second part is the versions and service packs.  With PeopleSoft there are some schools who are still on version 8.2  while others are on version 9.0.  But its not as simple as moving from 9.0 to 9.0.  We have to look service packs.  We also need to look at database platform versions. So the concept of power of one really did not exist in the technology side.

On universities with multiple campus' there was a chance everyone was on the same version, and technology solutions could be shared.  Code could be transferred and loaded.  But in some cases with version differences- additional modifications would be needed.  This was better than starting from scratch, but required additional development costs.

Sharing cross schools became more challenging.  Rarely was the collaborating schools on the exact same version or patch.  One schools completed code may just be a high level design for another who is on a different patch.  This made it difficult to share code, especially when schools wanted to recoup cost by charging other institutions.  The receiving institution took the risk of buying code that may reduce internal development time. 

This community of collaboration makes Workday the optimal choice for the HR, Financials and Student systems.  Not only can business processes ideas be shared across schools, but the implementation of those processes via technology can as well.  Integrations to third party systems like Blackboard and AMS can also be shared.  The foundation of this, is everyone is on the same version of Workday.  No longer are we limited by versions or technology stacks.  With the addition of Workdays cross client communication portal, collaboration can take place and the exchange of new ideas and solutions.

Why Workday?  Workday is the only technology solution that has been designed in the last 10 years for the Higher Education market.  Oracle is not looking to do major investment in the PeopleSoft product.  SAP has abandoned their Higher Ed ambition.  And Banner is dated and has been passed from company to company.  The next logical step for Banner would be Infor- to die.

This should lead to a Higher Education Solution market place.  Where schools can develop their own configuration and share it for a nominal cost.  This would allow schools to purchase designs for less than it would cost to develop from the ground up.  But it would also lead to the developing school to recoup costs.  Over time best practices from schools would become the de facto standard.

A de facto standard would allow schools to concentrate more on research and education and exert less on administration and structure.  Organizational structure cost would be reduced as time went along and funds could be reallocated to the primary mission.