growing a successful graduate application system presenters craig higgins - director of...
TRANSCRIPT
Growing a Successful Graduate Application SystemPresenters
Craig Higgins - Director of Administration, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mark Otis - Asst Dir, Research, Graduate Studies, and Professional Education
Paul Davis - Senior Programmer AnalystDoug Hexter - CEO/Project Manager, World Design Group
NERCOMP PresentationMarch 7th, 200511:15-12:05
Copyright
Copyright Craig Higgins, Mark Otis, Paul Davis, and Doug Hexter 2005. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
5,000 applications (est.)
100,000 documents 300 staff weeks
per year
5000(+) folders created
folders circulated, rated, modified, circulated, rated…
1,800 offers
TOO MUCH PAPER
TOO MUCH WORK
The Process
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Beta Field(s)
Electrical and Computing Engineering
Civil & Environmental Eng
Materials Sci & Eng
Mech & Aerospace Eng
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
Electrical & Com
puting Eng
GAPS
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Fields Using GAPS This Year
All 14 Engineering Fields Chemistry
Horticulture
Physiology
ILR
Rea
l Est
ate
5 Other Graduate Fields
Electrical & Com
puting Eng
Civil & Environmental Eng
Applied &
Eng Physics
Materials Sci & Eng
The
oret
ical
& A
pplie
d M
echa
nics
App
lied
Mat
hem
atic
s
Chemical & Biomolecular Eng
Mech & Aerospace Eng
Computer Science
Earth & Atmospheric Science
Biological &
Environmental Eng
Biom
edical Eng
Operatio
ns Rese
arch &
Industrial
Eng
Syst
em E
ng
GAPS
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Why Did This Project Scale?
> All 96 fields have some sort of application tracking system
> Infrastructures include- FileMaker- Access- Spread sheets- FileMaker to the web
> This one is only one used by multiple fields
> CIT considered developing similar system but were told “faculty wouldn’t want it”
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Local Unit Situation
> Strengths- Know the business- Close to mission of University- Well connected with faculty- Nimble- Will reap the rewards of the effort
> But…- Don’t have resources or programmers- Don’t normally have connections or inclination to work upward
or across units- Don’t have enterprise options
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Why Scale to University?
> Shift maintenance cost to University (~$0.5M over 5 years)
> Save money University wide (no more retyping)
> More consistent data and processes University wide
> Integration with PeopleSoft & campus warehouses
> Avoid Grad School and CIT imposed surprises
> Be a good University citizen
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
4 Models for Starting Small and Growing
> Build something that you can give to other units- Leave CIT out of it
> Try to get CIT and/or Grad School to build it- Hard to sell something that they don’t get benefit from
> Build something that CIT can re-implement using your system as a spec- Depends on finding funding to re-implement
> Build Something CIT can live with and scale it up to the University
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Our Solution: Build for Migration
> Adopt near CIT standard infrastructure- Cold Fusion- MS SQL server
> Hire a vendor to deliver skills we don’t have- Strong programmer- Experience building similar systems
> Build system nimbly
> Once we have something concrete to show, have faculty sell it to stakeholders higher up
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
New Stakeholders
> Graduate School- The new sponsor
> CIT (Cornell Info Tech)- The enabler
> Campus administrativesystems funding bodies- The funders
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Come Back Next Year
> Long painful process to develop funding request
> Made the initial cut but…
> PeopleSoft soaked up all central funding for administrative systems
> Encouraged us to come back
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
We Can’t Go Back
> Faculty love the system
> Continue working with Grad School
> Consider having fields join with “pay as you go” plan
> Grad School will re-apply for funding
> “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll”
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Relationship with Vendor
> Develop the specifications together
> Partnership
> Manage the project, not the contract
> Understand the endgame but stay flexible
> Vendor experience
> “Skin in the game”
College of EngineeringCollege of Engineering
Ingredients of Success
> Right project – addressed strong business need
> Principals were very close to the business need
> Clear, uncluttered vision
> The right infrastructure & relationship to CIT
> Flexible funding (and enough of it)
> Frequent feedback / Respond quickly
> Start small, added fields and stakeholders as we grew
> Qualified vendor as partner
> Make hay when the sun shines