Higher Education Profile: Depauw University

Higher Education Profile: DePauw University

Transformation is a commonly used word at DePauw University. Students are encouraged to be transformative leaders, to pursue worthy goals, and to seek enriching experiences that help them to achieve their fullest potential. Carol L. Smith, chief information officer at DePauw, brings this same attitude of knowledgeable innovation to About DePauw University the university’s IS department. This brief describes her vision for DePauw University is a private boosting the efficiency of faculty and staff while delivering university in Greencastle, Indiana with an enrollment of exceptional experiences for students. approximately 1,700 students. The school has a Methodist Introduction: A Passionate Commitment to Students heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury For 180 years, DePauw University has established its reputation as a leading University. DePauw is a member of both the Great Lakes Colleges institution of learning and advancement for students and communities. Smith Association and the North Coast leads the university’s information services (IS) department, coordinates strategic Athletic Conference. planning for information technology (IT) products and services, and guides the DePauw’s mission emphasizes effort to provide the technology resources and services necessary to support the the importance of preparing institution’s vision for creating well rounded students. each student for a life of “meaning and means.” “In addition to interactive and engaging classroom experiences, our students Matriculating students join an participate actively in out-of-class activities, whether that involves an internship active base of engaged alumni who are leaders in their fields or a service trip or some other type of hands-on experiential opportunity,” Smith and sensitive to the world’s states. “Students define their pathways, including curricular coursework through most pressing needs. their major. We provide a scaffolding they can build on as they prepare for a career outside of DePauw.”

Carol Smith and her team work diligently to improve the university’s information systems based on three key principles:

 Creating a more holistic student experience An Attitude of Service

 Improving the efficiency of business processes and workflow processes DePauw’s mission emphasizes the importance of preparing  Enabling data driven decision-making each student for a life of “meaning and means.” What distinguishes DePauw, she maintains, is its genuine focus on students. The Matriculating students join an school is known for its extraordinary professors; small, vibrant classes; and, until active base of engaged alumni the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted campus life, its emphasis on living and who are leaders in their fields studying with peers. and sensitive to the world’s most pressing needs.

Unexpected Insights from the Pandemic

Prior to the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic, DePauw University was an entirely face-to-face, residential class campus. When COVID hit, the IS team had to shift its focus to enabling virtual learning. This not only involved helping faculty to shift to remote teaching and transforming student-facing systems, but also helping to re-think administrative tasks for the school’s suddenly remote workforce. Employees had to find alternative ways to work together and share information. Many paper-based workflows had to be replaced by digital workflows.

While pivoting in response to COVID has dominated the resources of DePauw University’s IS team, it has also helped to crystalize the team’s vision. Sharing data online and enabling virtual modes of work has taught these technology “Our students are professionals an important lesson: When HCM, ERP, and student information curious, engaged, and systems share a single source of data, the university can facilitate collaboration eager to make a and power faster decision making for its entire population. difference in the world. They like to connect with each other, with their teachers, and with campus staff members, which makes DePauw an exciting place to work.”

Carol Smith Chief Information Officer DePauw University A Transformative Shift

Currently, the IS team is collaborating with faculty and campus business partners to develop a student portal that simplifies administrative tasks such as helping students apply to the school, manage their accounts, register for classes, or obtain financial aid. They are also reimagining core business processes to make those processes more efficient for the faculty and staff.

Smith, who has worked in higher education for more than 25 years, draws a distinction between transactional and transformative IT services. Some transactional activities are simple, point-in-time events such as checking a schedule or submitting a term paper. Others are multifaceted, such as degree planning and class registration. They necessitate links to multiple information systems and trigger interactions with myriad individuals such as students' advisors and faculty members. When properly orchestrated, these processes can become transformative: a series of coordinated events becomes part of a larger experience which, ideally, has a positive impact on student success.

“We don’t want students to say, ‘Oh, it's time to register,’ and make a snap decision,” Smith points out. Instead, the university wants to curate transformative experiences that keep students engaged in long term planning and that allow for appropriate influences at each juncture.

Most importantly, it has to be easy and natural for students to interact with these information systems. “Today’s students use their phones for almost everything, so we want to make sure that they can conduct these activities using whatever devices and platforms they are comfortable with,” Smith emphasizes. “We need tools to help us create personal experiences, powered by applications that eliminate the need for people to constantly reenter the same information all the DePauw University’s vision time.” focuses on four themes:

 A great place to live, learn and work

 A university of choice and distinction

 Coordinated curriculum and practicum

 The success of each student

“When HR data, financial data, and student data reside in the same cloud-based repository, it’s much The Value of Connected Business Processes easier to develop a complete picture of Sharing data is also the starting point for creating connected business processes—not only for students, but also for the staff members who are how different campus committed to their success, and the overall mission of the school. For example, departments consider all the data that must be managed and coordinated each year as interact.” prospective students request information, submit applications, work through the Carol Smith financial aid process, and begin exploring potential class schedules and degree Chief Information Officer programs. The staff must be able to readily access all pertinent data to DePauw University knowledgeably assist each student. Furthermore, they must be able to consider the incoming student population in aggregate to make projections.

“How many students are going to enroll next term?” Smith asks. “How close will this come to our ideal enrollment numbers, and what will it all look like from a financial and budgetary perspective?”

Like most universities, DePauw’s business analysts need a steady stream of data for modeling enrollment scenarios, defining budgets, allocating faculty resources, determining class sizes, and other tasks. “We have to synthesize

recruitment data, financial aid data, registration data, and many other sources just to answer basic questions, such as how many classes to offer in each section for the upcoming term,” Smith continues. “All colleges must ask these questions. However, the smaller the institution, the more accurate those projections need to be—simply because there is less margin for error.”

Making Connections

Smith and her team want to tighten the linkages among core business processes—from recruiting through financial aid, registration, class selection, and path development—and to make this data readily available for financial planning and analysis (FP&A) activities. They would like to standardize on a cloud-based system where each module shares information with the others, “We recognized that ideally via into one integrated data repository. our current workflow They are guided by a few proven precepts. Connected information systems don’t systems are built on a ask people for information that they have already entered before. For example, transactional each student portal should always display information that has been collected business model about test results, grade point averages, graduation timelines, course completion rather than one that’s calendars, housing updates, and student finances. Forms are typically pre- been shaped by populated with data—personal information, financial records, class schedules, innovation,” Smith and so on. If something is missing, AI-powered chatbots provide personalized assistance via on-screen pop-ups and conversational interfaces—advising says. “We want to students with helpful suggestions. move from transactional to Upholding Core Technology Principles transformational.” This type of information sharing and automation should apply not only to the Carol Smith student information system, but also to core business functions within finance, Chief Information Officer HR, and other modules of the ERP system. Currently the university has a hybrid DePauw University ERP environment consisting of a number of different applications integrated together, with a homegrown student information system at the core. For the last ten years, DePauw has been adopting commercial-based components to augment this home-grown system. Unifying HCM, ERP, and “One of the advantages of developing your own ERP system is you can build it to Student Information Systems do whatever you want it to do,” Smith notes. “One of the disadvantages is that it When properly integrated via does exactly what you tell it to do. Over time, you begin to build things that are the cloud, connected information systems simplify unique to your idiosyncratic way of doing things, when in fact many business nearly all aspects of campus processes should be more standardized.” operations while personalizing experiences for students, Another problem with home-grown and heavily customized information systems faculty, and staff. Advantages is that they are difficult to modify. For example, as DePauw University pivoted in include cost efficiencies, student response to COVID, accommodating remote learning and work practices success, optimized workflows, employee engagement, and required software re-coding rather than simple platform re-configuration, taxing student retention. the resources of its information services team. Looking ahead, DePauw would like to acquire an ERP system that empowers the business departments to configure many workflows on their own.

Encouraging An Optimal Division of Labor “We promise small classes, innovative Most university CIOs strive to achieve a balance between departmental teaching and an autonomy and centralized authority. For example, while individual departments can configure ERP apps to establish the business functionality that is important emphasis on critical to them, the central IS group maintains the core data sets to ensure good thinking and governance and consistent results in reports, dashboards, and other analytic dialogue. It's a assets. “If you have complete autonomy and no centralized authority, then the promise that reports from different areas may not match,” Smith points out. empowers students At DePauw University, the business community interacts with the central IS team to impact the world to select and implement enterprise applications. The IS team may create custom even before they functionality to augment or enhance these applications. However, Smith is leave campus.” cautious about using the university’s limited technology resources to build new software functionality when they can acquire it from a software vendor. “We Carol Smith Chief Information Officer would rather put our creative energy towards innovation,” she notes. DePauw University

Smith prefers standardized functions that can be easily configured without custom coding. “Information systems should be easy to configure in the areas that differentiate your institution—the processes and procedures that make your school distinctive and unique,” she explain. “However, for routine processes, colleges are better off following industry best-practices.”

Smith also makes the distinction between critical and core. For example, payroll High-level goals of the HESS is critical, but do you really need to come up with unique ways to pay people? Consortium

Smith sums up her philosophy: “Accept the standard business functionality for  Build fruitful relationships non-core functions, so you can allocate more resources to the core capabilities between its member that make your institution unique.” institutions and corporate partners Collective Strength Through the HESS Consortium  Construct common contract vehicles that lower costs for A growing number of colleges and universities are looking for ways to share administrative software and services, expertise, and staff resources to lower technology costs, specifically in services the context of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and student information  Move to a single and systems (SIS). To learn more about these trends, Oracle spoke with Carol Smith, modern, cloud-native ERP/SIS solution CIO at DePauw University and president of the board of directors of the Higher Education Systems and Services (HESS) Consortium, a rapidly growing group of  Develop a shared archive to ease migration and more than 200 CIOs and CFOs at private, non-profit colleges and universities. implementation costs

Oracle – Why was the HESS Consortium founded?  Create a network of HESS schools to share staff Smith – Private higher education institutions are looking for ways to collaborate resources and expertise to with other institutions to save money and time, as well as to ease staff lower staff costs constraints. The consortium was founded to help these institutions find cost- effective ways to leverage new and emerging technologies that can change the way they do business.

Oracle – What is your technology focus?

Smith – We are examining new opportunities for collaborative pricing of vendor software, consultative services, software-as-a-service, cloud services, and even shared services. We are focused on discovering innovation and promoting

savings in ERP solutions as well as cloud software and services. We also forge collective relationships with key technology vendors such as Oracle, and ultimately reduce costs by forging a new path centered on shared technology operations.

Oracle – What motivates new institutions to join the consortium?

Smith – First, HESS unites a community of people who have similar challenges and goals. It’s an opportunity to connect and learn from each other, whether you are looking for better ways to teach classes, pay employees, manage student grades, simplify enrollment, or advise students, collaborating with other institutions can preserves resources. We work together to establish standardized technology practices and share expertise. Secondly, HESS is focused on collectively lowering costs and increasing “At HESS, we learn collaboration between private colleges and universities in the area of from each other, and administrative systems and services. How do we improve our administrative systems and workflows? How do we build good relationships between we are all committed technology departments and business operations? How can we help CEOs and to finding efficiencies CFOs understand how technology supports the missions of these institutions? and cost savings by These are some of the questions that we seek to answer. working with like- Oracle – How does HESS make it easier to purchase and deploy new information minded institutions.” systems? Carol Smith Chief Information Officer Smith – We’re working as one voice and one body to negotiate with vendors and DePauw University business partners. The vendors like it because they interact with one, large, unified body instead of dealing with dozens of separate institutions. For example, we currently have 33 institutions interested in participating in a shared

ERP services operation. The goals of this endeavor are three-fold:

1. Negotiate pricing for each of the major ERP vendors for both on- Why Oracle for Higher premise and in-the-cloud operations Education  Unify IT administration and 2. Develop an “apples-to-apples” comparison instrument to look at all the reduce operating costs vendors’ pricing models and product features  Support future-proof 3. Establish an affordable collaborative model for cloud-based operations applications and services as an option for those institutions interested.  Leverage big data to amass greater insights Another major goal for our group is finding a grant funding partner that can help  Utilize advanced our private colleges and universities develop and adopt new paradigms in cybersecurity features ERP/SIS operations. We have relationships with several vendor partners already.  Enable superior disaster Most schools gain back the HESS fees right away through cost reductions. recovery capabilities  Enhance collaboration for students, faculty, and staff

Contact Oracle To Learn More

With nearly three decades of experience in academia and over ten thousand of higher education customers worldwide, Oracle’s charter is to help educational institutions use data to unlock new possibilities for students, faculty, and staff. Oracle’s integrated suite of cloud-native solutions puts students at the center of the academic process with a connected set of digital experiences that improve academic outcomes and ensure student success. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and accessible through a modern user interface, Oracle Student Cloud enhances the student experience at every stage of the academic lifecycle. Personalized dashboards display real-time data such as grade point averages, graduation timelines, course completion calendars, and detailed account information to help students stay motivated and engaged.

To learn more about Oracle Cloud solutions for higher education, visit oracle.com/industries/higher-education.

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