ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEMS PLANNING GROUP (EISPG)

Phase 1 Report to Executive Vice Chancellor Gene Lucas

November 14, 2005

EISPG Members: Betty Huff, Enrollment Services, Chair Jim Corkill, Accounting Steve Velasco, Budget & Planning Jody Kaufman, EVC’s Office Joel Michaelsen, University Budget Committee Eric Sonquist, Institution Advancement Arlene Allen, IS&C Al Wyner, Letters & Sciences Maureen Evans, MRL Louise Moore, Office of Research Bill McTague, Student Affairs Deborah Scott, SIS&T Chris Allen, Sociology Elise Meyer, OIT Eric Forte, Library Matt Dunham, Instructional Computing Kevin Wu, Graduate Division Purpose of the Report

In January of 2005, the Enterprise Information Systems Planning Group (EISPG) was charged with a short-term goal of reviewing the scope of the various enterprise information systems on campus and identifying costs associated with implementing new systems that will meet the needs of the campus. In order to identify these cost factors, the committee first created a working definition of enterprise information systems, defined current systems on the campus, analyzed unmet needs or potential failures of the current systems, and recommended a model for enterprise computing at UCSB. A series of meetings of the committee of the whole, subcommittees, and work teams took place between January and June 2005 to research the current status of systems on the campus and identify potential vendors or consortia that might meet the enterprise computing needs of UCSB. The committee chose vendor options or consortia-based approaches on the assumption that UCSB has neither the time nor the resources to develop such comprehensive systems on campus within existing resources.

Charge to the EISPG

UCSB has an opportunity to reinvent the business architecture on campus to address the need for efficient, integrated information systems for use by the campus community. To maintain a productive and secure business environment, a highly coordinated effort is needed to ensure smooth transitions from existing to new systems. A process needs to be established that will allow for appropriate feedback on, and oversight of, information systems projects so that investments will yield the highest functionality and flexibility needed by the institution.

Principles of Assumption

The members of EISPG believe that future enterprise information systems at UCSB should adhere to certain principles. The principles are defined as, but are not limited to, the following:

 The campus should avoid duplicate efforts and concentrate on shared resources.  There should be improved access to data by all defined users with data and reporting available in a useable, readable, and understandable format.  Common data definitions are necessary for common understanding.  There should be an institutional commitment to move into an environment of a more integrated approach to systems development and systems deployment.  There should be a recognition and understanding of interdependencies between units and processes involved in the enterprise of the campus.  Projects and systems development should be identified and managed according to established standards, defined decision processes, and with a communication plan

2 that allows for user involvement and the identification of points at which systems may touch or need to integrate.

Limitation of Scope

Because the committee agreed that there is no one definition of enterprise information systems, but to create some framework for the group’s research and proposals, samples of enterprise systems include: student, financial, billing, space scheduling and space management, curriculum, research, development, library, EH&S, etc. Due to the desire to have a series of recommendations, but not to extend the first report from the committee into the distant future, this initial report is limited to core student, financial, and development information systems with corresponding anticipated costs for the systems.

Any assessment of costs includes the additional UCSB staff and resources needed for successful completion of the project and future operation. Resources include new systems hardware, system and database administrators, customer support, and system integration developers. In addition, the costs of backfilling current key functional staff are included.

Both enterprise and academic systems assume an underlying infrastructure of network, identity, security and communication tools. This infrastructure is a necessary requirement of all software systems. None of the systems cited within this report include any elements of such infrastructure, and the description of those elements is outside of this report’s scope.

Recommendations and Results of the EISPG Review

Demands are being placed on the campus that require a level of cost effectiveness, flexibility, accessibility, and process automation that cannot be achieved without embracing newer technology platforms. Faculty, staff, and students need increased and less cumbersome accessibility to student data for academic advising, administrative decision- making in order to enhance student success and improve graduation rates. The campus has done extensive work to wrap Internet technology for end user self-service around aging UCSB custom developed mainframe software applications. This has not eliminated the need to maintain, modify, and update the arcane programming code in the legacy systems themselves. While the wraparound efforts have been extremely helpful to bridge the gap to the Internet age, it is not sufficient to take UCSB into the future. In addition, many of the “wrapped” self-service applications are creating a performance or stability burden on the aging systems, decreasing their reliability, and increasing the cost of maintenance and support. Also, due to the age of the existing systems, lack of vendor support, and lack of availability of staff skilled in the older technology there is an increasing risk to business continuity with dependence on legacy systems. These legacy systems rely on key functional and technical staff who are familiar with the architecture and software of these systems. It is important to replace the legacy systems before these staff members retire in the next 5 years and all institutional memory and expertise is lost.

3 Existing financial functions are implemented as separate applications, not as a component of a cohesive financial system. This approach constrains the ability of campus financial experts to effectively manage campus finances. The current fractured implementation limits the ability of the campus to improve financial business processes because there is little or no flow of process among the separate functions. Most process flow is currently a manual effort on the part of individuals. The campus is limited in adding new functionality as required by UCOP, state, and federal mandates and the “wrapped” internet interfaces are costly to maintain and have inherent limitations to performance and supportability that limit long term usefulness.

Planning for the revised Academic Plan is in process, and it will be critical to have the new systems in place to support the resulting changes to handle increased numbers of faculty and students. The assumed goal is the implementation of an integrated Student Information System suite and an integrated Financial Information System suite that will provide effective automation of the University academic records and transactions, while at the same time allowing for effective end user self service by faculty, staff and students.

Student Information System

Student information systems have grown increasingly complex in both information gathering and information processing while attempting to meet the demands of students for 24/7 information. Where campuses were once able to focus on record keeping and data processing, the advances in technology have led to both the ability and the demand to provide more accurate, timely, and comprehensive data in the support of management decision making. The resources required to keep pace with these advances have not been available in periods of inadequate funding and budget cuts. Campuses across the country, including large institutions such as the University of Minnesota, the State University of New York system, and The Ohio State University, have turned to vendors to provide the complex systems required to meet service demands.

Student systems are used to plan and manage the operational side of the student relationship to the institution. At the core of any system are recruitment, admission, financial aid, registration, student records, degree audit, and student billing. Becoming more critical is the need for a decision support systems that allows for curriculum planning, predictive modeling, reporting, and “what if” analysis of the various aspects of enrollment management. Additional needs include: a modern, service-oriented student portal to provide 24/7 self-service for faculty, staff, and students; a comprehensive reporting solution, including operational data store and data warehousing, that enables users to research and define solutions to particular issues; and the potential to effectively handle Graduate Division and Summer Sessions/Extension student records needs as they are defined.

Given the changing nature of both information technology and the enterprise, any student system should be modular by design and flexible enough to meet the requirements mandated by Federal and State governments and agencies, as well as addressing the needs of the University. A new student system should be easily configurable and personalized to the campus, and designed to serve multiple operating units that share information in a wide-

4 ranging number of distinct applications and services. It should have a high degree of end- user participation in the configuration of the application modules and meet the needs of users as well as conform to university required technical standards.

Anticipated Costs for a Student Information System

Preliminary estimates of the cost of a vendor product student information system are listed below. These are broken into one-time capital costs and on-going maintenance costs. These estimates are in 2005 dollars and are not indexed for inflation. Itemized costs are being prepared and will be submitted later in another report from the committee.

One time investment: $14,000,000 (inclusive of staff backfill and implementation costs) Ongoing annual: $ 375,000

Financial Management System

The components of a UCSB financial management system for purposes of this report include general ledger, chart of accounts, accounts payable, purchasing, general accounting, travel, budget, and pre and post award contract and grant administration functions. Existing financial systems are complex, require great sophistication on the part of the user, result in operational divergence, and often create the need for shadow systems. As is the case with the current student system, a move to newer technology is mandatory.

The Kuali Project provides an attractive alternative to the buy or build dilemma for financial management. The Kuali Project is “building together” by pooling institutional resources to develop an open source financial system for colleges and universities. Oversight for the project is provided by both a functional and technical board comprised of six core partner universities in addition to the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO.)

The opportunity to participate in an open source project with other universities comes at a unique time for UCSB. This project, Kuali, has the potential of meeting the needs of cost containment, has a close resemblance to existing accounting requirements, is an easily adapted architecture, and allows for a flexible conversion timeline.

The Kuali system is based on an existing, proven design that serves the needs of various sizes of Carnegie class institutions. It is expected that UC Davis will commit to joining the Kuali community, participating in open source development that will make Kuali an even closer fit for UCSB to move forward, and will expand UCSB’s options for a coordinated development with UC Davis. With the limited enhancements already identified by the core partners, it will have all of the required functionality for higher education without unnecessary complications to address the needs of other industries.

5 The Kuali Project will also provide starter kit financial reporting templates, implementation materials, and training programs to dramatically reduce the cost of realizing better fiscal management data and processes in higher education.

Anticipated Costs for a Financial Information System

Total anticipated costs for Kuali are:

One time Investment: $3,500,000 (inclusive of staff backfill and implementation costs) Ongoing annual: $ 477,000

These costs include the hardware and software required to support the Kuali system. However, the primary costs to implement Kuali will be labor. Accounting is without the resources and staff to implement a full financial system without being able to hire staff to backfill positions. Information Systems & Computing (IS&C) will perform primary implementation, assist with data conversion/migration, and testing/evaluation. The one time investment costs include the temporary augmentation of IS&C resources for implementation and conversion. The ongoing annual costs include IS&C’s estimate for the additional operational resources beyond those present in the current FY 05/06. Both inflation and the loss of IT personnel and infrastructure will progressively increase the abovementioned estimates.

Alumni/Donor Financial Systems

Alumni/Donor financial information system demands have grown increasingly complex as the campus has expanded its efforts to engage alums and support increased fundraising efforts across campus. To supplement the centralized Development Office services that the campus has historically provided, Institutional Advancement has added a dispersed model of staffing over the past ten years and Development teams now provide direct support to seven provost/deans, five research institute directors, five academic and student services areas, and the UC Natural Reserve System.

Twelve years ago the campus migrated from a home-grown application to a vendor supported software product. The existing system does not have any level of system integration with any of the core financial systems or student information systems. To support the growth referenced above and to allow this system to be integrated with other core financial systems, Institutional Advancement is working with the current vendor, Sungard/BSR, to finalize a migration and upgrade plan that should be implemented in parallel with the implementation plan for Kuali. Key nexus points with the core financial systems include management of credit card transactions, integration of campus deposit processes, transmittal of accounting information, and linkages to the existing financial systems of the UCSB Foundation and the UCSB Alumni Association.

6 Anticipated Costs for Alumni/Donor Financial Systems

One time investment: $1,140,000 (inclusive of staff backfill and implementation costs) Ongoing annual: $ 80,000 (this covers software licensing and does not include any permanent staff positions)

Total Costs

Total costs for the three efforts above will be: One time investment: $18,640,000 Ongoing annual: $ 932,000

Although the total costs may appear prohibitive, it is believe that the three efforts taken together will transform the way the campus fulfills it’s current and future information system responsibilities in ways that improve efficiency, eliminate duplicated efforts, and set a solid foundation for the future operation of UCSB.

Conclusions

Members of EISPG agreed that it is imperative for UCSB to move forward at this critical time with proposals and requests for funding, and that the synergy of implementing three systems simultaneously is a wise resource decision. There are certain realities for systems needs as well as strategic opportunities that must move this agenda to the institution’s highest priority status. They include:

 UCSB’s financial and core student systems are obsolete and pose an ethical and legal risk if they are not replaced within a reasonable timeframe and fail in the delivery of student and administrative services. The continued operation of these systems leaves the institution vulnerable to critical business interruptions and breakdowns.  Current developing collaborations and technologies in the marketplace afford UCSB a unique window of opportunity to choose “Best of Breed” enterprise systems at a reasonable price. These conditions may not exist in the near future as partnership/consortium agreements and incentive pricing plans could disappear.  Due to the lack of capital investments to update the legacy systems, resources are currently being tapped by units across the campus to provide data and services that would be met if the legacy systems are replaced. This dysfunctional use of resources, both human and financial, creates duplicate costs and inefficient business processes.

Higher education is a niche market for software products, and until recently there has not been high performance, economically viable software that would be attractive to UCSB. The current market for student systems and financial systems software, however, provides

7 attractive options for UCSB that have not been previously available, and this is an opportune time for a positive change.

If UCSB is to truly be a leader as a Research I University, it needs to be prepared to provide functional enterprise information systems that serve to support the reporting and decision making needs of the campus. These systems should serve the students, the faculty, and the staff and are a vital component needed to accomplish the education mission of the institution.

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