Avoid Student Information System Madness: 4 Chores ECM Can Eliminate
Contrary to popular belief, the real madness of March, as it relates to higher education, is not NCAA basketball. Yes, many of you are no doubt suffering the frustration of watching your carefully conceived brackets crumble in the face of bad calls and buzzer beaters. But, let’s face it: you never really expected any ROI from that investment, did you? No, the real March madness – heck, the year-long madness, more likely – is going on far from the court. It’s happening on the desks and screens of the users of your core business app, your student information system, familiarly referred to as SIS. That’s where the madness of inefficiency may well be undermining staff performance, office morale, student service and general institutional effectiveness. The likely culprit? That’s easy. It’s the disconnect between the structured data stored in SIS and the unstructured data and documents that currently live outside of SIS. These items are critically related to the activities and transactions being driven through SIS. Coincidentally, while the basketball season is winding down, the activities of the user groups for the three commonly used student information systems are ramping up: Datatel, Banner and PeopleSoft. In fact, I’m writing this commentary in between stops on the road.