sacrao annual meeting working effectively with information technology (it) staff at small colleges...
TRANSCRIPT
SACRAO Annual Meeting
Working Effectively with Information Technology (IT) Staff at Small Colleges
Monday, February 1 at 8:45AM
Brad Barron, Furman University
Dave Stones, Southwestern University
Working with IT Staff at Small Colleges
• Who are these presenters anyway?
• What do they know?
• What planet are they from?
• Highly selective, very traditional, liberal arts institution located in Greenville SC
• 2,600 full-time undergraduates, 300-500 adult students pursuing undergraduate or graduate education on a part-time basis
• Brad appointed Associate Dean & University Registrar in December 2002 after 5 years as the Registrar at another small liberal arts college
Brad at Furman
• IT staff of just under 30 employees, 6 staff members dedicated to the support of administrative systems
• Datatel “ERP” went live summer 1999 to avoid Y2K meltdown, now v.18
• R25 (Scheduling), Recruitment Plus (Admissions), and Raisers Edge (Development) also installed and supported
Administrative Computing at Furman
Dave Then
• University of Texas at Austin,1965-2000. The final 22 years as Student Information Systems Manager
• Large public university, 50,000 student full-time equivalents
• Supervised 25 systems analysts responsible for Admissions, Registration and other areas.
• All homegrown systems
Dave Now
• Registrar at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX since summer 2000
• Selective, traditional liberal arts institution with1,250 student full-time equivalents
• 4 staff members in the Registrar’s office, 4 staff members in Administrative Computing
• Datatel Colleague
Big Ideas
• Know your Environment
• Build Relationships
• Understand the Limitations
Who are the Players?
• IT staff on your campus
• You and your staff
• The rest of the folks at your institution (staff, faculty, students, alums, families, “friends”, maybe even board members)
• Factors outside of the institution (vendors, regulators, colleagues and others?)
What can YOU do to make IT work for you?
• Understand the role of IT on your campus
• Be an advocate for IT
• Plan reasonable timelines
• Know what you are requesting
Concrete Suggestions
• Meetings & Teamwork
• Lead the Documentation Effort
• Know the Data
• Share the Responsibility
• Implementation Tips
Meetings and Teamwork
• Meet regularly with lead analyst & decision- makers
• Share production schedules and annual reports
• Attend conference sessions together
• Become part of user-IT teams
Take the Lead on Documentation
• Document all actions in sub-systems: grade collection, sco-pro. Ask the staff involved for their thoughts and ideas.
• Make inefficiencies stand out, stay on the “punch list” until everything is fixed.
• Produce processing schedules, integrate office events with reports, computer tasks.
• Annual Report – accomplishments, immediate needs, long term goals = spirit of the request.
Know the Data
• If you don’t, who will? Become an expert.• Learn tools, such as MS Excel or MS Access or
acquire some, SAS is a favorite.• Arrange routine downloads which you may
repeat.• Massage and review the data. Crosstabs and
frequency diagrams are informative &revealing. What values occur? Were they as expected?
• Follow-up when unexpected values occur, it will save nickel & dime requests to Administrative Computing.
Share the Responsibility
• Multiple parties with responsibility = safety net. Production schedules allow all to monitor progress.
• Analysts should be responsible for spirit of request rather than the letter.
• Analysts should know what must be accomplished and for whom. Let them suggest the best way to achieve.
• Early involvement with request allows design to proceed. Involvement any later may cause friction if planned method is problematic.
Implementation Tips
• Know your practices, procedures and policies. Automate only when these have been stabilized. Change the policies in advance if necessary.
• Manage expectations . Define project scope, and make it clear to all users what it won’t do.
• Understand that you may need to take on some tasks yourself.
Working with IT at Small Colleges
Contact information:
Brad Barron, Associate Dean & University RegistrarFurman [email protected]
Dave Stones, RegistrarSouthwestern [email protected]
Working with IT Staff at Small Colleges
Questions?