Growing a Successful Graduate Application System Presenters Craig Higgins - Director of Administration, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mark.

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

The Process


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


White Board Design


GAPS Version 1.0


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


The Bat-Phone


The Bat-Phone


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


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”


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


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


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


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


New Stakeholders

> Graduate School- The new sponsor

> CIT (Cornell Info Tech)- The enabler

> Campus administrativesystems funding bodies- The funders


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


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”


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”


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


Growing a Successful Graduate Application System Presenters Craig Higgins - Director of Administration, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mark.

Documents

college of engineering

process slide

batphone slide

good university citizen

enterprise options slide

mission of university

multiple fields cit

school of electrical