SIS 2000 - The University of Arizona's Team Approach to Client/Server Migration: Strengthening Old Partnerships and Forging New Ones

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SIS 2000 -- The University of Arizona's Team Approach to 
Client/Server Migration: Strengthening Old Partnerships and 
Forging New Ones

John Detloff
Elizabeth Taylor
Paul Teitelbaum
Michael Torregrossa
Keith Wilburn

Center for Computing and Information Technology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721


Abstract: At the University of Arizona, we have reached an 
impasse with our administrative systems.  Our mainframe based 
systems do not adequately support business processes or 
quality decision making.  This paper will outline the 
approach we, the SIS2000 team, have adopted in launching the 
University's Student Information System (SIS) into the 
enabling environment of client/server computing and 
reengineered processes.  Our approach includes marketing our 
vision, forming and strengthening strategic partnerships, 
prototyping and implementing new technology, and setting the 
stage for business process improvement.  The campus' positive 
response to our vision and prototype provides the 
reengineering effort with the support and political capital 
it requires to succeed.



VISION

Students: 

Have you ever...Applied for admission, completed ALL of your 
registration tasks, viewed your grades and transcript, 
communicated with your instructors, checked your financial 
aid status... using your computer at home, or a computer on 
campus, at a time that is convenient to you?

Staff:

Have you ever...Had the time to provide quality service to 
students, instead of having to perform the same repetitive 
tasks, been able to communicate with colleagues across the 
campus, the state, and the country, to become more informed 
and knowledgeable...using a computer system at the office 
that's as easy to use as the family computer at home?

Faculty:

Have you ever...Managed course offerings, course loads, and
course enrollments, assigned final grades, held 'electronic
office hours,' communicated with colleagues across campus,
the country, and the world... from your computer at the
office, at home, or on the road, at convenient times to you?

Administrators:

Have you ever...Viewed accurate, up-to-date teaching load 
reports, viewed accurate, up-to-date enrollment reports, 
viewed accurate, up-to-date admissions reports, been able to 
perform 'what if' simulations using management databases... 
using your computer at the office, at home, or on the road, 
at times convenient to you?

                        You Will!

SIS 2000, helping to launch The University of Arizona into
the 21st century!

Borrowed partially from a popular AT&T commercial, the above
depicts our vision for transforming the University of
Arizona's (UofA) administrative student information system
(SIS).  We attempted to articulate this vision into a
concise, usable statement as follows:

To achieve a first rate student service and enrollment
support system that is easy to use, flexible, and dependable;
and is accessible by students, faculty, staff,
administrators, and the community, from any place, at any
time.

MISSION

We, the SIS2000 team, developed this vision based on a
project initiative formulated by Jerry Lucido, assistant
vice-president, enrollment services and academic support and
Larry Rapagnani, then the associate vice-president, computing
and information technology.  SIS applications reside on an
IBM 3090 mainframe that is saturated, leading to critical
process slowdowns and occasional failures.  Upgrades to the
system are prohibitively expensive in what continues to be an
extremely tight budgetary period.  The technology has become
dated and no longer adequately supports required
enhancements.  Jerry Lucido and Larry Rapagnani had the
insight to realize that extensive changes were required and
initiated the project with the following mission:

To replace all student system processes that currently reside
on the University's 3090 mainframe computer with equivalent,
improved and/or reengineered processes, which will
reside in a new technological environment utilizing
relational database and client/server technologies, and
allowing for integration of other related University
processes.

With this high-level directive and vision of a new
environment in place, we then considered what we needed to do
to share and implement our vision.  An understanding of the
current environment would provide us with information on what
needed to be transformed and how that transformation could
best take place.

BACKGROUND

The state of affairs at the UofA is not that different than
from that at most institutions.  We are faced with the
challenge of dramatically improving our level of service
while facing annual budget cuts of unprecedented amounts.  We
have business applications based on technologies developed in
the 1970's that require major efforts to enhance, if
enhancements are possible at all.  We have out of date
procedures that do not effectively or efficiently
support our business that are tied to this technology.  And
access to information contained in these systems to make
quality decisions is, at best, difficult.

Many factors are influencing the demand for improvement.
Most of our students are from the "point-n-click" generation.
More and more they are expecting the same rapid response
from administrative service that they receive from their
personal computers.  Faculty, staff and administrators are
becoming increasingly sophisticated with computer technology
and are demanding access to information to effectively
perform their duties.  Employees that once operated within a
strict functional area focus now need to integrate
information from many traditional systems.

We identified two concerns that may hinder improvement
initiatives.  First there is an increasing disparity between
those people on campus that have access to, and knowledge
of, information resources and those that do not.  It is
difficult for service providers to improve their business
processes when either the technology is not available to them
or they are not aware of what it improvements it can provide.

The second concern was that the Center for Computing and
Information Technology (CCIT) was often viewed as a provider
of specific enhancements to functional area systems
and not as a partner in dramatically improving the overall
business.

IMPLEMENTING THE VISION

The background analysis emphasized the point that if we
wanted to implement our vision, we not only needed to change
the technology, but also the organizational culture.  We
needed to market our vision, educate customers, form
strategic partnerships, and successfully demonstrate what
level of improvements new technology could support.

The Team

The first step toward implementing the project directive was
the formation of the project team.  Mike Torregrossa, SIS
manager, was chosen as the team leader and determined that
to be effective the team needed to contain well-rounded
individuals with enthusiasm for implementing improvements.
He set the criteria that members have the 'Just Do It!'
attitude.  Five of us, including Mike, were assigned full-
time to the effort.  This was a major dedication of resources
in an organization already lacking sufficient staffing
levels.  We believe this demonstrates the seriousness of
management toward the reengineering
effort.

We chose the name SIS2000 to emphasize that we are looking to
the future in solutions to current problems.  It is expected
that additional team members will join and leave the team
as needed, depending on current projects and priorities.

Each team member transferred his or her current duties to
other CCIT staff members, whose efforts made the full-time
commitment possible.  Also, current customers had to
agree to lower levels of service.  This is certainly a joint
effort which requires the cooperation and coordination of
many more than just the five of us.

Our first priority was training on becoming an effective
team.  The training consisted of sessions on Total Quality
Management (TQM) concepts such as effective meetings, data
gathering, and process analysis as well as learn sessions
where individual members shared information on technologies
and systems on which they had expertise.

The most important attributes of each team member are his or
her communication skills and high level of respect for each
other.  Each individual brought to the team unique talents
ranging from highly technical to process and procedural
knowledge.  These individual attributes are funneled into
group power by using the newly acquired techniques:

  * How to hold effective meetings
  * How to use group memory systems
  * How to use agendas for meetings
  * How to use data to make decisions
  * How to treat each other as equals and with respect
  * How to build consensus about the next steps and future
     directions
  * How to work in very close proximity

During our initial meetings, the team determined that think-
tank environment was a criteria for success.  We needed an
area that would allow us to communicate frequently, learn
from each other, brainstorm on possible solutions and
separate us from our traditional duties.

Space is a limited commodity on campus and the only area that
met our needs was out of the computer center building.  There
was some animosity from other employees and at least
part of it has been attributed to the separation.  We still
feel however, that the think-tank environment facilitated
much of our success and was a necessity.  We are attempting
to address the animosity by involving others and
communicating more effectively.

We defined the following objectives for the project.

  * To improve student and enrollment-related services by
providing an information structure supporting the
University's Mission and Objectives

  * To facilitate an environment where decisions are based
on data.

  * To create the best higher education administrative
information system, where administrators, faculty and staff
can concentrate on providing quality service.

  * To take advantage of skills and talent, wherever they
reside, in an effort to launch the University into the future
as the leading land grant institution.

Prototype

After team formation, training and relocation, we began the
process of implementing the technical infrastructure to
support the reengineering effort.  We knew that we had to
deliver some quick visible wins to demonstrate our vision and
garner the support we needed to implement the levels of
change we envisioned.

The University joined in partnership with the Mandarin
consortium to take advantage of the infrastructure that was
first developed at Cornell University.  The University of
Arizona aligned with Cornell and 15 other schools to continue
the development of Mandarin.  This technology helps to
maintain the usefulness of legacy data, while easing the
transition from mainframe computing to distributed,
friendlier technologies.  The SIS2000 team enhanced
the technology by developing software to operate in the
unique environment at the University of Arizona.

We originally estimated that it would take at least six
months to implement the infrastructure and provide a proof-
of-concept prototype.  It was a surprise to everyone,
including the team, that this step was accomplished in less
than 1 month.  Much of the credit for this accelerated time
frame was given to the "think tank" environment.  The
environment provided for instant results that would normally
take meetings and scheduling to work out.  In addition to the
environment, the partnerships with the Mandarin Consortium
schools, particularly Cornell University, proved to be
invaluable in the implementation phase.

The prototype application's objective was to provide students
with access to their own data via an interface that was easy
and clear to understand.  Initially named UA Access/Student
Access, the prototype system gives students an opportunity to
see their addresses, grades, class schedules, financial aid
awards, class availability, bills, and other campus
information.  Through communication and feedback from
students the team learned that the students were excited and
eagerly awaited this type of technology.

An open house had been planned to introduce the campus
community to the new team, their mission, and their new
space.  When the open house was scheduled, there was not even
the dream of being able to show the campus a deliverable
product.  As mentioned previously, everyone was surprised
that on March 17, the day of the open house, four weeks from
the date that the team had moved into their new space, a
prototype of the technology was available for the campus
community to examine and test.

Many people attended the open house: faculty, staff, students
and high-level administrators.  They saw the potential for
new technology and the access it would provide to students.
The feedback to the team made it clear that the UA Access
prototype should be made available to the students as soon as
possible.

The following are examples of UA Access Student menu and the
most popular service, class availability: (See figures A and 
B).


[FIGURES NOT AVAILABLE IN ASCII TEXT]


The following describes services that are currently available
to students:

Class Availability - Students can find out which classes are
open, closed or canceled.  Traditionally, obtaining this
information required much time dialing the telephone or
waiting in long lines.  This is the most popular service for
students and parents. The team actually witnessed parents
"battling" each other to use UA Access during freshmen
orientation!

Grades - Students can look at their own grades for any
semester that they had attended classes.  This meant that
they did not have to wait for the grade cards to come in the
mail, or go to the Registrar to find out what grades they
received in prior semesters.

Class Schedules - Students can look at their schedules for
any semester they have attended the University.  This helps
them avoid waiting in long lines at registration time, and
helps them confirm that they are registered for the correct
classes.  At the Student Registration Center students may
print their schedules, a task traditionally performed by a
clerk from the Registrars office.

Financial Aid - Students can see the financial aid they have
been awarded.  There is no more waiting on award letters, or
waiting in line at the Financial Aid office.

Addresses - Students can confirm that they have the correct
addresses on file with the University.  This ensures the
student will get University mailings and reduces return mail
costs.

Account Balance- Students can find out how much money they
owe or just verify that their balance is zero.  They have the
option to display billing detail.

Comments and Questions - Students can provide feedback to
student service offices.  Comments, questions and suggestions
can be given anonymously, or they can provide their name,
phone number and e-mail address if they request a response.

UAInfo - The new system opened access to the UAInfo system.
Students, faculty, and staff can access general campus
information on-line.  Examples of information include
calendars of athletic events, critical deadlines for payments
andinformation about events at the Student Union.  UAInfo
also provides a direct link to the "information super
highway".

Feedback is gathered at the access point as students are
using services.  A button on the menu labeled "Comments and
Questions" allows students, faculty, and staff to type in
anything they want.  This feedback is electronically mailed
directly to members of student service offices and the
SIS2000 team where it is categorized and responded to
immediately if necessary.  This information has been
important in mapping the future direction of UA
Access and SIS2000. (See figure C for graph of feedback
suggestions)


[FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE IN ASCII TEXT]


In addition to the feedback data, statistics have been
gathered regarding use of UA Access.  The following chart
shows the usage of each of the student related UA Access
services.  These usage statistics have helped the team to
determine future projects. (See figure D for usage
statistics).


[FIGURE NOT AVAILABLE IN ASCII TEXT]


Every student that uses these new services means one less
person in line at a student service office.  As access to the
system grows, employees will be able to utilize their time
more effectively by focusing on quality service rather than
handling repetitive requests for information.

Marketing

While UA Access was being deployed, our team was busy
demonstrating it to administrators, staff, students, and
virtually anyone who would take an hour to listen and
give feedback. The purpose of the mass marketing process was
to gain acceptance and support, and gather feedback for the
SIS2000 project.

The biggest, most positive marketing tool was the placement
of a kiosk in a visible area within the Student Union.  We
were stationed at the kiosk during the first week to help
market and receive feedback on the product.  We received some
positive suggestions and implemented some of those quickly.
The quick response was another way to show students that this
was their service and that we were responsive to their needs.

During this time more than 50 presentations were made to
various groups on campus including individual students,
student groups, staff, and administrative personnel.  One
example of how departments became excited by the prototype is
after the Financial Aid office saw the demonstration they
offered $1000.00 in discretionary scholarship money to
involve students in the project.  Five hundred dollars was to
be awarded for naming the system and five hundred for
designing a logo.

When various upper level people saw the demonstrations and
the possibilities for improved service, they told us it was
time to present our accomplishments to Presidents Cabinet.
We shared our vision with and demonstrated our prototype to
the cabinet members.  The response, from what can be a stoic
group, was enthusiastic.  Two vice-presidents stood up
and volunteered to champion the project.  The prototype and
marketing had paid off.  We now had the political capital and
support that we needed to begin the implementation of our
vision.

Partnerships

The prototype gave us the support that we needed to proceed,
but this project is more than putting another face on legacy
systems, it is about dramatically improving service at the
University of Arizona.  To make the level of improvements
that we wanted to make, we needed to define and strengthen
many strategic partnerships.

Our partnership with the Mandarin consortium gave us a great
lead in providing quick wins, but it also provided us with
the opportunity to lay the technical foundation for
reengineering student systems.  We have adopted Mandarin
technology as a fundamental, strategic factor in our
reengineering effort.  With the Mandarin partnership, we are
able to make use of expertise outside of our organization.
Many of the consortium members are trying to solve the same
problems that we are.

Partnerships with traditional departmental analysts are
strengthening and transforming.  Seven analysts from student
service offices were added to the initial planning team.  The
members of this team are: Bill Fee, Curriculum Office, Julie
Gardner, Bursar's Office, Lori Goldman, Office of Admissions
and New Student Enrollment, Judith Mobasseri, Registrar's
Office, Mary Salgado, Registrar's Office, David Soroka,
Graduate College, Judy Tran, Office of Student Financial Aid