ARCHIVED: Completed project: Student Activities Management and Tracking

Primary UITS contact: Julie Parmenter

Completed: July 9, 2013

Original problem description: Indiana University sees student co-curricular activities as an important component of university life. There was not an effective mechanism for tracking and promoting this activity. There was no enterprise-wide solution. IU Bloomington used an antiquated home-grown system while IUPUI had adopted the use of Collegiate Link, which is a vended software solution.

Outcome: An enterprise-wide software package can serve as a mechanism whereby IU students can document and report participation in co-curricular activities such as academic workshops, student organizations, leadership activities, and community engagement. The software can further facilitate the communication of opportunities for involvement. The information contained in this software will augment functions and records in Alumni Relations, Career Services, and the IU Foundation. This software can also be used to present recent IU graduates with co-curricular transcripts to aid in their job search.

Phased approach: Indiana University provisioned a project to provide software for the tracking of co-curricular activities. This project proceeded in two phases:

• Completed phases: The first phase was a pilot phase that consisted of the purchase and installation of the Collegiate Link software for use by the Bloomington campus. This was the software already in use by the IUPUI campus. This software was installed on UITS-hosted hardware, and maintained by UITS development staff, as well as the appropriate UITS system administrators and database administrators. This first phase extended for two years.

  The second phase was an evaluation of market trends and competing software solutions, including evaluation of the option of building the solution in-house. A decision was made to write an in-house system. The system was initially implemented February 2, 2012, for the Bloomington and South Bend campuses. The IUPUI campus was implemented March 29, 2012. The rest of the campuses, excluding IU East, were implemented September 6, 2012. A third enhancement release was implemented September 27, 2012. Form Builder functionality was implemented in October 2012.

• Remaining work: Functionality for Forms Builder phase 2 will be implemented in January 2013.

Comment process: Send comments to Julie Parmenter.

Benefits:

• Increase student retention through the creation of a broader awareness of opportunities for involvement.
• Augment existing Constituent Relationship Management programs.
• Provide a forum for students to integrate curricular and co-curricular educational experiences.
• Aid Career Services' office support systems in assisting students in their transition from campus.

Risks: Plans include integration with various other software systems. Integration depends on those systems being prepared to send and receive data from this system.

Primary clients:

• Students
• Student activities offices on all campuses
• First Year Experience
• Kelley School of Business
• Campus Recreation Sports
• Foundation
• Alumni Relations
• IUSA and VOICE Project Students
• Residential Programs and Services
• USSS and UITS Representatives

Client impact: The implementation of Student Activities software brings about a new way of doing business for many students and staff, which will require training.

Project team: The team is made up of the SIS Technical Team, University Student Services and Systems (USSS), Student Activities, and IU Foundation.

Governance: A committee of project managers meets regularly. The SIS systems development manager is responsible for the technical implementation.