| University Business presents Models of Efficiency, a national recognition program honoring institutions whose innovative solutions have solved higher education business and technology challenges. |
Agile Marketing Makeover
The Extended Campuses of
Northern Arizona University
Marketing
The traditional marketing model was proving too slow, for The Extended Campuses of Northern Arizona University and nothing the marketing team tried seemed to provide the improvement they were looking for. Then they began sharing services with IT and discovered "agile" marketing and the "lean" approach, which allowed them to eliminate outsourcing and bring creative in-house. Now, productivity is up 400 percent and cost savings are up 20 percent, despite a quadruple increase in project load. See full story. |
Stepping it Up
Salisbury University
Comptroller's Office
Increased enrollment was clogging up this Maryland university's payment system and staff. The university installed Higher One's payment processing solution, which reduced staff workload, phone inquiries and lines at the university cashier's office, while increasing payment turnaround. The streamlining has freed up five to 10 hours a week for accounts receivable staff and 40 hours of cashier's office staff to devote to other tasks. See full story. |
Automating Inspection Report Generation
Texas A&M Health Science Center
Environmental, Health and Safety Office
One employee was responsible for processing and analyzing data from 11 health and safety officers who conducted nearly 3,500 annual inspections. With such limited help, there was a constant delay, during which new safety issues were always cropping up. The manual process was automated, spreading the workload across several staff and making it easier for anyone in the department to print reports. Now, generating reports for a single campus takes just one-and-a-half days, compared to seven previously, a 78 percent improvement. See full story. |
Digitizing Travel and Procurement Card Expenses
University of Colorado System
Procurement Service Center
CU processed almost 42,000 travel reports and 300,000 procurement card transactions annually. Besides the filing and storing challenge, there were also reconciling and auditing hurdles. By implementing Concur Travel and Expense, the number of full-time-equivalent staff members processing travel reports has declined by 75 percent, and the time required to process reimbursements fell 85 percent, even while the number of card transactions audited increased. In addition, manpower was cut in half and customer satisfaction has soared. See full story. |
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MAUI in the Midwest
University of Iowa
Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost
U of Iowa replaced its 30-year-old student information system with a new SIS, called "Made at the University of Iowa," or MAUI. MAUI gave students a contemporary user interface, provided greater integration with other systems and more functionality. Every step of the student lifecycle is now automatically tracked and recorded and data redundancy is a thing of the past. The registrar can process thousands of adds/drops without a signature or long student lines, and applicants receive their admission decision within two days instead of two-plus weeks. See full story. |
Dialing for Dollars
University of Massachusetts
Information Technology, Telecommunications, and Procurement
At UMass, a decentralized cell phone management system resulted in upwards of 600 or 700 individual wireless accounts spread across the system office. Working with an outside consultant, UMass pooled minutes and consolidated carrier accounts, centralizing service under AT&T and Verizon. Now the university has just 12 accounts; each campus pays a single monthly invoice to each carrier, and wireless expenses have dropped nearly $500,000 a year, while support staff has been spending significantly less time processing wireless invoices. See full story. |
Changes in Store
University of Pittsburgh
Computing Services and Systems Development; Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor; Housing and Food Services
Although the help desk was open 24/7, availability wasn't very flexible, and as a result, the Computing Services and Systems Development staff at the University of Pittsburgh felt their services were being underutilized by the main campus' more than 26,000 students. Capitalizing on a renovation and expansion of the bookstore, they added a tech support center there with upgraded services. In fall 2013, CSSD provided support to double the number of students the prior fall semester and more than it assisted during the entire 2012-13 academic year. See full story. |
Centralizing Student Information
University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Distance Learning Center
Enrolling Wisconsin-Platteville's 2,500 online students was once a manual process requiring 500 hours of staff time each semester, or 1,500 hours a year. The slow process also negatively impacted the student experience. A revised student data system eliminated manual entry, provided access to a significant amount of information the university had not been using to its fullest potential, and also gave distance learning students access to their records, a capability they didn't have previously. In addition, hundreds of manual emails were automated and reporting functionality was greatly increased. See full story. |
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