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3 reasons to put your Student Information System evaluation on hold

November 20, 2020

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Data, Analytics, and IT

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3 reasons to put your Student Information System evaluation on hold

COVID-19 recovery means reinvention-there’s no time for paving cowpaths

Danielle Yardy“> By Danielle Yardy November 20, 2020 4 min read

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As higher education leaders survey the impact of COVID-19, they are beginning to determine a strategy for their institution’s main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(1)”>transformation to compete in a post-pandemic economy. For many, modernizing tech infrastructure to support improved digital experiences is a high priority. In turn, we’ve heard some campuses revisiting their evaluations of the Student Information System (SIS) marketplace, where existing and emerging vendors promise transformation on a platter. But are these administrative displacement projects-paving cowpaths, so to speak-really the right use of limited campus resources in this moment of reinvention? In this post I’ll lay out three reasons to reconsider evaluating SIS vendors as part of your post-pandemic strategy.

The state of the SIS

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as of 2018, the average SIS implementation took 30 months The same Educause study found that this relationship is self-reinforcing: every additional year of age is associated with a 5.5% increase in the likelihood of substantial customization. main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(6)>*:nth-child(2)”>grinding to a halt are main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(6)>*:nth-child(3)”>painful to explore.
The migration cost add up
The labyrinthine complexity of an existing SIS and the multi-year efforts required to disentangle it results in multi-million-dollar migration costs for most institutions. Other factors increasing the cost include:

main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(10)>*:nth-child(1)”>Navigate student success management system indicates that with broadly available virtual advising, undergraduate students main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(10)>*:nth-child(2)”>made and kept more appointments than they did before the pandemic. Will institutions continue to offer virtual advising after the pandemic?

As the higher education and employment landscapes continue to change in this recession, institutions need to be able to pivot quickly to differentiate themselves and meet emerging student needs, whether that’s through virtual advising or expanding access to tmain:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(10)>*:nth-child(3)”>raining for unemployed and underemployed workers or other initiatives. But as the herculean effort of switching to remote instruction proved, most of our current data systems aren’t built to adapt quickly. Rather than updating legacy systems, we should focus our resources on data investments that will directly improve institutional agility.

2. You need to improve your processes first

Part of the shifting journey of higher education, even pre-pandemic, has been in discovering the value proposition of our institutions. In addition to meeting our students’ immediate needs more effectively, today’s leaders are tasked with generating a deeper understanding of the WATCH NOW
3. You can’t afford an expensive misstep

Earlier this month, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating higher education institutions have shed main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(15)>*:nth-child(1)”>a tenth of their employees since the pandemic began. Data from the National Student Clearninghouse Research Center also indicates undergraduate enrollment main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(15)>*:nth-child(2)”>is down 4.4% compared to last year, with freshmen enrollment down 13% and community college enrollment down a staggering 18.9%.

As the pandemic continues, exacerbating budget and enrollment pressures that existed before COVID-19, institutions are likely to face more and steeper budget cuts. Every single resource will count as institutions rebuild themselves in the wake of the pandemic. And in this environment, it’s hard to justify the SIS as an institution’s dominant transformation expense.
The Essential Guide to Cost Containment Strategies for Higher Education
Take back control of your campus data
If sticking with the status quo is the right path for our back-office software, how can we deliver on the transformation mandate? How can we update our infrastructure to support the future we’re building? The answer lies in liberating the data. Freeing data from legacy transactional systems can eek out their lifespan in service to our student-centric agendas at a much lower cost, while at the same time enabling the cross-functional analytics required to inform existential decision-making and strategies. One university’s campaign to “free the data” Learn how University of Montana’s moved campus data from siloed and hard-to-access systems to easily access reliable information.
In the decade to come, campuses may differentiate their missions, and business models will undoubtedly shift. At that point, codifying our processes in the workflows of back-office technologies might make more sense. But for today, an investment in main:nth-of-type(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(1)>*:nth-child(2)>*:nth-child(3)>*:nth-child(19)>*:nth-child(1)”>taking back control of campus data is the best step towards playing an active role in shaping your institutions’ tomorrow.

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