Last edit: 05-03-17 Graham Wideman

Personal

Survey Systems and Information Stores and Put In Context

My initial survey brought to light far more systems than any individual previoulsy realized existed -- around sixty of note.  It's important to realize that each "central" system tracks the transactions and other activity of some central "service" department (say purchasing, or accounting), and that all of the campus-wide customers of that service also have to track their end of the transactions involved -- for example every academic department has to track their accounts, and their purchases -- and that results in hundred more  "informal" shadow systems, many in desktop database systems or spreadsheets. These myriad shadow systems received little or no support from the central systems -- most interactions between central and customer being on paper.  (The 6000 or so class sections per semester, for example, are still scheduled by the academic departments via manually-generated requests on hand-written forms!).

At the same time, not surprisingly, it became clear that certain systems held the conceptual core of campus data (and the most important dimensional variables), and therefore must receive the first attention for more detailed analysis, and coaxing toward "authority" status and demonstration data delivery and aggregation.   Something of an 80/20 situation: 80% of the useful stuff in 20% of the systems (maybe even 90/10).  The two most important were the Student Information Managment System (SIMS/CDPS) and the accounting system (FAS).  This determined much of the agenda for further progress.

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