By Nicholas Greene
Simplifying the student information system (SIS) for institutes of higher learning is on the agenda for SAP SE, which last week announced a collaboration with two American universities to attempt to reinvent the system to make it more user-friendly and capable of handling large amounts of data.
SAP will partner with US institutions Northern Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky in this endeavour. The goal is to create an SIS which will allow students to track classes and degree paths from their mobile devices, while also interacting with other students in a virtual environment powered by the SAP HANA Cloud Platform.
SAP is not seeking to reinvent the wheel with this project, stating in a press release that its plan is about “preserving existing infrastructure and investments while laying a flexible technical and operational foundation for the next decade and beyond”.
The SAP Student Lifecycle Management application is already running in universities in more than 30 countries. The company plans to add built-in analytics, social networking learning management and integrated mobile – to that platform, all of which will be available via the cloud.
In addition, the cloud technology will be used by schools like the University of Kentucky to ramp up communication and collaboration for advanced research projects that cover anything from multiple campuses to multiple continents.
Universities are hopeful that the partnership can also help cut down the cost of maintaining databases and information systems, which is often passed on to students in the form of higher tuition rates and fees.
According to the US Census, the average tuition of a US public four-year college has increased a whopping 250 per cent in the past 30 years, while the average US income has risen just 16 per cent in the same time period.
“Simply put, we need a world-class education within everyone’s reach,” says Bill McDermott, CEO and Executive Board member, SAP. “We’re committed to partnerships with leading universities to change the game by getting cutting-edge technology on campus. With our SAP University Alliances program and the SAP HANA platform, we’re showing the commitment and the imagination to completely reinvent education and further student success.”
