Anzeige
Erschienen in:
01.06.2010 | Catchword
Campus Management System
Erschienen in: Business & Information Systems Engineering | Ausgabe 3/2010
EinloggenExcerpt
In recent years, integrated application systems became generally known in the sector of higher education as campus management systems (CMS). The focus is similar to concepts that have proven to be effective for integrated information management within companies in the form of enterprise resource planning (ERP) or merchandise planning and control systems: Data integration using a common database, integration of functions by avoiding redundant functions, and process integration by implementation of cross-functional activity flows. In connection with the diffusion of both Internet access and portal concepts an increasing importance of service has evolved. Accordingly, web-based self-service features support students, teachers, and others in performing their tasks (Pollock 2003). The overall goal in designing and implementing an integrated CMS is to advance both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the entire study organization, and as a consequence, improving the quality of teaching and learning. From the perspective of the university, the most important exogenous drivers for the emergence of CMS include:
1.
The
Bologna Process (an agreement among European governments on the unification of higher education), which added a significant amount of administrative work regarding the organization of courses and examinations. In particular, medium-sized and large universities are no longer able to handle the complexity of module combinations, the registrations of modules in several programs, or the calculations of credit points without any support of database application systems (Schilbach et al.
2009). As a result, the German Rectors’ Conference has recommended the universities to use suitable software, consistent with the objectives and instruments of the Bologna process (n. a.
2009). Furthermore, integrated application systems will avoid the known shortcomings of isolated solutions.
2.
Universities face an increasing competition for students, academics and financial resources in both the national and the international context. Therefore, they need to improve the quality of both their services as well as their service delivery, for example within the framework of the
Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. In particular, future generations of students, who grew up in the Internet age, take electronic services such as e-learning or self-service for granted. Universities try to meet this demand by pursuing “eScience” strategies that aim to support all scientific fields and activities with new electronic media. According to Igel (
2007, p. 70), this development will change both the internal and the external perception of higher education more fundamentally than many previously enacted laws and regulations.
3.
In analogy to other industries standard software packages have emerged for the consistent support of higher education processes. They replace proprietary software which was developed for specific functional areas of higher education only. Commercial providers now offer a solution to a variety of users with the same or similar requirements. On the one hand this leads to more professional software development and maintenance processes, but on the other also to an increased dependency from the solution providers and the necessity to adapt the software to the individual university structures. Although a number of universities are currently replacing their existing systems by a CMS (Schilbach et al.
2009), the sector of higher education is only at the beginning, especially when compared to other industries.