EIS News Release 17 October 07
CONTACT: Kathy Kyne
(650) 949-8571
kynekathy@deanza.edu
October 17, 2007
FACULTY AND STAFF INVITED TO VENDOR DEMONSTRATIONS
See how educational information systems do on reality tests
Old familiar ways of doing things will change dramatically when the Foothill-De Anza Community College District implements a new educational information system (EIS) to replace its legacy systems for human resources, financial records and student information.
But instead of waiting to see how the new system works after it is in place, faculty and staff can preview-and comment on-how systems offered by two vendors perform on specific operations during demonstrations the last two weeks of October.
The two vendors will set up shop for one week each in D260, a trailer located off parking Lot 1-H, behind the district offices. SunGard will demonstrate its Banner system from Oct. 22-26 and Datatel will demonstrate its Colleague system from Oct. 29-Nov. 2.
Over five days, each vendor will respond to dozens of reality-based scenarios put together by a steering committee to extensively test the capabilities of the two systems.
The EIS Project Steering Committee has designed more than 100 scenarios based on real-life situations for which the district uses its current HRS, FRS and SIS systems. For example, the scenarios address such things as creating new courses, the intricacies of the meeting the district's payroll and managing cash, downloading class rosters, letting students know when a class is canceled, managing vendor files and processing financial aid applications.
Each vendor will be asked to show what its system can do during a series of identical demonstration sessions. The sessions are assigned specific times, so faculty and staff can target their particular areas of interest and observe only the parts they wish to see. The sessions demonstrate various aspects of instruction, student records,finance, counseling and advising, student accounts, HR/payroll,financial aid and general.
A detailed schedule of the sessions, and the scenarios they include,can be found at http://www.fhda.edu/eis/documents (Click on vendor demonstration schedule.)
The new educational information system will affect the way just about everything is done at the colleges and in Central Services, said Carmen Redmond, district director of purchasing services and a member of the EIS Project Steering Committee.
"We want the people who will use the new system to help us decide which of the two proposed systems will best meet the needs of the colleges and the district,'' Redmond said.
The tightly scripted demonstration process was designed to ensure that the vendors are treated equitably, and to test the capacity of their systems against the day-to-day and year-to-year needs of the colleges and the district.
Teams of official scorers, made up of Foothill-De Anza employees with expertise in particular areas, will evaluate the vendors' performance in each session. Faculty and staff observers also may give their opinions about what they've seen by filling out a scoring sheet.
The week after the demonstrations, district representatives will make site visits to colleges that are using SunGard and Datatel systems,then embark on reference checks. An analysis also will be done during this period as to whether open source software could be integrated into either system.
The EIS Project Steering Committee, along with Educational Technology Services and Purchasing Services, will determine which of the vendors' proposals would offer the best value to the district. Their recommendation will go to the Board of Trustees in January, 2008.
Once the board selects a vendor, the extensive task of implementation begins, including migrating data to the new system. Fred Sherman,vice chancellor of technology, estimates it will take three years of preparation to convert to the new system, and two years after that to reach full functionality.
More information about the EIS Project can be found at: http://www.fhda.edu/eis/
Questions and comments about the vendor demonstrations can be directed to Kathy Kyne, project manager, at kynekathy@fhda.edu or(650) 949-8571, or Chien Shih, director of information systems, at shihchien@fhda.edu or (650) 949-6139. Other project leaders for the demonstrations will include Bob Barr, Cindy Castillo, Kim Chief Elk,Bill Lindke, Kathleen Moberg and Hector Quinonez.
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