Ithaca College

You are invited to attend: The project to modernize the student information system (SIS) is well underway. Significant progress has occurred since the first Intercom article announcing the SIS project.

The initial focus of the project team was the creation of a request for proposal (RFP) that contained a "wish list" of the features and functions that should be present in the ideal student administration system. The RFP was completed and mailed to prospective vendors on January 24, 2004, with a directive that the vendors respond with a proposal by February 25, 2004. As of the publication of this article, Ithaca has received responses from four primary student systems vendors and several vendor partners for modules such as housing and transfer articulation.

Prior to receiving the vendor proposals, the SIS Steering Committee scheduled several dates for the vendors to visit campus and demonstrate their student systems. The vendors invited to participate in the demonstrations are: PeopleSoft, Oracle, Datatel, and Sungard/SCT. Each vendor has been allowed two days of on-site presentations at Ithaca. The schedule of demonstrations is as follows:

1. PeopleSoft 2. Oracle 3. Datatel 4. SCT

March 3, 4 (Wednesday, Thursday) March 16, 17 (Tuesday, Wednesday) March 31, April 1 (Wednesday, Thursday) April 5, 6 (Monday, Tuesday)

To encourage the involvement of all in the Ithaca College community who have an interest in this vendor search and selection process, we have planned for open meetings for all vendor presentations. All interested Ithaca constituents are welcome to attend any and all of the vendor presentations.

To facilitate attendance at these presentations, a two-day agenda for each vendor that lists the modules, times, and rooms will be published here in Intercom in advance of each scheduled visit. The first of the two-day agendas for PeopleSoft is included today with this article.

Schedule of Presentations

In addition, module descriptions and a user interest matrix are included with the vendor schedule so that our various constituent groups -- faculty, students, and administrative staff -- can pick and choose among the module presentation that may be of interest to them. The formats followed by the vendors will be similar but not identical.

To repeat, Intercom will announce the two-day agenda for each vendor and a description of the subject matter of each module with a suggestion of who may be interested in attending. Please come if your schedule permits.

Vendor Presentations

To maximize the usefulness of the vendor presentations, the project team members prepared a series of test scripts as a guide for the vendors' sales people. Ithaca has requested the vendors follow these scripts during the presentations to provide the most useful information to our project team members.

For several of the vendor presentation segments, the project team prepared a series of questions that each vendor will be expected to answer. These question-and-answer sessions will operate more like a conversation than a formal presentation. The module descriptions on the vendor schedule identify which of the modules will be presented in this conversation format. For example, the technical and infrastructure segment will be in the form of a conversation between vendor and client (Ithaca).

Immediately following each of the four vendor presentations, the project team will complete a formal evaluation of the vendor using a vendor scoring matrix. The results of the evaluation will be available for community review and the vendor finalists will be notified. If more than one finalist is selected, additional study and review will occur in mid-April to select a single vendor by May 1, so that a recommended vendor can be submitted for approval by the SIS Executive Committee.

Please stay tuned to Intercom. We will keep you informed of scheduled events.


Contributed by Tom Torello