EDUCAUSE | MICA

Inspired by Greatness

smiltenb — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:41:30 -0500

: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling

One of the things I love about working in higher education is the community of sharing. This week, MICA had the good fortune to host visitors from Brandeis University who shared their experiences around on-line admission applications and course evaluations. Brandeis and MICA are very different in how we manage our enterprise systems. At MICA we're very lightly staffed and therefore must follow a very vanilla, low customization model. Brandeis a larger investment in ERP technology staffing and utilizes these resources to extend functionality of their systems in ways that, well, make some of us at MICA drool.

We also attended the University System of Maryland Oracle PeopleSoft conference where Gettysburg College did a terrific presentation about connecting technology projects with institutional strategy through a student leadership initiative. During his introduction, Steve Lewis commented on one of my favorite themes of 2008 -- aligning technology goals with organizational planning. I've participated in many conversations where technologists wonder about how we can get leadership buy-in for technology projects. The Gettysburg approach was to focus on the goals set by the leadership in the college's long term plan and use this is as the basis for technology iniatives.

Brandeis, Gettysburg and MICA couldn't be more different in terms of our staffing, acadmic programs and approach to technology. But at the end of the day, we're all trying to accomplish the same things: support the education of our students. While it's not likely that MICA will be able to implement the exact solutions that work so successfully at these institutions, our dialog and learning will lead us to providing better services for our students in our own great MICA way.

MICA Presents Papers at Portal 2008 Conference

tsimpson — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:50:07 -0500

Last week, my colleagues Susan and Ben and I presented our recent findings in the area of portal technology as applied to the higher education enterprise at the perennially outstanding Portal Conference at Gettysburg College. Ben focused primarily on technical issues while Susan and I focused on strategy -- there was plenty of crossover between us, though. Our presentation is available below on slideshare.

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Fame and Fortune in Las Vegas

smiltenb — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:51:54 -0500

MICA's Ocean's Twelve are attending the Oracle/PeopleSoft Higher Ed User Group Conference in Las Vegas this week. This is another record breaking year for HEUG -- topping more than 5,000 attendees at this international conference. And this is a record breaking year for MICA as we have 12 people attending the conference and are presenting a six sessions. We have been so fortunate to have resources like the HEUG and local peers who have helped us through our challenges to realize the values of big technology. And it is always interesting to get a away from home and gain a perspective on what we've accomplished so far and what lies ahead.

Aside from the awesome presentations and great hallway conversations that happen at an event like HEUG, we had a special treat today. Stan Jakubik, Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University System of Maryland, begins his term as the HEUG President later this week. Our group from MICA was honored to pose for this photo op. We are thrilled to have someone from the neighborhood as a champion for higher ed and for technology. Way to go Stan!

The Value of Feedback

smiltenb — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:50:15 -0600

Last week I attended a meeting with a group of young MICA alums. Nearly two dozen recent graduates offered insights about alumni programming and ways MICA can engage recent graduates. Incorporating feedback like this in our technology planning processes is a big challenge and often many decisions are made based on assumptions of what we think people want or need. So it was really valuable to be part of dialog where alumni shared their ideas and expectations about institutional communication.

As an institution that is getting ready to jump on the bandwagon and offer email-for-life to our 2008 graduating class, the comments from our recent graduates was timely. Our young alumni want to keep in touch with the college but they do not view a campus email account as a tool for making that happen. The group commented that it would be more valuable if the college provided web services and tools that allowed them to update contact information (email and mailing addresses), connect with one another and share news with MICA and their peers.

Perhaps MICA is unique and perhaps this small group of alumni does not accurately represent the views of all recent graduates, but I'm very curious about what the experiences of other colleges who have already been offering email-for-life. Do alumni see email-for-life as a way to stay connected to the institution?

MICA Launches More Killer Administrative Applications

tsimpson — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:49:49 -0600

The past month has been a hectic one across the MICA enterprise. Check out the following realeases we made over the past two weeks alone.

Academic Analytics
On February 5, 2008, we successfuly launched the first phase of our Academic Analytics project at MICA. All senior staff were given access to our analytics environment. This first release is an implementation of Higher Ed Analytics by iStrategy Solutions. We have already started 2 projects within this project that will challenge us to extend the delivered functionality.

Housing Lottery Application
On February 18, 2008, current MICA students will apply for our housing lottery online (for the first time). This is the first piece of functionality delivered by Welcome Mat -- the residence management system currently being implemented at MICA.

Online Paychecks
Starting wih the first pay period in February, MICA employees can see their pay check data online (for the first time ever). This is delivered functionality from our Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0 (with integrated HRMS) system served up securely to employees through our Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.0.

Competitive Scholarship
As a visual arts college, we regularly face technical challenges when it comes to acquiring, storing, cataloging, and viewing images and other media. MICA Superdevelopers Ben and Carolyn faced those challenges and built an environment in which students can upload their work (images and video), that work can then be cataloged with metadata from our student information system (Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0), and served back in a secure, branded environment.

MICA Connected at EDUCAUSE Mid Atlantic Regional Conference

tsimpson — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:16:22 -0600

I lunched at the EDUCAUSE Mid Atlantic Regional Conference yesterday and today with my colleague Cory Cone.

Here is Cory presenting his poster MICA Connected: Bringing People, Information and Services Together Through Innovative Technology. Cory is one of the young guns at MICA. A recent graduate, he took over many administrative and academic technology tasks and has been a key member of our staff since day one. We can't wait to hear back from Cory about all of the great sessions he attended this week.

Here's Cory evangelizing about MICA Connected to The Amazing Tamara Petronka, MEEC Executive Director. MEEC was a great ally for MICA as we worked to make MICA Connected a reality, so THANK YOU Tamara and MEEC!

MICA Connected: Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0 and Enterprise Portal 9.0

tsimpson — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:59:48 -0600

Here it is: Campus Solutions 9.0 integrated into Enterprise Portal 9.0 integrated into our existing web presence. Notice the cool things like the enterprise navigation (left nav) getting served up into the flash nav across the top. Note the enterprise menu (portal) has deep linking into Campus Solutions. Thus, I go to mica.edu, click 'MyMICA' (one), login and click (two) and click 'Personal Information' (three) and I am deep into my own personal information in Campus Solutions 9.0. This is our first stab at integrated web presence -- it only gets better from here.

MICA Goes Live on Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0 and Enterprise Portal 9.0

tsimpson — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:36:42 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ted Simpson
October 29, 2007
410-225-2531
tsimpson@mica.edu

MICA RELEASES ORACLE PEOPLESOFT 9.0

Upgrades Include Campus Solutions, HRMS, and Enterprise Portal 9.0

Multi-Year Initiative Reflects MICA’s Commitment to Leadership and Innovation in Technology and Positions the College as a Leader in Higher Education Technology

BALTIMORE – Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is pleased to announce that we have successfully upgraded to Oracle PeopleSoft HRMS and Campus Solutions 9.0 and simultaneously integrated them into a new release of Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.0. The upgrades were completed and released on Monday, October 29, 2007. All of the upgrade tasks were completed by MICA administrative and technology staff. These upgrades are part of MICA Connected, a multi-year initiative reflecting MICA’s commitment to leadership and innovation in technology.

Current live modules include Academic Advisement, Campus Community, Contributor Relations, Financial Aid, Recruiting and Admissions, Student Financials, Student Records, HRMS, and Payroll.

MICA Connected is designed to bring to the entire campus community together through improved electronic communication, and web resources. Its main components include upgrades to MICA’s administrative systems, building new models for supporting communication, web-based information and self-service resources across departments, and a newly redesigned MICA website and accompanying digital communications.

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MICA Completes Upgrade to Oracle PeopleSoft 9.0: Going Live

tsimpson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:20:36 -0500

Today we released Campus Solutions 9.0 and Enterprise Portal 9.0 at the Maryland Institute College of Art!

I spent the weekend with some really great people:

Uday Bagampalli, Resident Genius and Consigliere
Ben Liyanage, Web Magician and Starbucks Fanatic
Susan Miltenberger, Jedi Master
Tracy Posner, Technical Mastermind and Meal Reminder
Rana Silver, Funktional Rockstar and Super Commuter

Ni Hao

Ted/MICA.

MICA Completes Upgrade to Oracle PeopleSoft 9.0: Making It Work

tsimpson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:00:57 -0500

Enter Rana . . .

. . . to put the funk in functional.