Students want more services; governments and states want more bang for the buck. It`s hard for administrative programmers to please everyone, but that`s what the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has done. Its new Automated Student Access Program (ASAP) reduces hassle and speeds service while leveraging existing technology.
"We`ve been getting rave letters from students plus extremely favorable TV coverage," says Annette Evans, Director of Administrative Computing. "It`s a good feeling to be on the right side for a change."
Usage of ASAP has skyrocketed, with nearly half the student body now registers on-line, since its launch in October 1997. Lines on campus have been reduced, service has been improved and better applications are being developed, all as the result of a very small investment, says Evans.
"It`s been very popular with everyone, especially the state government, because it keeps us from having to buy multi-million dollar systems. We estimated that it would cost between $10 and $15 million to buy the software and upgrades for a student records system. By using Software AG products to leverage our existing systems, we`ve been able to continue working efficiently, without needless data conversions, work stoppage or retraining, for a quarter of a million. That`s a very compelling argument.
"We developed the application in less than five months," says Evans. "That shows the speed with which you can build these applications once you have the right tools in place. In a sense, EntireX and iXpress from Software AG attached a server to the front of the mainframe that Web-enabled our databases. It makes applications easily three times as quick to develop.
"Now that we have a kind of handshake with the student that can be computerized, we can start to integrate more and more information about them. We can give our advisers accurate, real-time information about individual preferences as well as general trends. It can help us tailor programs that really suit the academic objectives of our students."
And all at a bargain price, says Evans: "We were looking at replacing all our legacy systems, but the cost and hassle were daunting. With Software AG, we can take advantage of all the data that`s already been stored as well as the functionality built on top of it. The value of not having to convert all that data is tremendous. By leveraging what we already have, we bypass a lot of needless conversion. Now we can continue to collect data as we always have. No downtime, no training, no wasted effort. It`s definitely more effective."
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