Articles: Software

So many choices, so many decisions. Campus HR professionals face decisions about how to enhance their technology systems to streamline business processes. Purchase new software or tweak existing HR modules? Help vendors build a compatible interface for a program or design it in-house?

The financial pressures on institutions and the scrutiny on spending continue. But campus administrative offices also continue to find new ways to change their practices for the better.

As the stories of our Summer 2010 Models of Efficiency honorees demonstrate, there are a multitude of good ideas being implemented that streamline processes without reducing the quality of service that campus constituents deserve, and in many cases expect.

Will this new fiscal year come with a bigger budget for your web and marketing initiatives? Given the current state of higher education budgets, chances are it won't (but, if you're one of the happy few, congratulations!). For the past couple of years, institutions across the country had to do more with less. That's why it has become so important today to find out quickly what works and what doesn't, and how you can improve your digital initiatives.

CardSmith has developed FastStart, a multifunctional campus card service specifically for community colleges.

InFocus has released five new entry-level-priced projectors in the IN2100 and IN3100 series that provide high brightness and rich features.

When Lynne Schaefer started her position as vice president for administration and finance at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2005, the institution’s financial reporting tool left much to be desired. Developed internally to pull data from UMBC’s PeopleSoft ERP, the tool has produced complex reports that make it “hard to find exactly what pieces of information you’re looking at,” she says. “This creates frustration, especially for the untrained eye.

Accessibility is a part of usability. When you aim to please one group you please another.

“If you receive federal funds, you are required to make your information accessible,” says Richard Goodrow, web and media programmer at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. That, of course, includes video.