Analysing Business Requirements

The COOLS University, which was established in 1989, has achieved a reputation for quality leadership and education in the field of technology and management education. It ranks among top 10 universities of the country. The vision of the university is to pioneer in imparting the industry-relevant education and contribute to knowledge and skill enhancement through continuous engagement in research activities. The highest authority of the university is the Board of Management, involving renowned people from various domains, who are open to new innovations and opportunities in the education sector. Real institutions must always focus on globalization. The university has been attracting students from various countries. The university has students from over a dozen countries including Africa, the Middle East, South Asia etc. The university gives rigorous cross-cultural training to the students through its structured forums. The university has established a collegiate system, where students from different backgrounds mingle together and organize various events together throughout the year (and throughout their academic journey). The university has introduced community forums to encourage students to mix well with each other. The university has been attracting students from various countries. The university has students from over a dozen countries including Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, etc. The university gives rigorous cross-cultural training to the students through its structured forums. The university has established a collegiate system, where students from different backgrounds mingle together and organize various events together throughout the year (and throughout their academic journey). The university has a strong base of experienced faculty members, which is a mix of both academic and industry experts. Each of the members has a teaching experience of at least 3-5 years. Many of them have received accolades both in the industry as well as in the academic world. The university has a strong base of academic staff as well, to ensure that all academic activities run smoothly. The university has a small IT team to cater to its technology-related needs. Most of the members of the IT team are graduates in the technology field, who can handle issues related to basic IT requirements. The courses have been going on for the last 15 years in physical mode. However, as the pandemic struck, the university had to shift its classes to online mode. For online education, faculties used Moodle platform to upload the assignment and share the required materials. The faculty members delivered the sessions through video calling platforms such as google meet and zoom. However, they were not very much comfortable with this online mode of delivery. Although they were trained to use the Moodle platform and Zoom etc, that training was provided through online means only. There were challenges related to the skill set of the IT team as well. As the condition pertaining to the pandemic is normalizing, the classes have returned to the hybrid model. The faculties have become more satisfied with the course delivery as they are getting better opportunities to interact with the students. The Chancellor of the university has invited you, an IT Strategy expert to draw an IS Strategy road map for the university for both offline as well as a fully online program. You will have to undertake other peer institutions focusing on the online mode of education and find out the reasons for their success. What type of Edutec company, platform or software will be needed for managing both online and offline students' data, learning management exams etc. The university wants to introduce community forums to encourage students (both domestic and international, online and offline) to mix well with each other. In this transitional phase, COOLS university does not want to be a laggard. You need to present a case in front of the Board members to convince them for offering an online program.

Developing and Hosting

Assuming that you have convinced the Board to implement the fully online program. Now you need an Education management system (EMS) to manage all the processes efficiently. Initially, the university has been using simple tools such as spreadsheets to manage the data. However, the online program is designed to cater to a larger base of students, which could be at least 5 times the student base of offline programs. It may lead to the generation of a large amount of data. The alumni base is also going to increase over time. It is crucial to maintain the connection with alumni. Hence, a platform catering to the needs of alumni should also be included in EMIS, Education Management Information System. The amount of data to be processed and stored is going to increase in future. Also, the existing data of alumni need to be made available through EMIS. As the student base is going to increase, the number of queries of new potential students is going to be humongous. It would not be feasible for administrative staff to handle all the queries manually. Hence, a chatbot to cater to the basic queries of potential students can also be incorporated. However, the Board has assigned you a limited sum of money for this project and the project needs to start from the next academic year. Now that it has been finalised that an EMIS implementation is to happen, you, as the Chief Technical Officer of the university have to answer the following questions:

• Should you make the EMIS software from scratch or buy it as a COTS?
• Should you host the EMIS data on in-house servers or over the cloud?

Remember while answering that your IT team is already occupied with ensuring the smooth working on existing courses running in hybrid mode.

Implementation

Having finalised the actions to take in developing and hosting the EMIS software, it is now time to implement it.

Establishing a PMO

Now, during implementation COOLS university faced the huge challenge of managing various projects m vendors and resources. The progress was not much in the first six months. The chancellor is unhappy to see the slow pace of implementing various digital tools and technology products for the delivery of online and offline courses. Efforts are also needed to convert existing data of all the departments to digital format and installation of anti-virus software for office computers. Question 4

5 marks

a. As IS Strategy consultant do you recommend setting up of PMO or anything else to address this issue? What would be the focus areas for PMO from the initial stages of operation till implementation

3 marks

b. Recommend people-related changes such as training and skill development.