Merging two Colleges - Application Technologies Solution

a Target Operating Model (TOM)

Goal of this assignment is to make a comparison of TWO solutions for theboard of directors of the college and its advisor to see the thought and planning put into proposed solution. You will then draw a conclusion on the TOP choice with the supporting evidence for this choice. This will be written in a report format using MS Word.

Scenario: There has been a business decision to merge 2 Colleges together to attract better enrollment.They are also planning to be able to provide students with a richer learning experience. These 2 colleges will be merging together to form one united educational experience. The goal is to put the new College in the top ranking in Canada.

The names of the 2 colleges are as follows:

1. Hometown College, St. Thomas ON
2. Skye Technology Institute, London ON

Over the past few years the Hometown College in St. Thomas Ontario has seen a decline in the enrollment for a few reasons. They are in need to breathe move revenue into the programs that are very popular with both the domestic and over-seas students. These programs are focusing on the evolving technology trends and have had great success with the students finding jobs in the technology industry. Many students have found that the College being in St. Thomas has benefits but also disadvantages in location. The professors at this college have found the technology to be aging for the past several years, but the funding was not available and there were always several other priorities.

Skye Technology is more of a newer college. They are trying to make their mark on the rankings and have been busy with marketing.However, as they are the new kid on the block with lots of competition, the movement forward with its growth goals has been slower than expected.

Combining these 2 colleges will serve as a mechanism to provide the very best learning and support to students and to have a financial and a feasible future growth plan for the newly formed College.

Business rules;

• Marks are sent electronically both from the school and received in from other institutions
• Student records are kept for a lifetime and these marks are stored to 3 digits
• Student data includes, name, address, former school, salutation, former school marks and all academic history
• There is an electronic mechanism that allows for the tool to be a work flow along with a repository of information, this flow is primary for the marking and submission of student assignments
• Multi-tier communication system to be used by the administration, students and professors
• The new name of the combined schools is the HomeSkye Technology College
• Their mascot is the Unicorn as the school wishes this educational centre to be "Magical"
• The school colours are purple, silver and red
• All technology will remain in St. Thomas as the leasing of the building and some of the servers are not coming due until 2030, these is more cost affective

Professor data; all the professor data is stored to the data base that consists of the following:

• Electronic communications used within the tool
• Their names, courses taught, years of service, awards, salutations

Current state: Hometown College, St. Thomas ON (Client/Server)

• The technology department has limited technology knowledge, many of the staff are close to retiring in the next 3 to 5 years, they are limited to the maintenance of the solution rather than adding on to it
• Data is purged every 5 years, no one has maintained the accuracy of this event
• There is no known disaster recovery routine in place
• Both the students and the professions love the look and the feel of the UI. It is easy for them to use, there are very little support issues and they are fearful of something changing

Current state: Skye Technology Institute, London ON (3 tier arch built with the ability to scale)

• There is a work flow associated to the student's submissions, open, submitted, read, evaluated, mark applied, closed, stored to 3 digits, rolled into the overall marking history and reported on a transcript
• They had trained professionals on the technology team that have advanced knowledge of the application
• These professions have worked on the arch design in the passed
• The UI is lacking finesse, it has not been tested for accessibility, there are often complaints that the font and colour scheme makes it difficult to see, this has always been viewed as "noise" from the users and no effort has been put into any corrective actions

What you need to do for this assignment, the Final solution decision must have the following:

• A TOM, model for 2 possible solutions from the data above (50%)
  • Rational for the selection of you top choice including the following;
  • Executive summary of the solution for the Board (5%)
  • A data base design of the selected solution - (simple) may use tools to create such as database design in SQL (10%)
  • Arch diagram, showing the major components are their relationships Write/show how the business rules will be preserved (10%)
  • Length of time it will take to achieve this project with an explanation (10%)
  • Resources, who and what are needed - include all resources, such as people, technology, process and locations, expected costs, include all factors in your estimations (10%)
  • presentation format, following the instructions5%