Governance Critical to SIS Project Success

The Enterprise Systems Renewal (ESR) program leverages the talent and experience of staff, partners and departments across campus to update software applications and review business processes in key service areas, including Student Information. The leveraging of talent extends into the ESR and Student Information System (SIS) governance committees, where the experience and insight of governance committee members has already proved to be invaluable.

Not only do members bring the perspectives of their current roles and organizations, they also bring wisdom derived from progressively responsible positions at UC San Diego, other universities and other settings. Together with program leadership and project teams, governance provides functional leadership and oversight in resolving process issues and organizational conflicts in the work to transform core processes and deploy new systems.

For ESR as a whole, program leadership and oversight is provided by the Enterprise Information Services Committee (EISC), ensuring enterprisewide alignment of business and administrative systems with the mission of UC San Diego. The Student Information Services Committee (SISC) provides leadership and oversight for SIS specifically. 

The role of SISC is to provide leadership on strategic decisions and actions. Responsibilities are:

• Steers project by making decisions impacting strategy, scope, timeline and budget
• Provides or refers subject matter expertise
• Resolves and/or escalates conflicts
• Supports the changes in words, behaviors and actions

In July, Carlos Jensen, Associate Vice Chancellor - Educational Innovation and Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, assumed the role of SISC Chair. “It is a pleasure to lead this group representing a broad cross-section of our community in charting a path forward in addressing our many IT upgrade needs on the student and instruction side of our enterprise,” Jensen said of his role as Chair.

Reflecting on the scope and goals of the project he added, “These systems are key to us delivering on our core mission, and are used by tens of thousands of students, and thousands of staff daily. Our goal is to streamline and improve their experience, as well as give us the flexibility to deal with the challenges and opportunities of the future.” 

An exciting aspect of the SIS project will be the transition to a single system for all student and learner data. UC San Diego currently operates with two student information systems: one for undergraduate, graduate and the Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy; and one for UC San Diego Extension. 

This is where SIS will rely on an Escalation sub-team of SISC to respond to or resolve escalated conflicts and issues. It is critically important that this work be done thoughtfully and respectfully.

The role of SISC Escalation is to respond to or resolve escalated conflicts and issues. Responsibilities are:

• Provides functional leadership and oversight in resolving process issues and organizational conflicts
• Engages VC offices as needed to facilitate productive resolution of organizational change resistance and conflict
• Engages IT Services and Health IS as needed to provide technical leadership and insights to inform decision-making
• Liaises to Program and Project Governance and Sponsors as appropriate

As campus embarks of the Fall Plan 2021 phase of the Return to Learn program, SIS project efforts involve discussions and preparations related to the issuance of a Request for Proposal for a vendor partner to further develop their SIS solution. Continuing from summer is the analysis and remediation of SIS-related reporting and downstream systems, with a focus on improving the student, faculty and staff experience in SIS-related applications.