Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration Integration Pack Now Available

  First Product in Oracle's Academic Enterprise Solutions Suite Integrates

      Back-office and Learning Management Systems for Higher Education

                                Institutions



    REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., Aug. 18 /EMWNews/ --



    -- Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration Integration

Pack (SAIP), the first product in the company's Academic Enterprise

Solutions suite, is now available. The application is designed to help

higher education institutions more efficiently integrate and manage their

various administrative and educational systems.



    -- SAIP provides out-of-the-box integration between PeopleSoft

Enterprise Campus Solutions and major vendor-supplied and open source

learning management systems, helping higher education institutions

streamline business processes, as well as decrease implementation and

maintenance costs for a greater return on investment (ROI).



    PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Administration Integration Pack Details



    -- Higher education institutions have traditionally implemented

learning management systems -- which allow instructors to manage their

courses and exchange information with students -- independently, providing

minimal integration with their student administrative systems. This

approach requires institutions to develop complex, customized integrations

between systems to improve visibility into curriculum and enrollment data.

Customized integration cannot deliver the highly-accessible, user-friendly

online experience today's Web-savvy students expect.



    -- SAIP delivers a flexible, scalable, Web services-based interface for

sharing academic data between the PeopleSoft Enterprise student information

system and standards-based learning management systems -- delivering

unprecedented access to information. For example, when an administrator

creates a course in the student system, the interface passes information to

the learning management system, which automatically creates a corresponding

course site or virtual learning space. As students enroll in the course

through PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions, their enrollment

information flows directly into the learning management system and they

receive all appropriate access privileges.



    -- This approach eliminates the need for re-entering data or

re-synchronizing the two systems with every update -- particularly helpful

for final grade reporting, a previously disconnected process that required

administrators to re-key grades into the student information system.



    -- To build on existing knowledge, contribute to a community of users

and developers and ensure future maintainability and extensibility, Oracle

has employed open standards in SAIP and is participating in discussions to

extend, modify or create standards and specifications where none exist. The

product leverages the IMS Learning Information Services (LIS) standard

specification: http://www.imsglobal.org/es/index.html, which defines

standard information models and protocols for people, courses, enrollments

and outcomes.



    -- Oracle has also partnered with Blackboard Inc.:

http://www.blackboard.com, Desire2Learn Inc.: http://www.desire2learn.com,

Sakai: http://www.sakaiproject.org and Moodle: http://www.sakaiproject.org

to make integration with these learning management systems less costly,

more flexible and extensible to future technologies, enhancements and

upgrades. This provides customers with flexibility in vendor choice.



    -- Oracle and its partners plan to continue developing the Academic

Enterprise Solutions platform, eventually integrating and extending the

broad range of systems that support the education experience including

student systems, learning management, collaboration and communication,

analytics, identity management, library systems, parking and housing

systems and more.



    Supporting Quotes



    -- "Oracle saw a need among its customers to bridge the gap between the

back office and the classroom, and the PeopleSoft Enterprise Student

Administration Integration Pack is the first step in delivering this

integration. Through a standards-based, Web services approach, SAIP eases

the implementation burden and provides a foundation for a robust

enterprise-wide integration framework, putting institutions on a path to

evolve to the next-generation of higher education technology," said Curtiss

Barnes, vice president, Education & Research Product Strategy, Oracle.



    -- "In an institution as large and diverse as the California State

University System: http://www.calstate.edu, we depend on our technology

partners to look for ways to improve the integration of our administrative

and academic solutions. This new integration pack for Oracle's PeopleSoft

Enterprise student system promises to make a huge difference in the way our

faculty, students and administrators access information and manage teaching

and learning on our 23 campuses," said David J. Ernst, chief information

officer and assistant vice chancellor, California State University System.



    -- "The University of Michigan: http://www.umich.edu, like most higher

education institutions, has a mix of strategic software solutions. The

open, standards-based integration solution between the administrative

computing and learning management systems is a critical missing link. This

type of offering is a huge boon as it can reduce our maintenance costs,

provide flexibility and gain efficiencies," said Laura Patterson, associate

vice president, University of Michigan Administrative Information Services

(MAIS).



    -- "Oracle has been a strong partner with the Sakai open source

community, especially in the development and adoption of open standards for

education. Standards-based products like SAIP benefit the entire community,

allowing institutions to confidently deploy open source courseware

management systems like Sakai and more easily integrate them with student

information systems," said Michael Korcuska, executive director, Sakai

Project. (Oracle joined Sakai as a commercial affiliate in 2006.)



    -- "Collaboration between Oracle and Unicon: http://www.unicon.net

integrate Sakai to the Oracle platform will help improve the effectiveness

of the educational experience, as well as further streamline administrative

processes. We are excited to help Oracle bring the benefits of

community-developed collaboration and learning software to its clients

through a supported, low-risk, predictable cost model. Our collective

vision for a next-generation academic management environment will harness

the strength of Oracle's application and technology development with

Unicon's expertise in open source systems and services," said John Blakley,

chief executive officer, Unicon, Inc. (Oracle has partnered with Unicon --

a provider of open-source frameworks, applications and professional

services for the online campus -- since 2006.)







    Supporting Resources

http://www.oracle.com/industries/education/highered.html

http://www.oracle.com/applications/peoplesoft/campus_solutions/ent/module/stud

ent-administration-integration-pack.html

http://www.oracle.com/industries/education/pdfs/oracle-education-student-

integration-pack-ds.pdf

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