Design of information system for the university management
Table of contents: The Kazakh-American Free University Academic Journal №9 - 2017
Author: Chettykbayev Ruslan , Kazakh-American Free University, Kazakhstan
The informatization
of society is known to be the most important mechanism of shaping the national
economy competitiveness [1]. Due to the realization of the state policy in
terms of the informatization of society and education
in the Republic
of Kazakhstan, the
necessity of application of modern information and communication technologies
has proceeded to a more developed level, from studying opportunities of
information technologies to their implementation and application in the
educational process. Regarding this fact, distance learning technologies have
been applied increasingly, an efficient methodological framework and mechanisms
of distance learning implementation have been designed, and domestic digital
resources began to develop as well. Given that, nowadays an urgent issue
becomes the process of information systems implementation in terms of higher
education management. Education management information system (EMIS) is being
developed in Kazakhstan,
some of its components have already been put into action; however, the unified
information system of education is something prospective. Similar systems are
increasingly implemented in many industrial enterprises across the world. Their
main purpose is a real time analysis of reliable information about key
processes taking place at an enterprise. In spite of all the advantages of
management systems application, many enterprises face a great number of
problems at the stage of implementing those management systems, which leads to
unwillingness to use them. Thus, studying organizational aspects of information
technologies implementation in the field of education presents a relevant
problem and requires systematic research as well as an appropriate action plan.
The methodological framework is represented by the following scientists'
research: A. Markin [9], Samuel W. McDowell [17], Y. Rumyantseva [12], V. Slyusar
[12], D. Issayev [7], E. Troshin [14], B. Martirosyan
[10], V. Latyshev [8], J. Phillips [16], D. Aglitsky [3], V. Bozhko [4].
The goal of the present
research is to determine the main criteria of the implementation of enterprise
management system, identify the main problems of implementation, and develop
recommendations on effective implementation of automated management system in a
higher education institution.
To make appropriate
managerial decisions on tactical and strategic issues concerning the
development of an enterprise (organization), a real time analysis of reliable
information about key processes taking place at an enterprise is required. Any
operating enterprise may face 2 major problems – 1) the difficulty in receiving
the latest and reliable information for analysis and appropriate decision
making; 2) the lack of cooperation between organization departments in the
framework of unified information environment. Such problems often hinder effective
management of an enterprise.
One of the ways to solve
the problems mentioned above is to apply corporate information systems, which
automate activity of an enterprise. Nowadays the entire globe is experiencing
the process of transition from the use of local decisions in terms of
automating separate managerial objectives to integrated systems of automating
record keeping and management unified information space. Integrated systems of
enterprise management, known as ERP-systems (Enterprise Resource Planning),
enable to integrate data and processes of all organization departments into
unified corporate information system. ERP-systems can be defined as an
organizational strategy of integrating production and operations, human
resources management, financial management and asset management, which is aimed
at continuous balancing and optimization of enterprise resources by means of
specialized integrated application package software that provides a general
model of data and processes for the scope of activity.
There are many
advantages of management system implementation for an enterprise; however,
experience has shown that this situation has the following peculiarities: on
the one hand, there are plenty of offers to develop and implement information
instruction systems; on the other hand, there is no evidence of its successful
implementation. Even if plenty of enterprises try to implement integrated
management systems, such systems are hardly used in the field of education. At
best, educational institutions prefer decision-making and automation of certain
aspects of activity on their own, and in fact, they continue to be highly
dependent on paperwork.
While analyzing the
implementation of given systems at an enterprise, one can point out 3 main
problems hindering an effective development of specialized ERP-system market
for higher education institutions of the Republic of Kazakhstan:
1. Lack of funds. Not
all enterprises can afford to implement specialized management systems as their
implementation and maintenance is a labor-intensive and expensive process. The
following elements can be referred to as the reasons affecting the price of an
automation project: the cost of software license, cost of technical support
that accounts for about 20 % of the cost of software and includes payment for
error correction service, functional development and provision of newer
versions, cost of consulting services which cannot be less that 200% of the
cost of software. Approximately, the cost of management system implementation
for an average enterprise will be equal 15,000 conventional units – 5,000,000
conventional units, provided a free ERP-system is applied. Based on this, it
can be concluded that not every higher education institution will be able to
make such a payment because they do not have sufficient funds to maintain and
renew their facilities.
However, it should be
taken into account that ERPs are modular systems,
which contain a great number of various subsystems. System modularity allows for
effective implementation of both integrated and partial application at an
enterprise. In this case, everything depends on the manager's goals and
peculiarities of business processes taking place at that enterprise. This
special feature can be used in the process of ERP-systems implementation and
thus lower implementation and maintenance costs for Kazakhstani higher
education institutions.
2. Shortage of
appropriate specialized decisions. This problem is the key one as there are no
global IT-decisions for the higher education system in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Unfortunately, ERP-systems market is still being developed in Kazakhstan, and decisions on
integrated automation of educational organizations management based on unified
information environment are missing at all. If one analyzes the ERP-systems
market in the CIS, their shortage can be found as well. If large industrial
enterprises have an opportunity to opt for various management systems, for the
education system there can be singled out only one full-fledged ERP-system. It
is called Galaxy – Higher Education Institutions Management which has
demonstrated successful results in such major educational institutions as Yugra State
University, Pacific
State University,
and Far Eastern State
University, as well as a
number of smaller educational institutions [13].
3. Higher education
institution executives lacking necessary competences and interest in the issue
under discussion. Plenty of higher education institution executives follow the
principle "do not ruin the thing that works" and therefore are
reluctant to change the process of paperwork and educational process
organization that have been functioning for years. Yet, the state program of informatization focuses on the implementation of
information technologies into the educational process. Given that, eventually
educational institutions will start integrating ERP-systems into the process of
higher education institutions management.
The advantages of
ERP-systems implementation for an enterprise are as follows:
- the
executives of an organization and its staff obtain a tool allowing for real
planning and managing an enterprise;
- the
coverage of almost all kinds of activities, all business processes at an
enterprise, and all resources management;
- starting with
"enterprise needs", i.e. the primary aspect for ERP-systems is the
optimization of production processes, enhancement of effectiveness with respect
to production activity. The automation of such aspects as accounting is
secondary. Along with this, necessary accounting reports can be created in
different modules of the system;
- ERP-systems enable to
connect with CAD / CAM systems that allows for obtaining an integrated decision
that joins design, production, and distribution together;
- ERP-systems are aimed
at processing financial information to solve problems related to the management
of large corporations with geographically dispersed resources. Here is included
everything that is necessary to obtain resources, produce goods, transport them,
and estimate clients' orders;
- the basic system of
adaptable ERP includes application programs packages to solve managerial
problems, means of problems interconnecting into required configurations, means
of interfacing with other systems, etc.
An essential condition
of these means application is achieving economic effectiveness due to their
implementation. It requires estimating economic effectiveness and its
substantiation [5].
The substantiation of
economic effectiveness in terms of information technologies application enables
to:
- determine the
necessity and reasonability of expenditures on the development and
implementation of the automated information collection and processing system at
different levels of information systems;
- identify the main areas
of information processing automation based on the peculiarities of different
levels of information systems as well as techniques of information acquisition,
transfer, and processing;
- choose economically
effective variants of technological processes related to economic information
processing.
Economic effectiveness
of automated information processing is achieved due to the following major
factors:
- a high speed of
information collection, transfer, processing, and output achieved due to high
productivity of modern technical equipment and maximum reduction of time
necessary to perform separate operations;
- quality enhancement of
performing economic accounting due to the development of the unified infobase, setting an appropriate schedule of its retrieval,
removal of constant data and derived indices as well as due to its centralized
processing;
- information
maintenance improvement of different IS levels due to the reduction of lead
time and documents obtaining.
Thus, general
effectiveness of information technologies application directly depends on the
reduction of information processing costs (so called direct effectiveness) and
on raising an information service level (so called indirect effectiveness).
Direct effectiveness is expressed in lowering labor costs and
expenditures on economic information processing and directly, i.e.
quantitatively, influences economic indices of computing units
activity that are involved in its processing. If, before assessment procedures,
an enterprise has not been automated at all, it would be enough to compare
productivity results before automation Р0 with respective zero
expenditure (Z0= 0) to the results after automation Р1 with respective expenditure Z1.
In a simplified way, effectiveness is calculated according to Formula
(1):
E
= Р1-Р0-Z1. (1)
Indirect effectiveness characterizes qualitative changes that occur as a
result of computer aids application. They are expressed in quality and
accounting performing efficiency enhancement, extension of information structure,
and enhancement of its reliability, efficiency, etc. [11].
Nowadays there are no methods to evaluate effectiveness percentage
received from information machine processing with respect to general
effectiveness, which is the result of various measures taken to improve the
information service of different enterprises. In this case, it is recommended
to use an expert evaluation technique to calculate expected indirect
effectiveness.
Any organization today is a complex open social system, or mechanism,
that takes some elements of the environment in which that organization
functions. Thus, they undergo some changes creating output elements.
It would be wrong to consider information technologies implementation as
a self-sufficient process of changing one of the model elements. Basically, it
is part of a more integrated process of changes touching upon all the
components of the system under study and affecting an organization as a whole.
Making any changes without consideration of this influence can cause
unpredictable consequences.
The roots of this problem appear at the stage of setting the objective
to implement certain technologies urgently. In this way, inefficient work of a
subsystem can be identified and considered as a self-sufficient element, therefore
formulating an additional objective to implement an appropriate decision. In
this respect, it is evident that an incorrect formulation of the objective
leads to unsatisfactory results.
To solve this problem, the flexible systematic methodology called
Organizational Development can be applied [16].
For the purpose of ensuring the most effective results of the process
related goal setting, decision development and implementation, it is necessary
to consider the following steps:
1. Identification of the Company's future state – description of the
system future state – "Where would we like to be?"
1.1 Shaping the future company's consistent image and vision.
1.2 Written description of shared vision.
1.3 Mission statement.
1.4 Development of the company's business-model (a new business-system
model).
1.4.1 Development of business-processes model – the system of
coordinated business-processes, which are necessary for the company's activity
in accordance with the stated mission.
1.4.2 Development of the structure and command model for their
implementation:
- hierarchy of powers and accountability,
distribution of responsibility;
- job specification;
- job description;
- information systems, communication and
coordination systems, conference systems.
1.4.3 Development of management and evaluation system:
- mechanisms of managerial decision making;
- planning systems;
- systems of performance efficiency criteria,
mechanisms of monitoring, evaluation, and control;
- formal systems of motivation, stimulation,
remuneration of labor and reward;
- systems of employees' training and
development;
- operational policy, etc.
1.4.4. Development of employees' value and belief system as well as
mechanisms of their shaping
2. Diagnostics and analysis of the current state – description of the
system status – "Where are we now?"
3. Transition management – goal setting and changes implementation –
"What should we do to change the situation?"
The stage of transition management is important for identifying a set of
necessary changes and developmental measures depending on the fact where (at
what level of analysis) the problem exists and on the degree of necessary
interference. Among these factors, it may be necessary to change the systems
and structures and consequently to implement new information management
technologies.
It is easier to implement a system when it is known what economic effect
it will produce. That is why, more and more organization executives, before
making a decision on fund allocation to design IT-projects, require
IT-department heads and IT-project managers to provide an evidence-based
assessment of such investment effectiveness. Thus, the research will further
focus on determining major economic effectiveness indices based on modern
information technologies implementation.
Therefore,
1. Systemic approach enables to represent an organization as a complex
open social system, i.e. the mechanism taking input elements from the external
environment and making various changes the result of which are output elements.
2. Organizations represented as systems consist of interrelated
constituents: objectives, structures and systems, culture, and people. Changes
made in one constituent lead to those made in other constituents. As a result,
information technology implementation, being a part of the structure and system
element, can be taken into consideration based on its mutual influence on other
constituents of the system.
3. The activity analysis and subsequent modeling of business-processes
is the second important condition for effective IT-decision implementation.
4. The development and implementation of decision with information
technologies application is an iterative process and requires constant
correction and update, so the organization should be provided with appropriate
resources for this activity: staff (knowledge and skills), tools (techniques
and software), information (internal and external environment, consumers,
providers, business competitors).
5. The automated management system should be formed gradually by means
of successive development and implementation of modules (subsystems) based on
the application of common normative-reference information, common databases and
data warehouses that will provide one-time data input and consistency of
information obtained from different organization departments.
6. The process of system implementation should be divided into several
stages and take 2 – 3 years. The pilot operation of developed subsystems should
be combined with the support of operating subsystems, giving up on which will
be appropriate after the confirmation of new decisions effectiveness.
7. The basis of the system is the information connected with the cohort
of staff and students; therefore, the Personnel Management module should be
implemented first.
8. An appropriately designed and implemented system will enable to save
material, labor, and time resources, facilitate the work of a number of key
employees, as well as provide some extra time for analysis and strategic
management, allow for enhancing the educational process quality, customers' and
employee's satisfaction.
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Table of contents: The Kazakh-American Free University Academic Journal №9 - 2017
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