discussion

SR IS Analyst – Goldfarb

Situation

Goldfarb School of Nursing Information Systems department would like to hire a full-time technology analyst. The budget implication for salary and benefits will range $60,000 - $75,000.

Background

The need to hire a technology analyst is driven by new systems procurement and staff workload, a change in the college’s vision, the college’s need to use technology to manage enrollment, and the need to make data informed decisions.

The college has already adopted or will be adopting the following systems: Argos, Canvas, Digital Measures, Evaluation Kit, Turn it in, Ellucian Banner Mobile App, Nelnet, Salesforce CRM, and a Data Warehouse. In addition, the College is adding an Institutional Effectiveness (IE) office for data informed decision making; GSON IS department will be responsible managing the infrastructure and data governance that will support the IE office.

Another notable point is, recently, the college’s Board approved a new vision. The new vision is: “To be a national academic leader in nursing education, research and scholarship.” We have begun to have conversations about how innovation can be used to carry out the vision.

The college has two campus sites: Duncan and West. Summer 2019, we did not have a cohort of students start at the West campus site. The number of students that normally start in a cohort range between 34-40. Not having a cohort start has budget and operating implications. This caused the CRM to instantly become a high priority. Keep in mind, the IS staff is already working on implementing the different systems mentioned above.

One initiative to address the deficit in student enrollment was to acquire a CRM to manage the enrollment funnel. We acquired Salesforce at no cost; however, Salesforce must be designed to meet the college’s business needs and maintained by someone.

Assessment

The adoption of the new systems has led to an increase GSON IS team workload; however, this is not sustainable or efficient. The new vision will further impact the IS employee’s workload because it will require us to innovate/ use more technology. Furthermore, while some of the technology implementations are projects, systems such as the Salesforce CRM, the data warehouse, the data infrastructure, and data governance require ongoing support. Salesforce is also high on the priority list; if not implemented in a timely manner, enrollment management could still be an issue.

Recommendation

The recommendation is to hire a Senior IS Analyst to help decrease IS employee’s workload, carry out the new vision, help data informed decision making, and address the enrollment deficit by supporting the CRM.