During the last five years, a trend toward updating integrating and consolidating computer systems has become visible among the nation's top universities.
In addition to the University, the College of William & Mary and Virginia Tech are both working on technology integration projects with the goal of making their systems scalable - easy to upgrade in the future and more user-friendly.
Because of the necessity of updating systems to be Y2K compliant before the new millennium, many universities have elected to kill two birds with one stone, updating their software and hardware systems and also integrating them.
Virginia Tech began its integration project planning in 1996, and contracted the vendor SCT Software to integrate its human resources, finance and records systems.
"One of our project goals is making it easier for students to register for classes and access course information on the Web," said Kim Homer, Virginia Tech computing helpdesk manager.
Virginia Tech has spent over $10 million on upgrading and integrating its systems.
Not all schools were able to complete both Y2K compliance and system integration, William & Mary integration project manager Pete Kellogg said
"We weren't ahead of the game enough to complete both projects simultaneously and are only beginning systems integration this year," Kellogg said.
William & Mary has completed Y2K compliance updates and is in the proposal phase of its integration project, which it began in February of this year.
Several other competitive universities have made recent moves towards integration projects of their own. Harvard, Yale, and most of the other Ivy League colleges as well as other national heavyweights have begun projects and a few are in the final stages.
"For most competitive universities, systems integration has become a necessity," Homer said.
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