IMPLEMENTING AN ENTERPRISE INFORMATION SYSTEM TO REENGINEER AND STREAMLINE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES IN A DISTANCE LEARNING UNIT

Abstract

During the past three years, we have developed and implemented an enterprise information system (EIS) to reengineer and facilitate the administrative process for preparing and teaching distance learning courses in a midsized-to-large university (with 23,000 students). The outcome of the implementation has been a streamlined and efficient process which has delivered higher faculty satisfaction at a substantial cost reduction. In this paper, we propose a new conceptual and operational framework for process reengineering (PR) in higher education institutions. We also share our practical experience gained while designing, developing, and integrating three subsystems into an EIS. We hope that our experience,delineated in this paper, will help other universities’ distance learning efforts and will encourage them to implement enterprise information systems to effectively manage their administrative processes.