Page 22 - OIT Progress Report: 2024 Edition

Enterprise Software for Productivity and Collaboration
From everyday office tasks to major evolutions in business processes and research management, our Data and Application Services team partners with colleagues across campus to create new ways to process, analyze, and visualize complex data structures in ways that bring about actionable results for research and business processes. The team continued work on various data sets to support the SMU-In-Four initiatives. Numerous dashboards illustrating data trends in STABLE were also developed to provide oversight and insight to customer service trends and issues.
One of the largest issues facing not just SMU—
but the entire higher education landscape—has been the drastic changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA. The major simplification of the form itself, along with changes
“ This was a highly technical and complex
project requiring deep collaboration, rigorous project management, documentation, and training so that SMU could be poised to award financial aid as soon as reasonably possible”
CURT HERRIDGE
ASSOCIATE CIO FOR DATA AND APPLICATION SERVICES
in how federal tax data is shared with universities, posed monumental challenges for institutions big and small, especially as incoming students made their decisions on where to study and how to pay for it. OIT worked closely with Financial Aid and other Enrollment Services staff to ensure that the process of determining aid packages and offering them to prospective students was as smooth and efficient as possible. “This was a highly technical and complex project requiring deep collaboration, rigorous project management, documentation, and training so that SMU could be poised to award financial aid as soon as reasonably possible”
said Curt Herridge, Associate CIO for Data and Application Services.
The Applications Services team has also been
hard at work updating and enhancing tools
to better support all aspects of academic and business processes at SMU. We recently rolled
out significant updates to the my.SMU portal, enhancing its look and feel to provide a more intuitive and user-friendly interface. The updated portal now features a streamlined design, better mobile compatibility, and enhanced functionality, ensuring a more efficient user experience. On the student side of my.SMU, improvements were made to the HighPoint Student Dashboard, including the ability for students to plan their Proficiencies and Experiences credits in advance, further enabling them to have a clear plan towards graduation. We introduced new tools for understanding Degree Progress Reports, making it easier for students and advisors to navigate academic requirements and plan for successful program completion. These tools provide a comprehensive view of a student’s
20 OIT PROGRESS REPORT 2024