Commercial Membership/Enrollment Systems-

Our Experience

Dan Campbell

Director OLLI at

University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB)

Rapid Growth of OLLI at USCB-Our Challenge

• Founded in 1991• But growth has exploded in the last three

years• Currently-

– 1540 members– Four regions– 400 classes per year

• 6400 enrollments Fall (expect over 12,000 this year)

Driver

• Our old membership and enrollment System

• Access legacy system

– Written a number of years ago

– Prone to frequent crashes because of our volume

Search for Replacement System

• Began at last year’s conference– Talked with a number of folks about their

systems and recommendations• Homegrown systems (many in Access)• Enterprise-wide systems used by the parent

– University of South Carolina had an initiative to replace its enrollment system

• Long-term and we would be low priority– Budget woes

Functional Requirements

• Reliability- handle large volume• Ease of use• Must be supported long-term• Reasonable cost• E-mail capability- transcripts and rosters • On-line registration capability

Student Manager by ACEware

Talked to current users

• OLLI at the University of North Carolina Wilmington

• Armstrong Atlantic University- Continuing Education

Student Manager System

• Non-Credit Student Registration Softwarefor Continuing and Community Education

• Software system used by numerous schools

• System developed by someone who worked for years at a university in continuing education

• http://aceware.com

Student Manager System

• Purchased base system- – $23,000 software purchase (includes

conversion of old data)– $5,000 dedicated server– $3,000 annual support agreement

• “Live” with Fall enrollment

Student Manager System

• Pros– Data conversion went smoothly– ACEware staff has been responsive– Processed more than 6,400 enrollments and

our membership is up by more than 18%– The system has handled the volume efficiently

Student Manager System

• Cons• ACEware business model does not include on-site

support w/o additional costs

• Learning curve has been steep (but probably not unrealistic given the scope of the project)

• Weak link is the report writer (assumes more technical skills than we expected)

• Documentation could be better

Our experience so far has been positive

We are pleased with the progress, but probably have only scratched the

surface of getting maximum out of this database system

Missing Piece to the Puzzle

• Still have not implemented the on-line registration module

• Awaiting approval of standard for interface to process on-line payment transactions

• Will probably require cost to write program to interface Student Manager with standard (First Data)

Dan CampbellOLLI at USCB

campbe35@uscb.edu(843) 208-8249