Oberlin’s Center for Information Technology recently launched a new initiative, the Technology Advisory Council, to enhance technological interconnection on campus.
Chief Information Officer Marcel Mutsindashyaka wrote in an email to the Review that the TAC was established to improve campuswide technology planning and decision making, with a mission of aligning technology investments with Oberlin goals, increasing operational efficiency, reducing risk, and supporting overall academic excellence.
The TAC is a collection of campus leaders who are helping guide technology decisions that support its mission. The TAC is organized into three core teams: the Strategic Team, the Tactical Team, and the Operational Team. The Strategic Team is composed of senior leaders, including the president, deans, vice presidents, and the chief information officer. The Strategic Team works on setting direction and priorities for the TAC. According to Mutsindashyaka, the Tactical Team is composed of key department and operational leaders who work together to turn strategies from the Strategic Team into action. Lastly, the Operational Team works on academic technology and enterprise applications and helps campus partners by assessing what needs exist within different areas.
The TAC website shared that its current areas of focus are developing a clear and consistent technology procurement policy and preparing for the implementation of a new enterprise resource planning system. ERPs are systems that allow organizations to automate certain tasks to allow for smoother workflows, including student information, finance information, and human resources. The current campus ERP, Banner from Elucian, is from 1995 and is no longer supported. Between 2025–2030, the Oberlin TAC will create and implement a new ERP system.
Emerson Rosen-Jones, a fourth-year Computer Science major and member of the ERP Task Force, which aims to outline goals for the ERP upgrade, discussed how students will be affected by technologies the TAC will hopefully implement.
“I went to a talk [and learned about] how something like Blackboard can be used to improve accessibility for students,” Rosen-Jones said.
Rosen-Jones also mentioned that the replacement of Banner and other technologies will make course registration more user-friendly and efficient.
In addition to increased user friendliness of software, Mutsindashyaka explained that the TAC will implement cybersecurity risk management programs, identity and access management, learning technologies, and more, but that the program is especially focused on modernizing the ERP system, expanding cloud services, and improving digital equity and accessibility.
“Now we’re hearing different voices,” Rosen-Jones said. “There have been monthly meetings and a couple of questionnaires and now, this week and next week, there’s some bigger showcases from the two vendors that have been decided on and so all the members of the TAC plus extra people who are on for this specific project get to sort of cast a vote as to which one they think is better.”
In his email, Mutsindashyaka explained the TAC’s goals for the future: aligning technology investments with Oberlin’s evolving academic mission and formalizing feedback loops between departments and the TAC to improve transparency and communication around tech initiatives, technology risk management, and data governance.
