Colleges Save Millions by Sharing Computers.CEDAR RAPIDS Cedar Rapids, city (1990 pop. 108,751), seat of Linn co., E central Iowa, on the Cedar River; inc. as a city 1856. The second largest city in Iowa, it is named for the surging rapids in the river. , Iowa -- Eight community colleges have saved millions of dollars over the past six years by sharing computer resources. "It's going very well," Janice Murray, director of administrative computing computing - computer at Kirkwood Community College Kirkwood Community College is a community college serving seven counties in Iowa. Kirkwood's main campus is in Cedar Rapids, with additional buildings in Marion, Iowa City, Belle Plaine, Monticello, Tipton, Vinton, Washington and Williamsburg. , said about the consortium called the Alliance for Community Colleges Electronic Sharing. "This structure of sharing resources benefits everyone." ACCES ACCES Army Command & Control Evaluation System ACCES Army Civilian Career Evaluation System ACCES Accessible Community Counselling and Employment Services (Toronto, Canada) ACCES Automated Command & Control Evaluation System handles the computing needs for the colleges in areas such as student records, financial aid, enrollment, payroll and community education. The group shares software, hardware and employees -- all of which are housed on the Kirkwood campus. However, all their information is maintained separately within the computer's memory. The consortium members are Kirkwood, Hawkeye, Iowa Hawkeye is a city in Fayette County, Iowa, United States. The population was 489 at the 2000 census. Geography Hawkeye is located at (42.938020, -91.951029)GR1. Lakes, Southeastern, Northeast Iowa, Northwest Iowa community colleges, the Eastern Iowa Community College District The Eastern Iowa Community College District contains three community colleges stretched along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Iowa. They are:
Each college pays fees to the group based on a formula that takes into account the college's size, `Murray said. Last year, the consortium collected $1.73 million in fees from the participants, which represents about 1 percent of their operating budgets Noun 1. operating budget - a budget for current expenses as distinct from financial transactions or permanent improvements budget items, operating cost, operating expense, overhead - the expense of maintaining property (e.g. . For the budget year that ended June 30, for example, Kirkwood paid the consortium $429,567 in fees. Had the school not been part of the group, it would have spent an estimated $1.3 million for the same information technology resources, Murray said. Other savings have come from joint purchases, such as the $1.3 million mainframe computer the group bought just after coming together. That purchase was something no school alone could have made, Murray said. Kirkwood employees oversee the hardware and software, which is housed at the college. The nonprofit A corporation or an association that conducts business for the benefit of the general public without shareholders and without a profit motive. Nonprofits are also called not-for-profit corporations. Nonprofit corporations are created according to state law. consortium pays Kirkwood for the time that the consortium spends working on the system. "It's been working beautifully," said Rick Stoltzfus, vice president of administrative services and chairman of the ACCES board. "The mainframe alone saved us half a million. It enables us to better utilize the resources for our number one need. That's in the classroom.'" Stoltzfus predicts the consortium will grow, adding colleges from Iowa and Illinois. That growth will likely lead to even bigger savings. When Lake Land Community College joined, the group saw its costs decrease, he said. "Growth would not be a problem." The programs the group uses are a combination of software written by ACCES staff and commercial software. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion