The Student Systems Transformation Executive Steering Committee and Project Team have worked with the UB community to develop Guiding Principles that will serve as the foundation of our student system selection and implementation.

The purposes of these Guiding Principles are to:

• Provide direction and guidance for transforming UB's student services environment;
• Provide statements of preferred approach, practice or agreement;
• Clearly define the fundamental ways that UB will change the way it delivers student services; and
• Establish a standard of personal and organizational behavior that aligns with and supports the goals of UB2020.

• Students, faculty and staff should have easy, well supported ELECTRONIC ACCESS to the data and information necessary to perform and manage their university functions, thereby eliminating the need to create shadow systems.
• For EVERY student-related process, we will: Identify the customers of the process; Work with them to determine their real needs; and Strive to provide them with outstanding CUSTOMER SERVICE.
• We will treat information as a strategic asset that is: COMMONLY DEFINED; electronically CAPTURED ONCE at its point of origin; and appropriately SHARED across the entire institution.
• We will become an institution that makes "DATA BASED" decisions through the use of "easy to use" management reporting processes and technologies.
• We will collaboratively develop COMMON student processes and data across the entire institution, while still supporting the truly unique and compelling needs of our schools.
• CUSTOMIZATIONS to the new student system will be kept to an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM. Any request for a customization will be subject to a thorough business case review to justify its necessity. [Click here for more information about customizations.]  (142 KB)
• We will maximize our use of new student system SELF-SERVICE functionality.
• We will establish DECISION DUE DATES to keep our projects on time and on budget. If these due dates are not met, the delayed decision will immediately be escalated and made by the appropriate decision maker - the project will then move on.
• We will work as a "SILO-FREE" TEAM to solve the problems of our students, faculty, staff and institution.
• We will create CUSTOMER PARTICIPATION OPPORTUNITIES and TWO-WAY COMMUNICATIONS channels to ensure that our project choices meet REAL user needs.
• FULL PARTICIPATION is expected - non-responsiveness or non-engagement implies agreement.
• All new INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PURCHASES related to student information and student systems must be reviewed and approved by the University CIO. [Click here for process information.]  (208 KB)