Dan Campbell
Director OLLI at
University of South Carolina
Beaufort (USCB)
• 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)
• Our old membership and enrollment
System
• Access legacy system
– Written a number of years ago
– Prone to frequent crashes because of our volume
• 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
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Reliability- handle large volume
Ease of use
Must be supported long-term
Reasonable cost
E-mail capability- transcripts and rosters
On-line registration capability
Talked to current users
• OLLI at the University of North Carolina
Wilmington
• Armstrong Atlantic University- Continuing
Education
• Non-Credit Student Registration
Software for 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
We are pleased with the progress,
but probably have only scratched the
surface of getting maximum out of
this database system
• 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)