PeopleSoft project on track

PeopleSoft, the six-year project expected to cost IU more than $40 million, has gotten some attention recently due to a California school's underestimation of the project's costs. \nCalifornia State University, which has almost three times as many campuses as IU, was criticized by California auditors, in mid-March, for understating costs for its project and failing to create a proper business plan. \nUnderhanded activities have also been suspected in the CSU case with a university executive receiving money from PeopleSoft between 1996 and 1998, prior to the university acquiring the system.\nBloomington Faculty Council president Bob Eno said the cost of the project was estimated low to begin with because the University wanted to get the project underway. \n"The total cost is going to exceed, by a substantial amount, what was printed," he said.\n"(The school) budgeted costs for people working on the project, but those people that were borrowed were not budgeted."\nEno said the project was funded in part by a state grant, but the rest was acquired from other campuses, in particular Bloomington and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis. \nHe does not think what happened at CSU will happen at IU.\n"I don't see that happening here," he said. "I think the project is moving well. I don't see any black boxes like in the CSU case."\nThe PeopleSoft system, which started in the spring of 2000, is involved in two areas. The first is Human Resource Management, and the second is a Student Information System. Before the transition, IU was using systems developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.\nCurrently seven Big Ten schools use the PeopleSoft system. \nComputer science professor Chris Haynes doesn't think the low estimates were unexpected. \n"The early estimates were a little bit low, but that shouldn't come as any surprise," he said.\nHaynes, a member of the University Information Systems Task Force, said he believes IU is doing an excellent job, spending a lot less when compared with other schools in the Midwest. \n"Other schools are spending considerably more, sometimes several times more," he said.\nDon Hossler, co-chairman of the SIS Steering committee, said part of the reason for the problem at CSU may have been due to the large number of campuses.\n"I think it's unlikely that something of that sort will happen here because it's a very different environment," he said.\nHe added, however, that problems in California may lead things to be more closely monitored. \nEno, who does not regard the system set-up as problem-free, said the people involved are being forward with the progress.\n"I think they've been as up front about this as any institution that has implemented this," he said.\n"As we learn more and more about this, there seems to be a greater deal of transparency"