Whatever your reason to explore a jump from on-premises to a cloud environment, peer advice is always helpful in making the transition a successful one. Higher education IT leaders talked about their experience during an Oracle-sponsored cloud panel at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Chicago.

Each spoke to their reasons for moving to the cloud. For Borre Ulrichsen, CIO at Gonzaga University, the university’s administrative software platform required a major upgrade. “We really had to upgrade more resources and were not looking at making major investments in our on-prem data center,” Ulrichsen said. “The result was a shift from on-prem to an on-demand license strategy.”

Peter Murray, CIO and vice president for IT at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said their university recognized that the latest releases of some of their tools were not compatible with their existing platform. “We decided to pursue a new financial system; we wanted something completely transformative and state-of-the-art.” 

In researching options, Murray says they saw an opportunity to move to the cloud.

“The cost to maintain on-prem was getting very expensive and time-consuming,” said Cheri Polenske, assistant vice president of enterprise services at the University of Nebraska. 

Polenske’s student information system was the impetus for researching cloud, as enrollment was creeping up and the cost of additional licenses was becoming a factor, in addition to hardware that was reaching end of life.

“We were looking for a way to control costs,” she said.

MORE FROM EDTECH: Check out how universities can map out student success on campus.

IT leaders’ biggest piece of advice from their collective experience is to pay attention to all aspects of change management when transitioning to the cloud. This includes:

• Cost/benefit analysis: Murray strongly recommended a review of a cloud transition to be able to realize potential benefits. “Do a thorough, comprehensive ROI. We took about four months to go through this exercise, and we found we were going to save 34 percent over 10 years versus on-prem.”
• Communication: Transparency was key, Polenske said. “We had open dialogue between IT staff and teams to make sure we were heading in the right direction.”
• Leadership buy-in: “We started with senior leaders,” said Murray, who described building what he called a change network comprised of an advisory group and change champions. “You have to make sure everyone on the project team is going to move forward in lockstep.”
• Education: Some reluctance to make a move to the cloud may come from within the IT department. Panelists found they were struggling with the change in IT because of how job descriptions would shift for new people coming in. It became important to educate staff about the opportunity for training and skill development with a move to the cloud.

Each panelist described unexpected benefits from the transitions, including a more transparent window into the genuine costs around managing data, the ability to introduce the IT team to the most up-to-date technologies, and a culture shift across campus toward a more collaborative campus community.

“[The transition] really is a community effort,” said Borre. “Previously, we would do a lot of work in IT, and then spring it on everyone. Now, we schedule testing, we bring in partners on campus earlier, and they know when changes are coming. That cultural change, beyond traditional IT, activated our community to build a model of more collaboration.”

See more of our EDUCAUSE coverage here.

 Qatar University, the premier educational institution in Qatar, today announced that it has gone live on Oracle E-business suite. Hyperlink, a specialist provider of information technology for business solutions and an Oracle certified partner, implemented the Oracle Financial, Supply Chain, Human Resources Management Solutions (HRMS) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) modules for Qatar University, which will help the premier education institution boost productivity, increase operational efficiency and help its future expansion plans. Hyperlink completed this project in less than nine months with the implementation going live in mid 2006.
Qatar University, which was founded in 1977 with four colleges for Humanities & Social Sciences, Shariaa, Law, Islamic Studies and Science, added two more colleges for Engineering and Business & Economics in 1985. Qatar’s rapid development in recent years has made further expansion into new areas of specializations necessary for the premier education institution. This growth and expansion made Qatar University want to achieve high levels of competency and productivity and to help achieve its institutional goals and to support learning, Qatar University chose Oracle E-business suite to fully automate, integrate and streamline the University’s Financial, Supply Chain, EAM,  HRMS and Payroll operations.
Speaking on the implementation, Dr. Saif Al Sowaidi, Project Manager for Oracle E-Business Suite in Qatar University, said, “As a part of the Reform and Expansion plans, Qatar University wanted to promote transparency in its defined procedures and make information easily available to students, staff, faculty and visitors. The goal of the University was to increase efficiency in daily business processes and operations and to reduce costs. Oracle E-business was a perfect fit for our requirements as it enabled the University to share unified information across the University so as to make smarter decisions with better information. The Oracle applications have also helped us increase internal efficiencies, simplify accounting processes, efficiently manage operations and Improve the overall working environment.
“Hyperlink’s strength in the educational sector and a thorough knowledge of the Qatar market made it an ideal partner for this project. We also chose Hyperlink to implement this project because of its technical expertise as an Oracle partner, its understanding of our specific needs and its outstanding record in developing and executing the solutions diligently and on time. Hyperlink’s consultants were very professional and offered high levels of performance and support throughout the implementation.” Dr. Al Sowaidi added.

With the Oracle E-business implementation going live, Qatar University is able to enhance services for students, staff, faculty, alumni and visitors, as well as control costs through greater administrative efficiencies and timely access to reliable information and services.
“We are happy that Qatar University entrusted us with this prestigious project,” said Dani Diab, Vice President and General Manager of Hyperlink. “Our consultants, with their thorough understanding of the University’s requirements and the tremendous support they received from the Qatar University IT team, were able to develop and customize the Oracle E-business applications to suit the University’s requirements within the stipulated time. The implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite will further facilitate the University to achieve the reputation of being a world class educational institution.”
Leveraging Hyperlink’s relationship with the respected educational community in Qatar was a key element for Oracle in this project. “Oracle has built a strong partner network across the Middle East, and this project demonstrates how key partners such as Hyperlink deliver trusted Oracle solutions to the customer. With a long term relationship established, they understand the customer environment, and the Oracle Partner Program ensures that they are up to date with the latest Oracle technology, so they can advise the customer accordingly,” commented Hisham Essadi, Regional Manager-Alliances & Channels, Middle East & Africa. “This project is a shining example of how the partner program ensures that Oracle technology brings customers true return on investment in the short, medium and long term.”
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Photo Caption: Hisham Essadi, Regional Manager-Alliances & Channels, Middle East & Africa

About Hyperlink:
Hyperlink was established in 1997 to provide business solutions to medium and large-scale organizations through the implementation of enterprise-wide applications and decision support systems in the Middle East and North Africa. Hyperlink is committed to providing the highest quality solutions to customers through its five core assets like high caliber consultants, strategic partnerships, standards and methodologies, regional market experience and vertical market expertise. Its products and services include Oracle solutions in financial, distribution, process manufacturing, human resources and customer relationship management departments of an organization. Hyperlink also offers design, implementation and training of applications in addition to upgrades and post-implementation support and general business consultancy. For further details, please visit http://www.hyperlink-me.com

Next celebrated its 40th birthday in style last month. The retailer’s feted boss, Lord (Simon) Wolfson, mingled with head-office staff and store managers in a carnival atmosphere at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. Guests loaded up at the free bar and danced the night away. Others enjoyed the dodgems and the waltzers. Some just sat back in a deckchair with an ice cream.

A casual observer would never have guessed it, but behind the scenes, the mood among some of Next’s 43,000 workers has, in reality, turned toxic.

The tens of thousands of people working in Next’s stores and warehouses — who were not invited to join last month’s festivities — have borne the brunt of a disastrous implementation of a new Oracle payroll system.

Workers on the minimum wage have been significantly underpaid, while others are being overpaid, causing some to lose access to their benefits amid the worst squeeze on living standards for 60 years.

As serious as the current situation is, though, the issues at Next appear to run much deeper.

In this investigation, we reveal that:

● HM Revenue & Customs is investigating whether Next is paying workers the national minimum wage.

● Next inadvertently over-claimed money from the coronavirus job retention scheme without giving 4,000 members of staff the furlough payments that they were due.

● HMRC has reclassified Next from a low-risk taxpayer to a medium-risk taxpayer.

These revelations appear to stand at odds with the widely held perception of Next as a well-oiled machine. Under Wolfson, the fashion chain has defied gravity on the high street, pumping out record pre-tax profits of £823 million last year. And last week, it raised its profit forecast for this year by £10 million to £860 million after shoppers flocked back to stores.

Meanwhile, workers have been suffering. “More than a dozen people in my store didn’t get paid right last month,” said one shop-floor employee. “One girl was overpaid, so her benefits were stopped and she had to borrow money off her parents to pay her bills and feed her young son. Another girl literally didn’t have the money to pay for her bus fare to work. Morale is awful — I have never known it to be as bad as this.”

The hardships inflicted on staff pose difficult questions for finance director Amanda James and operations director Richard Papp, who oversaw the roll-out of the Oracle software system.

Wolfson, 54, is a master of detail who immerses himself so deeply in the business that he personally signs off requests for additional headcount in shops and warehouses. The Conservative life peer meticulously managed the leases on Next’s portfolio of 477 stores to ensure it had the flexibility to close poor performers as trade drifted online. And he decisively capitalised on Next’s advantages as a one-time catalogue retailer by establishing a service to run other retailers’ online operations. Any investors who bought Next shares 21 years ago, when Wolfson took over, would now be sitting on a near 2,000 per cent return.

Prudence is the watchword at Next. Wolfson prefers to utilise its in-house expertise rather than rely on consultants or third-party software providers. The retailer has largely designed its own systems, developed and supported by a vast IT department of about 1,000 workers. The attempt to integrate those systems with Oracle’s has been at the heart of the operational meltdown.

HMRC requires companies to use a licensed, third-party payroll provider. Next had to find a new one after learning that its previous software would be discontinued this year. In 2018, it is said to have signed a five-year licence with Oracle, and has paid the software giant more than £10 million to date. Oracle did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

The implementation of the payroll system has lasted the best part of four years. As the deadline neared, a team of more than 50 people worked round the clock to try to ensure the system was ready, with some workers putting in dozens of hours of overtime at double pay for several weeks.

Next even dished out an “implementation bonus” — a reward for failure that irritated some head-office staff.

The retailer blamed the botched implementation on the pandemic, which led Next to divert key team members to establishing its furlough payments system. It also acknowledged that it had tried to replicate too much of the functionality from its original payroll system in too tight a timeframe, meaning that Next went live with an untested system.

One source close to the failings, though, said that the company’s insularity and the attitude that “Next knows best” was at the root of the problems — a characterisation the company rejected.

Either way, the consequences have been dire. The company had expected that the switchover would prevent it from being able to hire staff for its retail business for two weeks — but it was actually unable to hire anybody for six weeks. Some employees who had paid off student loans years before noticed deductions suddenly restarting. Meanwhile, pension contributions were deducted from staff pay packets without being invested — although Next said it was confident that no workers would ultimately lose out from these mistakes.

The disruption, cruelly, has been most severe for Next’s shop-floor workers, who are paid the minimum wage of £9.50 an hour. The switchover to the Oracle system in February resulted in thousands of staff being paid incorrectly. One member of the retail workforce said that despite not being paid what they were owed, staff were having to work harder because they had been told to re-label thousands of garments with higher prices.

“Some people just weren’t being paid for months. Affected staff have been calling up crying and, in the worst cases, they have even been suicidal,” said one head-office insider. Another source said that workers in the payroll department “just looked broken”.

Next said this was not a fair reflection of the general interactions. “We acknowledge the frustration many colleagues have felt and reiterate our sincere apologies. We have made huge progress and continue to work very hard to resolve the situation,” a spokesman said.

The retailer’s response was to write another system to catch and correct errors produced by the payroll software before money is paid to staff. Despite that, 219 retail workers were underpaid in Next’s latest weekly payroll cycle and a greater number are thought to be getting overpaid, with the risk of benefits being withdrawn. The company said all underpayments were now being rectified within five working days and that improvements in the process were dramatically reducing error rates.

Like many retailers, there is a chasm between the earnings of workers and Next’s top brass. Last year, Wolfson was paid £4.4 million, equivalent to 245 times the average Next employee. Papp and James earned £2.2 million each.

“I was underpaid by more than £500 … I have just given that up,” one warehouse worker said. “Now the system is telling universal credit I have not been to work, so I received almost £800 [in benefits] that I wasn’t due. I have been told that I have to go and look for a job with the job centre, but I am working damned hard because we are that short-staffed. It is demoralising.”

Next said it believed there were no outstanding underpayment queries among warehouse workers that were more than two weeks old.

Jo Mackie, leader of the employment practice at law firm Slater and Gordon, said that, theoretically, HMRC can punish companies if software issues lead to staff being underpaid — although the liability would be subject to the terms of the contract between the employer and the software provider. In 2013, National Grid agreed to pay £4 million to compensate more than 8,000 American workers after the botched implementation of a SAP payroll system meant it failed to pay overtime to workers repairing damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

Wolfson, though, has other problems to worry about. In May, HMRC wrote to the directors of Next advising them that it had opened an investigation into whether the retailer was paying its workers the “correct rate” of national minimum wage.

The inquiry is understood to have been triggered by a complaint from a member of Next’s retail workforce. HMRC has informed Next that the investigation will encompass its entire corporate structure, including any subsidiary companies. HMRC declined to comment.

“In general terms, it is not uncommon for HMRC to audit large employers and their adherence to national minimum wage regulations,” a Next spokesman said.

If the taxman finds companies guilty of underpaying staff, it can force them to make good the underpayment and levy penalties of up to 200 per cent of the arrears.

HMRC also reclassified Next from a low-risk taxpayer to a medium-risk taxpayer. The change came after the company admitted that it had over-claimed £4.3 million of furlough cash, which it repaid in January. After making what was intended to be a final disclosure, Next is said to have realised it had over-claimed an additional £3 million, which has since been repaid.

Additionally, the retailer discovered it had underpaid roughly £2 million of furlough cash to about 4,000 employees. It has repaid all current employees who were out of pocket, but admitted that about 900 former employees, who have been contacted, have yet to be repaid. Next attributed the mistakes to the regular amendments of the Covid scheme, adding that they were a challenge for all companies to deal with. The company said it had a “clear path” to return to a low risk rating with HMRC.

Still, the litany of recent mis-steps will shock Wolfson’s acolytes in the City. Just like Next’s staff, they will be hoping these are no more than a blip.

Java 7 certainly had its time, but it’s time to prepare for the future. Oracle has been trying to implement Java 8 and 11 and make it the norm, however, there are always developers that keep using Java 7, and 8. Therefore, the company is ceasing its support for the old version. The company has announced that Java 7 will reach the end of its life cycle. So, the company will cease the extended support for this particular version.

According to the official statement, when the life cycle is over, the product will enter continuous support mode. No further patch updates will be provided, no bug fixes, security fixes, or feature implementation, and only limited support will be provided. Furthermore, the company is ceasing its support for Java SE 7. Therefore, some older versions of various Oracle Fusion Middleware products will no longer provide certified JDKs.

“Community support will end when Java 7 reaches the end of service on July 29, 2022. All applications running on 7 will continue to run, but 7 itself will not receive updates or security patches. To minimize risk and potential security vulnerabilities, upgrade your applications to 8 or 11 depending on your workload requirements.

The canonical guide to follow is the Oracle JDK Migration Guide. The migration guide addresses all Java specification incompatibilities and JDK implementation incompatibilities. Most of these incompatibilities are edge cases. You should make an investigation when a warning or error occurs.”

“Most applications should run on 8 without modification. The first thing to try is running on 8 without recompiling the code. The point of just executing is to see what warnings and errors are coming from the execution. This approach gets an application to run faster on 8 for the least amount of effort required.”

Oracle is recommending its users upgrade to a new Java SE version that has support. Currently, the company is offering support for Java SE 8 and Java SE 11. Users opting for these versions will get full support for their Java runtime.

It’s a common behavior for companies to cease existing services to focus on new ones. Amazon, for example, is shutting down Amazon Cloud Drive to focus on Amazon Photos.  Google last year, changed the Google Photos policies.

“Apple (US), Cisco (US), Blackboard (US), IBM (US), Dell EMC (US),Google (US), Microsoft (US), Oracle(US),SAP (Germany), Instructure(US).”

EdTech and Smart Classrooms Market by Hardware (Interactive Displays, Interactive Projectors), Education System Solution (LMS, TMS, DMS, SRS, Test Preparation, Learning & Gamification), Deployment Type, End User and Region – Global Forecast to 2027

MarketsandMarkets forecasts the global EdTech and Smart Classrooms Market to grow from USD 125.3 billion in 2022 to USD 232.9  billion by 2027, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.2% during the forecast period. The major factors driving the growth of the EdTech and smart classrooms market include increasing penetration of mobile devices and easy availability of internet, and growing demand for online teaching-learning models, impact of COVID-19 pandemic and growing need for EdTech solutions to keep education system running.

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=1066

Interactive Displays segment to hold the highest market size during the forecast period

Interactive displays helps to collaborate teaching with tech boost social learning. As per a study it has been discovered that frequent group activity in classrooms, often aided by technology, can result in 20% higher levels of social-emotional skill development. Students in these classes are also 13% more likely to feel confident contributing to class discussions. Interactive display encourages the real time collaboration. SMART Boards facilitate the necessary collaboration for students to develop these skills. Creating an audience response system on the interactive display allows students to use devices to participate in class surveys, quizzes, and games, and then analyse the results in real time. A large interactive whiteboard (IWB), also known as an interactive board or a smart board, is a large interactive display board in the shape of a whiteboard. It can be a standalone touchscreen computer used to perform tasks and operations on its own, or it can be a connectable apparatus used as a touchpad to control computers from a projector. They are used in a variety of settings, such as classrooms at all levels of education, corporate board rooms and work groups, professional sports coaching training rooms, broadcasting studios, and others.

Cloud deployment type to record the fastest growth rate during the forecast period

Technology innovation has provided numerous alternative solutions for businesses of all sizes to operate more efficiently. Cloud has emerged as a new trend in data centre administration. The cloud eliminates the costs of purchasing software and hardware, setting up and running data centres, such as electricity expenses for power and cooling of servers, and high-skilled IT resources for infrastructure management. Cloud services are available on demand and can be configured by a single person in a matter of minutes. Cloud provides dependability by storing multiple copies of data on different servers. The cloud is a potential technological creation that fosters change for its users. Cloud computing is an information technology paradigm that delivers computing services via the Internet by utilizing remote servers, database systems, networking, analytics, storage systems, software, and other digital facilities. Cloud computing has significant benefits for higher education, particularly for students transitioning from K-12 to university. Teachers can easily deliver online classes and engage their students in various programs and online projects by utilizing cloud technology in education. Cloud-based deployment refers to the hosted-type deployment of the game-based learning solution. There has been an upward trend in the deployment of the EdTech solution via cloud or dedicated data center infrastructure. The advantages of hosted deployment include reduced physical infrastructure, lower maintenance costs, 24×7 accessibility, and effective analysis of electronic business content. The cloud-based deployment of EdTech solution is crucial as it offers a flexible and scalable infrastructure to handle multiple devices and analyze ideas from employees, customers, and partners.

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Major EdTech and smart classrooms vendors include Apple (US), Cisco (US),  Blackboard (US), IBM (US), Dell EMC (US), Google (US), Microsoft (US), Oracle(US), SAP (Germany), Instructure(US). These market players have adopted various growth strategies, such as partnerships, agreements, and collaborations, and new product enhancements to expand their presence in the EdTech and smart classrooms market. Product enhancements and collaborations have been the most adopted strategies by major players from 2018 to 2020, which helped companies innovate their offerings and broaden their customer base.

A prominent player in the EdTech and smart classrooms market, Apple focuses on inorganic growth strategies such as partnerships, collaborations, and acquisitions. For instance, in August 2021 Apple launched Mobile Student ID through which students will be able to navigate campus and make purchases using mobile student IDs on the iPhone and Apple Watch. In July 2020 Apple partnered with HBCUs to offer innovative opportunities for coding to communities across the US. Apple deepened the partnership with an additional 10 HBCUs regional coding centers under its Community Education Initiative. The main objective of this partnership is to bring coding, creativity, and workforce development opportunities to learners of all ages. Apple offers software as well as hardware to empower educators with powerful products and tools. Apple offers several applications for K-12 education, including Schoolwork and Classroom. The company also offers AR in education to provide a better learning experience. Teaching tools helps to simplify teaching tasks with apps that make the classroom more flexible, collaborative, and personalized for each student. Apple has interactive guide that makes it easy to stay on task and organized while teaching remotely with iPad. The learning apps helps to manage schedules and screen time to minimize the distractions and also helps to create productive learning environments and make device set up easy for teachers and parents. Apple has various products, such as Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, wearables, and services. It has an intelligent software assistant named Siri, which has cloud-synchronized data with iCloud.

Blackboard has a vast product portfolio with diverse offerings across four divisions: K-12, higher education, government, and business. Under the K-12 division, the company offers products such as LMS, Synchronous Collaborative Learning, Learning Object Repository, Web Community Manager, Mass Notifications, Mobile Communications Application, Teacher Communication, Social Media Manager, and Blackboard Ally. Its solutions include Blackboard Classroom, Collaborate Starter, and Personalized Learning. Blackboard’s higher education division products include Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Collaborate, Analytics for Learn, Blackboard Intelligence, Blackboard Predict, Outcomes and Assessments, X-ray for Learning Analytics, Blackboard Connect, Blackboard Instructor, Moodlerooms, Blackboard Transact, Blackboard Ally, and Blackboard Open Content. The company also provides services, such as student pathway services, marketing, and recruiting, help desk services, enrollment management, financial aid and student services, engagement campaigns, student retention, training and implementation services, strategic consulting, and analytics consulting services. Its teaching and learning solutions include LMS, education analytics, web conferencing, mobile learning, open-source learning, training and implementation, virtual classroom, and competency-based education. Blackboard also offers campus enablement solutions such as payment solutions, security solutions, campus store solutions, and transaction solutions. Under the government division, it offers solutions such as LMS, registration and reporting, accessibility, collaboration and web conferencing, mass notifications and implementation, and strategic consulting. The company has launched Blackboard Unite on April 2020 for K-12. This solution compromises a virtual classroom, learning management system, accessibility tool, mobile app, and services and implementation kit to help emote learning efforts.

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Credit: Rimini Street

Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) has moved to Rimini Street for its Oracle support and away from the vendor, citing costly upgrades and the need for ongoing stability.

This will enable MIT to maintain its current stable version of Oracle for its student management and finance systems for up to fifteen years without requiring an upgrade, according to the third-party services provider.

MIT’s applications have been flagged as reaching end of life in 2023, with Rimini Street claiming the Institute would face “costly” upgrades if it was to continue its support through the vendor.

“We were in a bind. We knew the software vendor’s support for each Oracle application would cease next year, but we wanted to continue using our current applications,” said Gerald Masters, head of technology at MIT.

“Our current Oracle version was stable and there was no reason for us to move off it other than Oracle saying ‘we had to’.”