Adding to its already impressive technology infrastructure, Ohio’s premier undergraduate institution, The University of Akron, has implemented Oracle (News - Alert) Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management hosted on Oracle Cloud Solutions.

Extending the university's Oracle footprint – which includes PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Financials, a component of Oracle's PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and PeopleSoft Human Capital Management – the new deployment is expected to help augment the university’s multiple research programs.

A multitude of projects are in progress at the campus, and despite its robust technology infrastructure, the University of Akron found it inadequate to implement and maintain a traditional business intelligence environment in its data center.

In order to minimize operational costs and shorten the implementation cycle, the university sought to host the environment in the cloud. The university found the right solution in the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition.

Oracle Business Intelligence provides the university with a set of reporting and ad-hoc query and analysis capabilities that The University of Akron staff can access and personalize using Oracle's pre-built dashboards.

The University of Akron also deployed PeopleSoft enterprise performance management solutions including Financial Analytics, Human Capital Management Warehouse and Supply Chain Analytics, which provides strategic planning and goal setting capabilities – and an end-to-end reporting process including processes that meet National Science Foundation (NSF) research reporting requirements.

The University of Akron will leverage Oracle's business intelligence, which has been implemented as a part of the university’s Vision 2020 – a strategic plan designed to grow enrollment, improve the learning experience and increase funding for student programs, faculty, research, the campus and community.

The complete implementation process will occur through three phases. The initial implementation was completed in July 2012. The University of Akron is currently in phase two, where it will increase user counts from 30 to 125 and complete the NSF reporting functionality.

“With funding shortages and a need for increased operational efficiencies, higher education institutions are seeking ways to operate more efficiently while providing their faculty, staff and students with new technologies,” Cole Clark, global vice president of education and research industry at Oracle, noted in a statement. “We believe that with Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management, hosted on Oracle Cloud Solutions for Education and Research, The University of Akron will have greater reporting capabilities to facilitate forecasting and planning, while reducing operational expenses.”