Outsourcing a faculty activity application through a self-service web-enabled application service provider

During economic downturns, pressure is placed on information technology (IT) managers to find ways to make their use of technology more efficient. Selective IT outsourcing, if done correctly, can ease this pressure for companies who may lack the means to develop applications internally, but who none-the-less need the technology. This paper addresses the current state of selective IT outsourcing in the domain of institutions of higher education. Tight state budgets coupled with a need for more and better information are causing administrators and IT managers to consider outsourcing selective pieces of their university information systems. The ubiquity of Internet access and Web servers has fostered the emergence of a new breed of distributed applications available to universities. These applications are quickly becoming strategic computing platforms that are relatively inexpensive to lease and easy to use. As an example of this type of application within the domain of institution of higher education, SEDONA is introduced and described. SEDONA is a self-service web application being outsourced by the Colleges of Business at two major universities. This prototype application is a web-enabled database application for collecting, managing, evaluating, and reporting faculty teaching, research, and service activities.