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Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

theregister.com

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Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#91

Post by nacozarina »

Telemakhos wrote: post #7

I guess I have three questions here. 1) What happened to the days when universities published their own software, like pine from UW? It seems like Washington of St Louis, which offers a PhD in computer science, should have some students capable of writing a database to run the university. 2) Why have universities not collaborated to develop a modular, expandable system for running a university, instead of putting the…

There exists a large well-paid army of tech sales ppl whose whole job is to make sure that can never happen.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#92

Post by rayiner »

It’s horrifying to peak into industries you’re unfamiliar with and see what’s going on. It’s like lifting up the rotting log on your property. You just want to quickly put it back down.

WUSTL has more administrators than students:

> Academic staff 4,551 (2024)

> Administrative staff 17,979 (2024)

> Students 16,399 (fall 2024)

University of Munich, a prestigious university in German, has only 8,200 administrators for 54,000 students. So less than half the administrators for more than triple the number of students.

The University of Munich has a budget of 800 million Euro. Excluding the medical school, WUSTL has a budget over $4 billion.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#93

Post by rayiner »

basket_horse wrote: post #23
Telemakhos wrote: post #7

I guess I have three questions here. 1) What happened to the days when universities published their own software, like pine from UW? It seems like Washington of St Louis, which offers a PhD in computer science, should have some students capable of writing a database to run the university. 2) Why have universities not collaborated to develop a modular, expandable system for running a university, instead of putting the…

It’s not rocket science, but you’re vastly underestimating what it takes to run a modern university. Not to mention things like security and support, which a university is not setup well to handle in house. The phds should be spending their time learning and doing research, not managing admin software.

That reminds me of the Pharoh’s sorcerers in Prince of Egypt. Maybe we aren’t underestimating anything and these organizations are just dysfunctional because the federal government gives them a blank check with student loans?

WUSTL has 20,000 students and faculty. This is not a big organization. To manage that, they have over 17,000 administrators. Meanwhile, the Pentagon in 1941, at the start of US involvement in WWII, had only 24,000 civilian employees to manage over a million soldiers.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#94

Post by lubujackson »

Telemakhos wrote: post #7

I guess I have three questions here. 1) What happened to the days when universities published their own software, like pine from UW? It seems like Washington of St Louis, which offers a PhD in computer science, should have some students capable of writing a database to run the university. 2) Why have universities not collaborated to develop a modular, expandable system for running a university, instead of putting the…

I have some context here, as my dad used to work at a state college running "the systems". There was era of thin clients and a centralized VAX machine or similar that did all the work. I remember weekends where my dad had to work because they were "running the numbers" which involved calculating grades and producing end of semester reports and such. Somehow this took more than a day of processing for a few thousans students and ran on a big tape machine. Sometimes it would crash or something so someone had to be there to keep things moving.

I don't remember all the details, but this is what they used up til the mid-90s. By then, I could probably run something on my 486 home computer that would complete in half an hour. But there were decades of process and customization embedded in these systems.

When modernization happened, it was swift. My dad was lucky with the timing as he was retiring during the transition so even made bonus money coming back as a consultant. But you can imagine that even if the new software was pricey and not as customizable, the speed improvements and reduction in staff made sense.

Once the old staff was cleared out, there was no department of staff being paid to build computer services, only the lesser staff needed to maintain and use it. The issue was that hardware/Internet usage expanded too fast, the importance and reliance on tech grew and it became a selling point for unis to have the newest systems in place.

It makes sense now for the pendulum to swing in the other direction, as customization and cost are wildly out of balance with AI and the latent tech workforce available at every college.

I would say the blocker now is the same as what allowed creaky old systems to persist into the 90s - administration doesn't give a shit about any of this and it is only viewed as a cost center. Until differentiating through customization provides an obvious and immediate fiscal benefit to the admins themselves, most unis won't look at changing off their shitty landlord systems until they are basically forced to by the market.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#95

Post by alephnerd »

rightbyte wrote: post #88
msy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1000/person is reasonable? You could literally have a secretary/admin spend _multiple days per year per person_ managing things for that much. The software administrative complex is completely mad.

Honestly I think most IT systems are net negative for most orgs. If you remove some db batch jobs like payroll it looks even worse. Payroll, inventory ... what else? Student grades maybe. Contact info for studemts and employees. Essentially keeping a simple db schema.

As I previously mentioned, universities - especially in the US - are much more complex organizations. They aren't just "school for adults".

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#96

Post by T0Bi »

rgovostes wrote: post #50
rwmj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! It always amazes me there seems to be no obvious URL scheme for servicenow.sadcompany.com/ Like, did the developers forget to implement that?

Yeah, and there's no search field, either. Surely, this is my misunderstanding and I should click the "Show Help" icon for a product tutorial, right? This pops up a window saying: > Now Assist offers real-time guidance and support for users seeking help with Virtual Agent. This feature’s generative AI skills blah blah blah Ok...? There is no input box to interact with "Now Assist" or the "Virtual Agent", it's just li…

What? Unless someone actively removed the search field, you should have quite a big search field in the top right corner, where you can basically search for anything you'd need.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#97

Post by T0Bi »

rgovostes wrote: post #42
rwmj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ServiceNow is so terrible I genuinely wonder how it is ever deployed anywhere. Seriously, do the purchasers never look at it? Is there no product demo at all during the purchase process? Do the sales people actively hide it or something?

I work in a department that has been using ServiceNow for at least 5 years, and I still do not know how to look up a ticket by ticket number. I just pretend I'm following along when my colleagues reference a ticket. I just spent a minute poking at it: my dashboard page didn't load, then it told me there are no open tickets in the system, then clicking on a different ticket number to open it didn't do anything, and th…

Not to say that ServiceNow is great, but not being able to type the number into the search bar (top right) sounds more like a user issue than anything else.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#98

Post by musicale »

rayiner wrote: post #93
basket_horse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not rocket science, but you’re vastly underestimating what it takes to run a modern university. Not to mention things like security and support, which a university is not setup well to handle in house. The phds should be spending their time learning and doing research, not managing admin software.

That reminds me of the Pharoh’s sorcerers in Prince of Egypt. Maybe we aren’t underestimating anything and these organizations are just dysfunctional because the federal government gives them a blank check with student loans? WUSTL has 20,000 students and faculty. This is not a big organization. To manage that, they have over 17,000 administrators. Meanwhile, the Pentagon in 1941, at the start of US involvement in WW…

Universities will respond that regulatory compliance is more complex and costly every year, and that student services costs are also increasing continuously (and cannot be cut if a university wishes to remain competitive). They may also say that with faculty not wishing to take on administrative roles (which take time away from research and teaching and do not help with tenure cases) the university needs to hire more full-time administrators.

Some universities will also claim that the average financial contribution for students and families has not increased, in spite of tuition and fees outpacing inflation for half a century or more and student loan debt reaching $1.6T.

But any large bureaucratic organization tends to seek expansion of its staff, budget, and influence, and that is likely a core reason for the dramatic increase in non-teaching university staff.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#99

Post by Telemakhos »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #74
cyberrock wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 has to be thought through carefully because ultimately this would involve students being able to access other students' information. It only takes one instance of stalking, harassment, etc. for it to blow up.

Theres all kinds of situations wjere students have access to other students personal info in a professional capacity. It is handled like any other situation where this is the case

To add to that, I don't see how students having access to student data is much different from other people having such access. You don't have to be a student to stalk a student: administrators and staff members can be creepy too.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#100

Post by colechristensen »

alephnerd wrote: post #95
rightbyte wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think most IT systems are net negative for most orgs. If you remove some db batch jobs like payroll it looks even worse. Payroll, inventory ... what else? Student grades maybe. Contact info for studemts and employees. Essentially keeping a simple db schema.

As I previously mentioned, universities - especially in the US - are much more complex organizations. They aren't just "school for adults".

The thing is, they don't need to be more complex. Their administration bloated because it could in order to enrich the people in the administration. It's the MBA/middle management disease.

Why exactly are Universities all-inclusive day cares for young adults covering every life need under a single administrative umbrella? It's like a capitalist commune. Landlord, hospital network, a few professional sports teams, dozens of amateur sports teams, several restaurant chains, life coaches, a police force, and on and on and on.

They do everything, the things they do they overcomplicate, and they overreach control of every tiny thing all under one umbrella. Of course it's absurdly expensive, but there's no reason it needs to be besides there's no incentive for anybody to cut back on anything ever.

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