Illinois State Puts Big Data at Heart of New IT Infrastructure

Illinois State University is in the process of replacing its mainframe-based IT infrastructure with more modern systems. As part of its LEAPForward project, the college plans to make much more use of big data, and enable students to access the systems using mobile devices.

Illinois State’s mainframe runs 44 different applications, for areas such as admissions, financial aid, attendance and grade reporting systems. Originally implemented starting in the 1970s, the mainframe has served the college well. However, the system currently does not meet the needs of the organization, in large part because the various applications are not well integrated, according to a recent story in the college’s StateSide blog.

The idea behind the new LEAPForward project is to replace those 44 mainframe applications with newer applications that are well integrated from the get-go, and which store all information in a central data warehouse.

Having the applications and data centralized will make it easier for students to interact with the system. Students will be able to log in once and take the necessary actions, such as checking their financial aid application, StateSide says in its blog. And since the LEAPForward apps will be based on a modern infrastructure, it will be easier to enable it to support mobile devices, as opposed to the dumb terminals that are traditionally used in mainframe environments.

LEAPForward will also enable the college to mine their data for actionable insights. For example, if the college wants to expand the number of students studying abroad, it could use the data warehouse to create a profile of a prospective overseas student based on data about students who have done that before.

“Rather than making strategic decisions on how we feel, or anecdotal information, we have actual data,” Matthew Helm, executive director of LEAPForward and an assistant vice president of administrative technologies, told StateSide.

The new system could also, potentially, play some role in a social media monitoring system. If incoming freshman are complaining online about not being able to get into an English class, for example, the monitoring system could alert the university to the need to add new classes, according to LEAPForward steering team chair Andrea Ballinger.

“Right now, we don’t even have a way of mining that data, let alone bringing that data in and comparing it to our own knowledge,” she told StateSide.

The new system is on track to go live in 2015.

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