Noel Technology to Launch University Administrative System Solutions

Noel Information Technology has positioned to transform management of Nigerian universities with the launch of University Student System (UniSS) solution tailored to that effect. 
Berhane Yemane, CEO, who was in Nigeria recently to explore the market for UniSS applications, and to assess universities software application needs and the availability of the IT infrastructure to run and maintain the software applications; told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek that the business model he presented to universities is what works in the western hemisphere – his company sells and implements the application and the client’s IT department handles the maintenance and support of the application. 
He said that implementation of the UniSS application to individual universities could be expensive for universities to build the necessary IT infrastructures in order to implement and support the application, cost of training and support, and other costs related to implementation; and that the return on investment to automate the administrative functions may not justify the costs of customization, implementation and deployment of the application. Thus, the proposed business model.
“ I learned that wireless technology, Internet access, and networking are well developed in the country. Considerations must be given to power interruption issues and to plan ahead for energy availability when building the  IT infrastructure. However, there is an apparent need for application software to process data and to report accurately.”
Yemane said he met with managing directors of several companies, groups of IT professionals, and knowledgeable and experienced individuals, and the feedbacks he received was that the UniSS application could be a revenue generating system that would cover the cost of development, implementation and support. The solutions discussed, he said, were to develop Web application portals to access the application and to centralize the IT infrastructure. That is, portal for students to register and enroll for classes online, access their results, and other information determined by the university; and portal for university administration to access information such as faculties, departments, courses, instructors, class schedules and events.
Technically, he said that UniSS application will run in the background and information will be inserted or accessed through the Web based application; all database actions will be performed by stored procedures to provide a better level of data security; the IT infrastructure will be centralized in one location to ensure that data security, maintenance and support is done in one location for all universities; and each university will be indentified by organization ID to ensure data integrity and security.
He enthused that universities stand to benefit as they would not need to build an IT infrastructure to run the application, no need to buy any hardware and software, no cost for building a centralized IT infrastructure since development, implementation, and support of software applications will be passed to the universities. “All the universities would need is access to the Internet to enable connectivity to the portals.”
Yemane added that revenues collected from students in the form of fees such as admissions or other fees, and fees from the universities, such as data maintenance, usage fees, or a one-time set up fee would cover the investment in building the IT infrastructure and supporting the applications on their part.
“ITS believes these solutions will be cost effective and will provide extreme benefits to the universities in terms of automating administrative functions, data integrity and security, easy access to data, availability of the system, and accurate reporting,” stated Yemane, adding that his organization will partner with a local company in order to have home representatives to ensure a timely response to the universities in time of need.