Administrative Systems & Information

ISC plans, designs, and operates administrative systems and services used by students, research coordinators, faculty advisors, and staff. These include admissions, financial, student records and accounts, payroll, human resources, research services, and alumni/development systems. ISC also manages the University Data Warehouse which allows authorized members of the Penn community to perform direct queries on integrated administrative University data.

Our Approach
Four units come together to provide the University's core administrative systems: Administrative Information Technologies, Systems Engineering and Operations, Administrative Systems Project Office, and Administrative Systems Tools and Technologies. Combining strong and experienced management with exceptional technical skills, these units employ a multi-disciplinary approach that includes the development of technological architectures, models, principles and standards which facilitate system flexibility and interoperability within Penn’s highly decentralized environment. Close collaboration with clients is a key component of all ISC implementations. As part of each major initiative, efforts are included to restructure administrative processes, ensuring that technology decisions facilitate innovative, cost-effective, and efficient business solutions.

A combination of technical tools, procedures, and planning strategies is utilized to achieve the goals and objectives defined for administrative systems. Planning and delivery are based on Program Management at Penn (PMAP). The PMAP methodology outlines roles, responsibilities, and a broad-based, structured, repeatable approach based on phases with defined deliverables for each phase. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are developed with our clients each year to summarize deliverables and the associated resource allocations.