University to offer financial aid forms, application sections online

Internet technologies are playing a growing role in University functions, and future applicants may soon be able to submit some forms online.

Part of the college application, financial aid forms and student billing information are all planned to be transformed into web services, said Tim Hogan, OIT information specialist.

As web services, these forms could be filled out and sent in electronically over the Internet, without the use of paper forms. They would be sent directly from the applicant's computer to the University.

Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon said he has waited several years for this change.

"Since it is that part of our application that otherwise requires a lot of data entry on the part of our secretaries, having it forwarded to us electronically would save a lot of clerical time," he said in an e-mail.

However, it is unlikely the entire application will be put on the Internet in the same way.

Hogan said putting entire applications online would make things impersonal.

"Some people fear you might lose that human touch if everything was impersonal and on the web," Hogan said.

Currently, the entire application can be filled out on the Internet, but it then must be printed and mailed to the University.

Hargadon added that to keep applicants' demographic information private and secure, OIT — rather than an outside vendor — was asked to develop the new system. Other colleges use third-party software, he said.

The new system OIT has developed is currently being tested.

Employee time sheets are already filled out and managed through the University's computer systems, and financial aid forms are slated to be digitized by the fall, Hogan said.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The open standards of Sun Microsystems — the software provider used by the University —make it possible for the University's technologies to move forward with greater ease. Open standards allow for simpler integration of other companies' products.

"You get to concentrate more on your business logic than on technical things," Hogan said.

When the University began developing its web technologies several years ago, Sun Microsystems' software was chosen over Microsoft and other options because of the Sun's commitment to open standards, Hogan said.

Microsoft's standards are generally proprietary.

An underdog in the battle on the Internet, Sun has put a new spin on the traditional business model. Rather than relish in fierce competition, the information technology company simply agrees to disagree — and the University likes that tone.

Though the University is using Sun's products now — including its operating system Solaris, its Java platform J2EE and its directory server — competitors' products can be substituted for Sun's products in the future because of Sun's open standards policy.

Sun's open standards and product line are helping the University to add more use to its Internet technologies.

With Java, the University's web applications are not restricted to running on any particular type of computer. J2EE provides a core framework for building the applications.

Sun's goal, said Shirish Netke, Sun's director of strategic sales, is to provide a unified package that will be easiest to use for the end user.

"[A web service] separates all the computer complexity — of the application, the logic, the CPU and everything else — and it puts forward only a service to the user, and that's all they need to care about," Netke said. "That is the utopia that we are driving toward."

The University's cooperation with Sun is a result of neither chance nor Sun's marketing technique, Netke said, but rather an agreement on principles — cooperation over competition. He added, though Sun works with their competitors on developing open standards, they compete when it comes to developing the best software implementations of those standards.