CIO 100: Lincoln University

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY IN Canterbury is highly regarded worldwide for its f lagship programmes that include agriculture, ecology, supply chain management, biosecurity and environmental planning.

Like its tertiary education counterparts, it is transforming its systems to meet the needs of students, staff and faculty working across digital platforms.

This is reflected in the raft of programmes the IT department will work in upcoming months.

Stuart Reilly, IT director, leads a 31-member team, which supports the needs of around 4500 staff and students.

He says among the key projects this year are network replacement, changing the multi-function devices, upgrading the finance system and improvements to the HR system.

The number of ICT projects this year will be higher by around 10 per cent compared to 2015.

The university will have major investments in cloud services, customer experience technologies, infrastructure consolidation, collaboration technologies, content management and digital tools.

Lincoln University is experiencing strong growth in new student enrolments across all areas of study, for both undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Lincoln says the new CRM system the team deployed in the past year is important as the university manages this strong growth.

The system – built on Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Online platform – aims to bring the university’s student applications processes into line with best current technology options, moving the enrolment system from a paper-based to a digital environment, but with world-class data security protection.

The system helps potential students to ensure they receive course advice and assistance during the application process.

The university aims to expand MyLinc to span the entire student journey from applicant, to graduate and alumni.