SunGard Higher Education Launches The Commons - Online Community for Customer and Employee Communication and Collaboration
SAN FRANCISCO (SunGard Summit), April 13, 2010 – SunGard Higher Education today announced The Commons, a new online community to help open discussion and collaboration by connecting customers and employees around the world.
“Community and collaboration are important elements of our Open Digital Campus vision,” said Jack Kramer, senior vice president, customer satisfaction, SunGard Higher Education. “Our customers have found tremendous value in connecting with their peers at events like SunGard Summit. Now the Commons will help extend that in-person experience with an always-on virtual venue to share expertise, ideas, challenges and best practices that help improve higher education.”
The Commons is built as a community on the edu1world platform, a Web 2.0 resource and network designed exclusively for the higher education community. Sub-communities oriented around SunGard Higher Education solutions, geographic regions, and common interests help people connect on a wide range of topics. In addition, SunGard Higher Education private community members benefit from the wealth of knowledge from the extended edu1world community, which includes hundreds of professionals outside the SunGard community. SunGard collaborated with edu1world to build the Commons and to leverage the platform’s extensive higher education network and collaboration tools.
“We wanted to provide a private, secure environment for our customer community, but also felt it was important to extend interaction to the greater higher education community,” added Mr. Kramer. “Edu1world provided a proven higher education-specific platform that aligned well with our Open Digital Campus vision and delivered an established community of knowledge to the Commons.”
“The Commons has significantly increased access to a larger SunGard user community and enables deeper interaction,” said Dale Ganus, assistant managing director, Information Systems, Texas Tech University System. “In addition, our state-level Texas Connection Consortium - made up of SunGard Higher Education consultants and 40 Texas institutions - has established a community on the Commons. The new electronic forum has made it possible for all consortium members to easily collaborate with each other and with SunGard staff. It gives everyone an opportunity to participate.”
The benefits of participating in the SunGard Higher Education Commons include:
Accessing a large, relevant user community;
Connecting with colleagues around the world who share similar needs and interests;
Opening more transparent dialogue;
Sharing of best practices, tips, tricks and product enhancements;
Broadening the opportunity to contribute ideas, suggestions and requirements for future solutions;
Easing access to SunGard Higher Education’s Community Source Initiative;
Opening access to the varied higher education communities within edu1world.
”Since 2008, edu1world has been bringing higher education professionals together to help one another -- fostering transparency between technology vendors and their customers and ushering in a new era of collaboration and communication,” said Liz Dietz, general manager, edu1world. “Through the Commons and other communities of practice on edu1world, SunGard Higher Education customers will have access to an ever-expanding network of experts and a broad range of resources."
To access the SunGard Higher Education Commons, visit http://commons.sungardhe.com. SunGard Higher Education customers will need to step through the registration process and request access to restricted areas.
About edu1world
Edu1world LLC is a Web 2.0 resource and expert network exclusively for higher education CIO’s, professionals, faculty, associations, and vendors who develop, support and work with technology solutions. It is a community where members from around the world share lessons learned, research best practices and vendor solutions, learn about technology trends, and access the expert content they need to succeed. The edu1world mission is to deliver a state of the art web 2.0 SaaS application that builds transparency between technology vendors and educational institutions and unites the vendor community with the education industry for the benefit of all.
About SunGard Higher Education
SunGard Higher Education serves colleges, universities and foundations in 40 countries worldwide. Through its Open Digital Campus strategy, SunGard collaborates with the higher education community and provides software and services to help institutions find better ways to teach, learn, manage and connect. To learn more, please visit www.sungardhe.com.
About SunGard
SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies. SunGard has more than 20,000 employees and serves 25,000 customers in 70 countries. SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software. With annual revenue exceeding $5 billion, SunGard is ranked 435 on the Fortune 500 and is the largest privately held business software and IT services company.
Trademark information: SunGard, the SunGard logo and Open Digital Campus are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.