INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN MANAGEMENT V - SGGW

experience, of course have similar expectations for higher education institutions
(Wielbut, 2006).
A university is an educational institution but its activity is not only limited to
students education. The universities’ tasks can be partitioned into three groups
(Grzech 2005). The first group is connected with basic activity, that is, the educational,
scientific, and research tasks. Next group is connected with internal supporting
services like human resources, finance, possessions, infrastructure, production,
logistics, and other. The third are the culture forming tasks, these are: collection of
knowledge, sharing knowledge, knowledge popularizing, participation in transformations,
and other. It is obvious that for the efficient operation a university has to
perform all the tasks in equity, and that the information system should cover all
these activities.
2. COMPUTERIZATION LEVEL AT POLISH UNIVERSITIES
We can characterize universities’ computerization in Poland today. This level
is very diverse. There is a domination of specific domains’ solutions which are
weakly integrated. Additionally, there is a dominance of support processes’ computerization.
Of course there are some spectacular successes. There is a small, but
clear development of e-learning, for example, at Warsaw University of Technology
in 2006, the first diplomas have been handed to students who had learned only
through the Internet, and only examinations had been taken in the traditional manner
(Gryciuk 2007). We can observe more and more of the business and social
environment pressure as opposed to little pressure from the ministry (the only
exception is student e-ID card). Because a number of potential students is limited
and in Poland we have now more private higher education institutions, some kind
of competition appeared. There is a state of consciousness that the effective management
of universities is not possible without IT integrated systems, and that such
a system is a part of building a competitive advantage and it maintains or improves
the image of a university (Grzech 2005). Without greater investment in IT infrastructure,
in access control systems or payment, such concepts as e-cards will not
be of a greater benefit (Gryciuk 2007). Universities realized that the work on the
development of solutions by the own forces usually has no economic justification
and does not give a broad perspective, in comparison to the systems developed by
specialized companies.
Before we start to discuss particular solutions, we have to establish additional
assumptions. Desirable characteristics of a higher education institution’s information
system are the following:
� system should cover all the units of the university and most of the processes,
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