The University of Alberta is promising a full financial and administrative accounting to find out why its main computer system is more than $14 million over budget but still doesn't work as well as the one it replaced.

Problems with the computer system have contributed to an ongoing situation in which the university, with its $850-million annual budget, does not know exactly how much it is spending or taking in.

"We believe that the university's failure to reconcile its bank accounts throughout the past two years left the university vulnerable to substantial losses," Alberta Auditor General Peter Valentine wrote in his last annual report.

At $29 million and counting, the computer system, which controls nearly every administrative function of the university, is expected to cost nearly double its original $15-million price tag before all the costs are tallied.

"We can't ignore the fact that it has cost more than it should have," university provost Doug Owram said. "We need to develop a full accounting of what has gone on, what the over-runs were and so on."

Once that full accounting is completed, the report will be made public through the board of governors, he said.

Students, professors and staff have complained the new system is slower than the old one, more difficult to use, and prone to serious glitches.

"It is a disaster," is the blunt assessment of Graduate Students' Association president Shannon McEwen.

"The system has been nothing but a pain and has caused grief for everyone."

The new system experienced serious problems in its first major test during registration in September 1999. Some students received notice of acceptance from the university weeks after classes started. It inexplicably rejected the registration of some students. Financial statements were wrong, confusing or both. Paycheques for some professors and graduate students were delayed by as much as three months.

Registration this year was again delayed. There were also problems with the system not acknowledging student registration in some classes.

Randy Goebel, head of the university's computing science department, said the system is working better, but not as well as promised.

"The short-term concern for us (academics) is that this system cost a lot of money and it is supposed to do things better, but right now it is just barely doing what it did before."

There are still major glitches, which is not unusual in a big computer system, Goebel said.

"But what we find unusual as computer scientists is that for this amount of money, you would have thought there would be a management plan in place so they could find these problems before the system was put into production.

"I mean, when you build a new car, you don't build it and start selling it and then see how it performs."

Several American universities say California-based PeopleSoft, the company that sold the U of A its system, may have released software that was incomplete or plagued with bugs.

Other institutions have experienced similar problems and have also incurred massive budget over-runs.

PeopleSoft is one of the largest suppliers to universities and colleges in North America. Its former chief executive officer, David Duffield, has acknowledged the problems. In response to a flood of criticism from academic institutions, he offered a public apology in August 1999 at a New Orleans conference attended by more than 14,000 PeopleSoft users, including representatives of more than 400 colleges and universities. Steps were being taken, he said, to "restore your confidence in PeopleSoft."

He then announced his resignation.

But in November 1999, seven large American universities, including the universities of Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio, wrote a letter to PeopleSoft complaining that "the performance of the systems, in terms of responsiveness, is simply unacceptable."

Alan Marshall, PeopleSoft's consulting manager for Western Canada, declined to comment except to say it was up to the university to respond.

Owram said that with "20-20 hindsight," the university would have handled its computer system upgrade differently. In 1997, the university was considering how to deal with its looming Y2K problem. At the same time, its system needed to be replaced. Some universities, such as the University of Calgary, decided to upgrade software and get through the millennium, which would give them more time to choose a new system.

The U of A did not have that luxury because its software language was so old there were not enough staff who could do the reprogramming. The university decided to replace the entire system. But that left only 30 months to get it up and running.

Owram said PeopleSoft made promises it didn't keep and still hasn't kept. The company, for example, has yet to provide a system that allows Internet registration.

The system's bugs and other problems are being fixed as new versions of the software are installed, but at extra cost to the university.

Owram acknowledged that the computer system has contributed to a serious problem with the university's internal auditing system.

In his most recent report, Alberta Auditor General Peter Valentine noted that the university had not been able to balance its main accounts.

As of March 2000, two accounts had not been reconciled since May 1999, another since June and another since November. All have now been balanced. But Valentine said the problem is still occurring.

Owram conceded that, in simplest terms, the university, at any given time, doesn't know how much money it is taking in or spending.

The university has acted to solve the problem by bringing in Al O'Brien, Alberta's former deputy treasurer, who successfully oversaw the implementation of the government of Alberta's PeopleSoft system.

"He's familiar with the issues around implementation," Owram said.

"But he's also a man of vast financial experience."

Edmonton Journal

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2000

Answers

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2000