Century College has the advantage of being two colleges in one - both a community college and a technical college. Century students can take their general education credits at Century and then transfer to a four year institution, or they can enroll in a career or technical program and go directly into the workforce.

 

Students choose to attend Century because:

Century College needed a solution to help integrate enterprise applications, coordinate student information with the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) data system and ultimately manage the self provisioning of approximately 16,000 student user accounts.

 

Century College utilized Novell Identity Manager software and the Solbrekk professional services team to implement a solution that allowed student data to be automatically populated and synchronized from the MnSCU system to create a self provision & self service based environment. This allowed Century College to coordinate the efforts of 16,000 account creations so the students would be able to manage their personal information across several disparate systems. This cross-platform approach allows Century College to further strengthen security, data reliability, and build on its existing infrastructure. It also creates the ideal cohesive environment on which to address future challenges.

 

Along with eDirectory, Century College integrated other directories & databases into the infrastructure, including Microsoft Active Directory and SQL, which serves as the system's secondary directory database for student services. Novell’s Identity Manager allows the synchronization and integration of different directories and databases.

 

Microsoft SQL is required to support key data transferred from the MnSCU system, which is currently the master database for all student information within the eco-system of MnSCU schools. Further utilization of Identity Manager supported synchronization of data to support the development of a custom student portal that provides students with access to all forms of information necessary to attend Century College.

 

Once the data was cleaned between the systems, synchronization was established. This allowed the next step in the evolution to begin. That was utilizing the industry standard products to support the development of the student portal. Specifically, this portal provides students with access to email, class material, and research. Students are also able to review and update personal data and information related to the program they are completing at Century College.

 

Tiffni Deeb, Instructional Services Manager said, “Chad Willaert’s knowledge and expertise was invaluable. I appreciate the relationship we have developed with Solbrekk.”

 

Solbrekk Professional Services provided critical knowledge transfer and accelerated the deployment of the solution. Solbrekk Professional Services expertise in leveraging Identity Manager to integrate eDirectory, Active Directory, and SQL simplified application management, identities and processes. This secured Century College’s confidence in its directory-based system's ability to support the many driver’s, students, curriculum, and college needs.

 

Century College is experiencing success by leveraging Novell Identity Manager software from Novell and Professional Services from Solbrekk. The solution not only increased system functionality and efficiency, but also reduced administrative costs and time.

 

Tiffni Deeb stated, “Chad’s knowledge and expertise has provided us with the ability to supply our students, faculty and staff with a solid and well functioning identity management solution.”