Maryland Institute College of Art Successfully Upgrades to Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0

    REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., May 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

    -- Oracle today announced that Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), a
       private art college in Baltimore, has upgraded to Oracle's PeopleSoft
       Enterprise Release 9.0.
    -- MICA completed its upgrade of PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital
       Management, Campus Solutions, Contributor Relations and Enterprise
       Portal on time and on budget. Continuing with its strategy to
       standardize on an integrated suite of applications, the college
       currently is upgrading to PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management
       9.0.
    -- Founded in 1826, MICA is the oldest fully accredited, degree-granting
       college of art in the country.  A PeopleSoft Enterprise customer since
       1999, the college initially deployed the applications to automate
       manual administrative tasks.  Since its initial implementation, the
       college has nearly doubled in size and today has more than 1,800
       undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 918 faculty and staff
       members.
    -- To support its growth and gain further benefit from automating core
       administrative processes, MICA evaluated multiple enterprise resource
       planning (ERP) vendor solutions in 2007.  The college chose to
       re-commit and upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 because the
       solution offered the scalability and functionality necessary to support
       the institution's rapid growth without increasing costs or IT staff,
       and because Oracle had deep expertise and experience working with
       higher education institutions.
    -- MICA is utilizing functionality within PeopleSoft Enterprise Release
       9.0 Human Capital Management applications for HR Administration,
       Payroll and Base Benefits; additionally, the college has also deployed
       PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 Campus Solutions for Academic Advisement,
       Student Records, Student Financials, Financial Aid, Recruiting and
       Admissions, Contributor Relations and Campus Community.
    -- The college also leverages PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal to deliver the
       applications in an integrated, self-service environment to faculty,
       staff and students.  The portal upgrade has improved the user
       experience for the majority of MICA's students and faculty that work on
       Mac computers and Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari Web browsers.
    -- Since upgrading, MICA can now offer online bill/tuition payment, course
       registration, academic advisement, pay advices, grading and class
       rosters.
    -- With the upgrade, MICA scaled its systems overnight without
       experiencing a disruption in operations.  For example, the student
       system grew to support more than 2,500 users from just 58.
    -- MICA faculty, staff and students have offered positive feedback, and
       have adopted the new applications with little or no training.  Users
       appreciate the portal's simplified interface and the ability to
       complete tasks such as payroll deductions, records maintenance, tuition
       payment, course registration and academic advisement directly in a
       self-service environment.


    ROI: Cost Reductions and Improved Strategic Focus
    -- Since implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0, MICA has reduced
       operational costs and enabled staff and faculty to focus on strategic
       and institutional priorities by eliminating many paper-based systems
       and streamlining many processes.
    -- The registration process was completed faster this year, enabling
       better decision making on fall 2008 admissions. Prior to implementing
       online registration, processing took three staff members 20 business
       days per year.  Today, only five days are spent monitoring student
       access to self-service registration.
    -- Since implementing online payments, payment plans, and account view,
       MICA's student accounts office has reduced paper flow by one-third and
       improved overall customer service.
    -- Implementing online pay advices has saved eight hours of staff time
       during each per pay period -- adding up to nearly 200 hours saved per
       year -- and enabled significant postage savings.


    Supporting Quotes
    -- "MICA was fortunate to have the three things that make a successful ERP
       implementation -- a good system, good people using it and executives
       who support it.  Our upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 was
       one of the smoothest upgrades I have been involved with, and we were
       able to deliver systems ahead of time and on budget.  Today, our
       PeopleSoft systems are embraced by users, and we believe we have only
       begun to realize the cost and efficiency gains," said Ted Simpson,
       director of administrative systems for MICA.
   --  "MICA's upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 demonstrates the
       value and scalability of the PeopleSoft solution for growing
       organizations of all sizes.  Oracle's commitment to evolving and
       extending the value of our customers' current investments as part of
       our Applications Unlimited program, while providing best-in-class
       solutions and unsurpassed expertise, confirms Oracle's position as an
       industry leader," said Doris Wong, Oracle's vice president and general
       manager of PeopleSoft Enterprise.


    Product Functionality
    -- PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 is standardized on the Oracle(R)
       Fusion Middleware platform, including Oracle XML Publisher, enabling
       customers to lower implementation costs, simplify upgrades and reduce
       the complexity of maintaining integration points with next-generation
       technology.
    -- Developed through collaboration with customers, PeopleSoft Enterprise
       HCM Release 9.0 enables organizations to deploy enterprise-wide talent
       management strategies and configurable business processes to increase
       efficiency and operating performance.
    -- Oracle's PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Release 9.0 is a feature-rich
       student information and alumni donor management system.  An adaptable
       solution, the application serves all sizes and types of institutions
       including small, private universities, community colleges, research
       institutions and large, public, multi-campus systems.
    -- Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management 9.0 features
       enhancements to core financial accounting, asset lifecycle management
       and enterprise service automation applications.  Additionally, it
       includes new features in PeopleSoft Enterprise Internal Controls
       Enforcer, a key product designed to enable users to automate and
       enforce internal controls required under Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley.
    -- Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal is a world-class portal solution
       with many robust content and collaborative features.  It is ideal for
       customers wishing to deploy a virtually unlimited number of communities
       for their enterprise and provides unsurpassed integration into
       PeopleSoft's Enterprise applications.


    Supporting Resources

    Press Releases
    Customers Benefit from Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0
    http://tinyurl.com/4uhvac

Independent Research Firm Finds PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management Enables Best-In-Class Performance

http://tinyurl.com/4my3jn

Higher Education Institutions of All Sizes Enable Increased Efficiency and Competitive Advantage With Oracle Applications and Infrastructure Software

    http://tinyurl.com/2x5eaa

    Podcasts
    What's New in PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) 9.0
    http://tinyurl.com/2ynb35

    Update on PeopleSoft 9.0
    http://tinyurl.com/2hnpmm

    Demos and Videos
    PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 Demo
    http://tinyurl.com/6mt3s8

    Oracle Blogs
    Talented Apps Blog:
    http://talentedapps.wordpress.com/

    PeopleSoft Technology Blog:
    http://blogs.oracle.com/peopletools/

    Related Resources
    About Oracle HCM
    http://tinyurl.com/2lwgvz

    Brief on the Value of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions
    http://tinyurl.com/4oaq26

    Oracle Information InDepth HCM Newsletter
    http://tinyurl.com/yrxyzx

    Independent Analyst Reports Regarding Oracle Software
    http://tinyurl.com/25ra2y

    White Paper - PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0: The Extended-Value Release
    http://tinyurl.com/2873o3

    Oracle ACE PeopleSoft Enterprise Forum
    http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=432

About Maryland Institute College of Art

MICA's undergraduate and graduate programs have consistently been ranked among the nation's top programs in visual arts and design. Founded in 1826, MICA is the oldest fully accredited, degree-granting college of art in the country.

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