Continuing Education

Officials at Fresno Pacific University (Calif.) had quite a few reasons to take the institution’s online distance-learning registration system from an external vendor and bring it in-house: Poor customer service and high costs. Insecure and time-consuming methods of communicating with both students and instructors. Duplicate inputting of information. Manual processing of credit card transactions.

Most pressing, though, was a troublesome security breach in 2006 that involved the compromising of a group of credit card numbers.

Extended-learning schools are inherently more complex than traditional undergraduate programs, typical graduate programs, and professional colleges. A more varied student base has much broader goals. Most offer more distance-learning options, and students must be served equally well, whether the next town over or half a country away. San Diego State University’s College of Extended Studies, with 25,000 students, is no different. But with seven databases, three payment systems, and no “live” registration, an already complex operation became that much more difficult.