About

In my work in higher education, I’ve seen a recurring problem: institutions with the best of intentions for student success lack the resources to peer into their database to manifest their vision. There is a missing piece in the puzzle: someone with a love of educational process and a playful approach to data. A “white hat” hacker to pull out the weak points in their systems and help them prioritize student success over database complacency.

No, I’m not that person, but it’s my dream job. But helping you be that person is my goal in building this site. This is my personal data journey through Ellucian’s “Colleague” curriculum management system, which is closely related to Ellucian Banner, and I hope these ideas are transferrable. I lean very heavily on Entrinsik’s Informer reporting software and 20 years of self-taught MS Excel.

I know my strengths: I can pull from a wide range of resources to solve problems, see connections that may be invisible to more sensible users, and will spend hours finding an overengineered solution that will save minutes of staff work across the institution. And I know my weaknesses. I’m an end-user in a big institution, a squeaky wheel that’s not a part of the IT team that manages the complex machinery of our institution. But I’ve learned to operate without a lot of direct IT support, and been a part of transforming an institution with low-cost tools. I hope you can be a part of my journey.

Best wishes,

Jacob Williamson
Austin Community College