Digital Master Plan: The University of Montpellier Charts Its Digital Course

[Article] - Published on July 10, 2024 in Flagship Projects

The Digital Master Plan (SDN) was approved at the Board of Trustees meeting last June. It sets out the University of Montpellier’s digital strategy for the next five years in nine key areas and will engage a large part of the university community in approximately 120 projects. Adeline Fabrié, Director of Information Systems and Digital Technology, provides further details.

This is a small internal revolution. Over the past few weeks , allUM staff membersUM able to move away from the aging Adhoc application and familiarize themselves with two new scheduling and leave management software programs : Logeca and Planum. But few realize that these changes are just two small building blocks in the vast structure that is the 2024–2028 Digital Master Plan (SDN), which was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 10.“The SDN is a long-standing project at the University of Montpellier,” explains Adeline Fabrié, director of information systems and digital technology. “It serves as a foundational framework for mapping out an institution’s digital transformation journey.”  

Meet all 271 needs

Until now, different master plans have coexisted at the university, depending on their respective areas of application. However, recent societal changes linked to the boom in blended learning, the rise of open science, and the rapid advances in artificial intelligence and cybercrime have promptedUM include in its latest five-year contract“the development of a digital master plan capable of covering all of its areas of operation, from research to education, including support functions such as HR, finance, facilities, and administration,” the director continues. In doing so, the University was also responding to the recommendations of HCERES and the Court of Auditors (Recommendation No. 9, September 2023 report).

After more than two years of work led by President Philippe Augé in collaboration with the vice presidents—and in particular David Cassagne, Vice President for Digital Technology in Education, and Anne Laurent, Vice President for Open Science and Research Data—as well as Chief Administrative Officer Bruno Fabre and the teaching and research departments (see the box on SDN governance),UM thus established a five-year development roadmap. Practical, coherent, and sufficiently flexible, it can accommodate the many changes in professions and practices related to digital technology and information technology.  “We analyzed the 271 needs identified during the first phase of this work to create a portfolio of 120 projects, the development of which will be organized around nine strategic priorities,” explains Adeline Fabrié.

Nine focus areas for 120 projects

One of the primary objectives of this digital strategy, formalized by the SDN, is to explain how each of these nine priorities contributes to the University’s overall strategy as defined in the institutional contract. The first three priorities thus address educational needs: the development of digital teaching practices; addressing the challenges of educational transformation; and, finally, improving digital services for students.

Priorities 4 and 5, meanwhile, address the needs of research and innovation, which require better coordination and greater visibility of activities. The SDN also aims to improve the capacity to manage research activities, which are necessarily linked to the institution’s international outreach and modernization.

This modernization effort will guide the last four strategic priorities. Specifically, it will involve: simplifying administrative procedures; securing management information systems; streamlining infrastructure; and ensuring business continuity through a high level of security.

“These guidelines have enabled us to organize and plan the upcoming rollout of 120 projects and, above all, to prioritize them in a roadmap that takes into account the workload and capacity of the DSIN [ estimated workload of 19,000 person-days] as well as the relevant business units [ 5,100 person-days]. “Currently, 38 projects have already gotten underway,” announced Adeline Fabrié.

Must-See Projects

Among these projects, some are classifiedas “mandatory”—that is, they are required of us due to a regulatory constraint, a renewal obligation from the software vendor, or technical obsolescence that jeopardizes the security of the information system. “They affect a broad audience within the institution and therefore require special efforts in terms of change management,” emphasizes the director. This category includes the implementation of Planum and Logeca, which we’ve already discussed, as well as an upgrade to Siham, a core software system for the HR department, which will also be revamped through a redesign of its technical and application infrastructure.“ Our goal is also to promote and deploy integrated, interconnected applications, which, for example, eliminate the need to re-enter the same data multiple times and simplify usage. We call these ‘urbanized’ systems, modeled after the way a city functions.In a context where cybercrime can no longer be ignored, securing our tools is also our top priority.”

But other major challenges will arise starting in 2025 with the upgrade of Sifac, our financial management tool, to Sifac+, and especially with the phased phase-out of Apogée, the administrative application for managing student enrollment, as we transition to Pégase around 2028. These changes are being mandated by the Agency for the Pooling of Resources among Universities and Institutions of Higher Education (AMUE), the provider of numerous tools, including Siham, Sifac, and Apogée—three cornerstones of our institution’s management. “This is where the SDN really comes into its own, because developing it allowed us to recognize the changes ahead and better anticipate them in order to support our staff. Some of our applications are getting outdated, but our staff are so used to them that the change will inevitably require some time to adapt and get up to speed.” 

"Flagship" projects and easy wins

Flagship projects, for their part, account for 54% of the project portfolio in terms of workload. In the training area, these include the implementation of the European Charm-eight project and the establishment of the digital health school; the development of digital exam rooms; and the creation of a tool for managing assessment procedures… On the research side, notable initiatives include the rollout of the “Open Science Plan,” the provision of a tool for managing calls for proposals, and the continued implementation of the Occitanie-wide data center (Drocc) for ESR partners. 

Alongside these flagship projects—which are particularly important to the university—are the “quick wins,” which we could describe as projects that are faster or easier to implement:“The president was very committed to them. He realizes that the flagship and essential projects will require a great deal of effort from the teams, but certain small initiatives can be simple to carry out and provide great benefits to the university community. ” Among the thirty or so projects in this category are, for example: digitizing the CMS card; implementing the Payfip online payment tool for certain services or continuing education; promoting theUM health servicesUM providing a data encryption tool.

Reach a milestone

Finally, there are the “foundational” projects—less visible and more technical—which are the core mission of the DSIN.“Their goal is to consolidate and improve the security of the information and digital systems and to adapt to changes in technical and security infrastructure in order to address the new challenges of digital transformation. This could involve strengthening the institution’s network, Wi-Fi, backing up our technical infrastructure, or services that are largely out of sight—except when they aren’t working,” emphasizes Adeline Fabrié.

This digital master plan therefore organizes and maps out the University of Montpellier’s response to the challenge of taking the digitization of its activities to the next level. This transformation requires additional human resources—particularly within the DSIN—as well as financial resources. The total cost of implementing the Digital Master Plan is currently estimated at 7 million euros over five years. The specially designed governance framework will be responsible for adjusting—or even adding new projects—to ensure the plan remains relevant as needs evolve.

For more details on the planned projects, download the 2024–2028 Digital Master Plan.

Keywords: Digital, Digital Master Plan, University