Scholarships and awards provide much-needed financial support for SFU’s students and are a key factor in recruiting and retaining both undergraduate and graduate students. These funding opportunities also provide incentives for students to maintain and/or improve their academic performance, and to become leaders of change by volunteering and demonstrating community service. SFU’s Financial Aid and Awards (FAA) and the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS)awards teams use several systems to manage student funding opportunities, from the initial application intake, through to adjudication, awarding, and disbursement of funding. As many scholarships, bursaries and awards are donor-funded, University Advancement requires this information to provide reports to donors.
A central system that meets the needs of all stakeholders will reduce risk and inefficiencies. A single platform with a modern interface will greatly enhance the student experience. Furthermore, an enterprise awards management platform will ensure that aging and outdated platforms such as GA3, ESAS,.— home-grown apps built on legacy technology to support undergraduate and graduate awards, and NET and goSFU — are replaced before they become unusable.
The goal of this project is to select and implement a centralized, modern awards management platform that streamlines the administration of student funding — from application to disbursement. This system will enhance the student experience, reduce inefficiencies, support donor reporting needs, and replace outdated systems to ensure long-term sustainability and effectiveness.
The selected proponent shall provide and facilitate the installation, configuration, and implementation of the new solution including:
• Planning, analysis, architecture, and design
• Implementation including integration support
• Installation, configuration
• Testing
• Data migration
• Training
• End user and technical documentation including fully documented API and data mapping
• Deployment (including possibly a pilot to start)
• Acceptance testing
• Full deployment/rollout
• Post-deployment support (stabilization, software maintenance and/or support)
• Project management
• Documented business processes that are supported by the implemented software application and related technology with minimal software customizations
