• Efficiency -- The integration of accounting and billing methods allows departments that use their own software for business services to directly tap the data provided by a centralized entity that provides services to the entire campus, such as a Financial Services office. By the same token, a common platform such as the web allows a facilities management department, for instance, to provide utility billing and work order information to departments in a paperless format, as well as to streamline common services such as work order submission.
• Security -- Every application with sensitive or private information requires a database to store user logins, passwords, and permissions. The ability to use one central database to store this information for many applications means each user need only remember one login and password, and authentication can be handled in one place, meaning fewer access points need to be secured.
• Interdisciplinary study -- Institutions are beginning to recognize the value of linking different disciplines for a common good. For instance, a researcher into online security issues might find it useful to share information with a behavioral scientist to understand why people are willing or unwilling to provide credit card information online. Or an historian might find it useful to plumb data from a molecular biologist's lab to understand the dispersion patterns of ancient human populations.

METHODS: Fortunately, technology can be used to ease many of the unique headaches universities, colleges, and academies must endure. The emergence of middleware solutions using standard data formats like XML can be powerful tools in the right hands. While the IT department for the institution itself must provide some support for these methodologies, there are concrete solutions individual departments and other organizations on campus can use to get themselves up to speed: