Session Abstract

There is an increasing disparity between the number of jobs requiring postsecondary degrees and the number of workers receiving them. One factor limiting the efficiency of higher education is the tremendous effort and cost required to integrate information systems across higher education institutions, service providers, and government agencies which provide instruction and services to students. This high cost is largely the result of duplication of analysis and implementation work and a lack of sharing and re-use. Much like Google saves countless time and effort locating information and resources on the web, a web service index and registry helps integrators find web services that already exist, use them, and focus effort only on what remains to be done.

EdUnify, a web service registry for higher education based on the BioCatalogue, enables collaboration, socialization and reuse of integration analysis and implementation. Web service registries have been employed successfully in other endeavors such as cancer research and life sciences to accelerate data interchange and reuse of costly analytical resources. With EdUnify, institutions of higher education, system vendors, and service providers will be able to integrate their systems more quickly and completely to offer new and improved services for students, faculty, and researchers.