Identifying the Critical Success Factors for Information Systems to Manage Sponsored Research Activities at Institutions of Higher Education

摘要

Sponsored research at an institution of higher education is big business and requires an appropriate information system to meet the sponsor’s fiscal and regulatory compliance standards. This research sought to identify the critical success factors for an information system to manage sponsored research at an institution of higher education and determine if there were perceived differences in the factors between department/college level and central/university level research administrators. A Delphi panel of expert research administrators with more than eight years of experience in the field of research administration who worked for highly ranked research colleges or universities (according to the Carnegie Classification) identified six critical success factors needed to manage sponsored research at an institution of higher education. The findings indicate the need for continuity of information throughout the lifecycle of a sponsored project and the integration of existing organizational information systems to manage sponsored research. These factors are important for institutions of higher education as they replace legacy systems and implement new enterprise systems to manage sponsored research. Although there were no statistically significant perceived differences of information system success factors between department/college and central university research administrators, several trends were identified. One trend identified was that department/college-level research administrators desired more financial tools to aid them in the budget development and expenditure forecasting of sponsored projects over what central/university-level research administrators indicated. A second trend identified was that department/college-level research administrators were less concerned about the technical aspects of an information system in comparison to central/university-level research administrators.