In 2014, Georgia College & State University joined the SAP University Alliance (SAPUA), using funding from the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business and grants from the Technology Fee Committee. Much of the Fortune 500 countries in the US and corporations worldwide use the SAP software and cloud systems. This alliance allows faculty and students at Georgia College to use most of SAP’s enterprise software in their courses or research. Dr. Kevin Lee Elder is the SAPUA Faculty coordinator who helps faculty get accounts with SAP and allows access to download the software to their machine or use SAP in the cloud.
Several faculty have received free training and certifications to run simulations with these systems in their classes in MIS, Accounting, and Logistics courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition to those courses, Dr. Elder has been teaching a GC2Y 2000 Big Data Technology class for all majors. In this GC2Y class, students are exposed to the power of these big data systems, analytics, and data visualizations to gain insights into any global problem, such as water pollution, poverty, TB exposure, mental illness, immigration, coral reef bleaching and many more.
In addition to SAP software and systems, other companies have seen that GC is using SAP systems and have donated licenses or cloud access to their systems. IBM, Tableau, QlikView and SAS have similar University Alliance programs that GCSU is now a member of. We will soon become a Watson University school that will allow our students and faculty to interact with the power of IBM Watson.