How can I convince SAP that I'm in the University Alliance?

[joelrudin]

My university has paid to be a member of the University Alliance. I was told that I had to sign up as a public user and post a message. Then somebody would reply and at that point SAP would realize that I am a member of the Alliance and I could sign up for courses. That seems like a needlessly complex and unfriendly process, but here we go.

Joel Rudin

[Former Member]

Hi Joel,

I would like to add that once you get familiar with our University Alliances community and also the overall SAP Community Network of 1.8 million members, you will hopefully understand why there is the step of complexity. The SCN communities are voluntary, public networking 'portals'. We cannot and should not register you for a volunteer community.

The Collaboration Workspace for UA members-only provides materials that only those universities who are licensed to use our software for academic purposes would be able to use. We wanted to allow you to enter the CW through the UAC and to move between both environments. This is why we need the extra step to identify you also as a professor and not a student at your university. Practically all professors in the community would agree that we need a work and discussion space where colleagues can interact without students' involvement.

I also want to let you know that there is no payment for membership in University Alliances. SAP does not earn any fees. Your registration in our University Alliances community gives you access to many resources for teaching and academic projects, as well as contacts to our customers and partners. The fee that your university pays is to a non-profit hosting center at a university, a University Competence Center, for physical and technical data center environment support.

Thanks for joining and I hope to meet you at Curriculum Congress 2010 or sooner.

Best Wishes

Bob

[HDM]

Joel,

Thanks for your post. The reason we ask faculty to post after creating their user ID is so that the UA team can give faculty that are at UA member schools the additional, members-only access so they can download course content, post questions to the help forum and so on. While we try to keep track as people register for the site, with 80,000 UAC members today - we can't be sure to identify each person that is with a UA participating campus.

UAC private workspace access has been added to your profile. You will be able to access members only content when you log-in next time.

Best Regards,

Heather

Edited by: Heather Czech on Sep 29, 2009 10:57 AM

[joelrudin]

Dear Bob:

I am grateful to be a member of the SAP University Alliance and looking forward to learning all about SAP. However, I stand by my statement that the registration process is complex and unfriendly. This is how a simple and friendly process would work: a) Our Dean gives you a list of the email addresses of the faculty who are eligible to participate in this program; b) Whenever somebody with one of these email addresses signs up for SAP, they are instantly recognized and automatically added to the UA community. This is how your process worked: a) I had no idea how to join the alliance; b) I had to ask the head of our SAP task force to contact SAP, and they told him that I had to join as a public member and then post a message to the UA thread; c) I had no idea how to post a message because there was no link on the UA home page saying "Post a Thread," but I stumbled across it under the subheading "Forums." d) I posted my message on a Saturday and was admitted the following Tuesday.

I'm not a techie, but it seems to me that my proposed process is technologically feasible, simple, and friendly. You are a techie. How is your process better than my proposed process?

Cheers,

Joel

[joelrudin]

Dear Heather:

I am grateful to be a member of the SAP University Alliance and looking forward to learning all about SAP. However, I stand by my statement that the registration process is complex and unfriendly. This is how a simple and friendly process would work: a) Our Dean gives you a list of the email addresses of the faculty who are eligible to participate in this program; b) Whenever somebody with one of these email addresses signs up for SAP, they are instantly recognized and automatically added to the UA community. This is how your process worked: a) I had no idea how to join the alliance; b) I had to ask the head of our SAP task force to contact SAP, and they told him that I had to join as a public member and then post a message to the UA thread; c) I had no idea how to post a message because there was no link on the UA home page saying "Post a Thread," but I stumbled across it under the subheading "Forums." d) I posted my message on a Saturday and was admitted the following Tuesday.

I'm not a techie, but it seems to me that my proposed process is technologically feasible, simple, and friendly. You are a techie. How is your process better than my proposed process?

Cheers,

Joel

[jamesdoncarlos]

Does this also apply to students that are part of the University Alliance? How can I find out more about TERP10 training and certification? Thanks.