Challenges for the 21st Century University-Integrated Information Systems Implementation

The vibrant digital world that we live in today presents myriad exciting opportunities to enrich the live in our universities, but the realisation o this task depends entirely on us. The potential benefits of e-governance are compelling and durring the last few years, in many countries in the world, e-governance has been high on the agenda. ICT has played a major role in reducing operational inefficiency and improving decision – making in many areas of governance. An integrated “Higher Education Sersice System” is one such a concept that can empower the governing bodies to administer the progress of the education plan in Romania, like in other countries and serve various stakeholders in a much better manner.Framing this e-governance initiative in higher education may not be very difficult, however, it is much harder to implement and run such initiative, especially in developing countries, like Romania,especially now, because of the recession.In this paper, we shortly present the main benefits of this integrated information system (inter alia, eliminating redundant data entry, eliminating duplication of effort, loss of time and resources, allowing rapid acces to information, single window approval, faster approval and funding process, keeping a chech on fraudulent colleges, improved quality of education) and underline the real challenges of the implementation process: top management skills, change management in relation with this e-governance initiative.An integrated information system for higher education holds many promises to improve the quality of education in Romania.