West Virginia University received an award from Oracle Corp. for innovative use of one of the software companys programs Oracle Fusion Middleware for employee leave requests and other benefits.

Kate Hazen , executive director of Administrative Technology Solutions at WVU , accepted the Oracle Excellence Award Sept. 23 at the Oracle OpenWorld Conference in San Francisco.

A selection committee, including representatives from Oracle Corp. and several Oracle user groups, chose WVU s planned new human resources leave request system for the honor.

WVU s plan was considered along with hundreds of other submissions from organizations using Oracle applications to create innovative technology solutions, Hazen said. Nominations were judged on such factors as the complexity of the application and its potential impact on the organization.

This award confirms our ability to develop world-class technology solutions at WVU ,said Narvel Weese , vice president for administration and finance .West Virginia University needs to infuse technology throughout its business processes as a means to improve services provided to faculty, staff and students as well as to contain the growing costs of providing those services.

The new leave request system, once implemented, will give employees one-stop access to information about their leave and other benefits, said Margaret Phillips, vice president for human resources .

No longer will employees need to log into multiple systems for leave information, benefits, etc.,she said.WVUs director of employee benefits, Toni Christian, and a team of human resources, business and information technology professionals have worked for months to make this system a reality, and we hope to launch and fully implement it by July 2009.

Hazen said the new leave system is exactly the kind of innovative application that the ATS team was established to develop.

We bring to the customers a mix of business analysts, project managers, developers, trainers and quality assurance professionals who work to provide best-practice technology solutions,she said.The leave request system is an example of how this mix of individuals can deliver a product that is system-independent but meets the needs of the users.

The leave request system is just the tip of the iceberg,Hazen added.Oracle Fusion Middleware puts in place the necessary infrastructure to build new solutions across the entire University, increasing user satisfaction and reducing costs over the long run.

ATS is working in cooperation with WVU s Office of Information Technology to implement and utilize this new tool.