July 2025
Next-Generation Integrated Information System
A 3-year, ~USD 130M institution-wide program at KAIST — I analyzed and systematized the university's most rule-dense domain (curriculum, course registration, classes, graduation) from design through deployment. Recognized with a Special Commendation.
- Enterprise Systems
- System Integration
- Academic Affairs
- Business Rules
- Deployment
Overview
Over three years, KAIST ran an institution-wide program — approximately USD 130M — to replace its aging administrative systems with a single next-generation integrated information system. I was a core working-level member for the academic domain: curriculum, course registration, classes, and graduation — arguably the most rule-dense part of a university, and the part where a single wrong rule can block a student from graduating.
How complex is KAIST’s academic domain?
Before anything could be built, the rules had to be fully understood. KAIST’s academics are deceptively intricate:
Curriculum (교과과정)
- Requirements differ by admission year (catalog year) — every student graduates under the rules in force when they enrolled, so many rule versions coexist at once.
- Common vs. major-specific requirements, layered with double majors, minors, and individually-designed majors — each with its own credit and course rules.
- Prerequisites, course equivalences, and substitutions, defined independently by each department (CS, EE, Mechanical, …). Across the institution this amounted to 1,400+ distinct graduation-requirement rules.
Course registration (수강신청)
- Enrollment must simultaneously enforce prerequisites, credit limits, time conflicts, and per-course capacity.
- Priority and quota rules vary by year and major; add/drop, retakes, and waitlists each mutate a student’s record.
- Registration windows generate intense, concurrent load — where correctness and fairness can never be traded away for speed.
Classes (수업)
- Sections, cross-listed and team-taught courses, and multiple grading schemes (letter, S/U, pass/fail).
- Internships, special lectures (특강), and substitute courses (대체교과목) may count toward requirements — but only under specific, policy-defined conditions.
Graduation assessment (졸업사정)
- Every student’s entire history must be checked against their catalog year’s rules — automatically and correctly.
- Real cases are full of exceptions: substitutions, transferred credits, internship credit, and case-by-case approvals — plus thesis milestones (proposal, defense, external committees).
Systematizing the complexity
Understanding the rules was half the work; the other half was turning them into a system the whole university can trust:
- Codified 1,400+ requirements — common and major-specific — into a maintainable rule model on the next-generation platform, resolving long-standing policy–system mismatches.
- Redesigned graduation-assessment logic, including exception handling and the rules for internships, special lectures, and substitute courses, so real academic operations map exactly onto the system.
- Improved thesis-review management (proposal, defense, external committees), eliminating recurring errors.
- Safeguarded registration and record integrity across the enrollment lifecycle and the migration of years of academic data.
Verification & deployment
Deeply involved in the module’s design, I drove verification and testing against requirements and edge cases, then saw it through production deployment to a successful launch — keeping registration, grades, and graduation reliable throughout the transition.
Impact
- Ran the transition-aligned graduation season without disruption — 2,000+ graduations and degree conferrals.
- Built new degree certificate / name / number issuance, improving academic-record accuracy and administrative trust while easing the load on partner departments.
- Recognized with a Special Commendation from KAIST (2025) for the build.