Like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, and other software companies,
SAP offers a
University Alliances program (http://www.sap.com/usa/company/ua/)
so that faculty at colleges and universities can offer courses on SAP technologies.
In addition to the SAP Business Suite family of solutions (SAP ERP),
demonstrations, exercises and problem-solving, case studies, and research programs are needed.
SAP's Institute for Innovation and Development sponsors an annual
Curriculum Congress
Taking classes though this program provides credit toward advanced degrees.
However, most universities do not offer access to servers after the class ends.
Professors at universities are not as adept at troubleshooting
as faculty in technical schools who have less advanced degrees but more real-life experience.
Central
(Mt. Pleasant) Michigan University has, for $16,000 USD,
4 on-line classes (plus 2 week on-site SAP certification) class
as part of their MBA program. But SAP Consultant Certification as Solution Architect in
C_TERP10_05 Integration of Business Processes with mySAP ERP 2005.
CMU also has an on-site
MSIS degree featuring SAP Enterprise Software.
Penn State's Enterprise Integration Consortium (during 1999)
installed SAP R/3 4.0 on 4 Unisys machines in the Shields building
to support varioius programs, including Penn's
Masters in Manufacturing Enterprise Integration/Supply Chain Management,
But Penn's classes do not offer in-depth hands-on
training in operating and developing SAP software.