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Strategy July 20, 2019

An introduction to maintenance costs for custom software

Building custom software is expensive. It generally involves at least several months of design and development effort, combined with extensive planning and input gathering throughout the organization. Most organizations aren't prepared for the actual cost of custom software since they don't take maintenance costs into consideration. Now add headaches, setbacks, and shrinking budgets. Don't worry, it gets worse. Let's dive into a key distinction of custom software development: software maintenance costs vs. software development costs.


News & Updates July 10, 2020

Get an introduction to Identity and Access Management from Internet2

Now more than ever, university IT departments need to eliminate waste and manual labor, and replace these areas with automation. Identity services are a great place to focus on, because they cut across all parts of the university. There’s a rare opportunity coming up the week after next: Internet2 is hosting their BaseCAMP introductory workshop online for the first time. This is an IAM (Identity and Access Management) workshop that’s geared toward beginners. It’s perfect for technical staff who are new to identity, but it’s also perfect for the managers of those staff. 


Tech Solutions June 5, 2020

Balancing Identity and Privacy with COVID-19 Mobile Apps

COVID-19 mobile apps provide important breakthroughs that supplement testing and traditional contact tracing. However, most of these apps are designed for use by the general public, with complete anonymity in mind. Universities need COVID-19 apps that include strong identity (while still preserving privacy). Without identity, campus teams will struggle to get good data or thorough adoption, and the administration won’t gain enough data to assist decision making.


Tech Solutions May 29, 2020

Making the Campus Community Safe with COVID-19 Tracking

We believe that the best institutions will rise to the challenge to demonstrate what they’re capable of in the face of adversity and their reputations will be positively impacted for years to come. Colleges and universities are centers of critical thinking, and mental and habitual self-discipline. They’re also surrounded by communities that are filled with a sense of pride and a desire to do good.


Project Management December 28, 2018

How we successfully collaborate with your University’s existing IT Department

We all share the common objective of solving the technical aspects of these projects as seamlessly as possible, so that you can focus on changing the world for the better through your teaching and your research.


Project Management December 14, 2018

Five Key Insights For Successful Mentorship in Software Development

Quality mentorship is the most lasting and important investment that you can make in a member of your team. A good seminar or tutorial can change the way a developer thinks about a topic and boost them a level. But good mentoring can change their habits for the rest of their career.


News & Updates November 28, 2018

In the News: Advocating for Living Wages in Partnership with MIT

West Arete developed this research into a web application that would report the living wage for any community in the country.


Strategy November 12, 2018

Partner with a Software Industry Expert for your Next Grant Proposal

Increase the chances of winning your next grant by leveraging the expertise of industry experts.


Project Management November 10, 2018

Why Multitasking May not be the Right Approach for your Development Team

Once we measured our team’s velocity between focusing on one project versus multitasking, we were shocked to see how large the negative impact was from the latter approach.


Let’s Connect

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