Banner system to reduce registration woes April 11
Fifteen days and counting.
Self Service Banner, the system replacing the QUAD, will be ready for fall registration on April 11. Posing as students, about 40 programmers, employees and administrators have spent hours testing the new system to ensure registration will run smoothly.
“The purpose of a mock registration is to find the problems,” Associate Registrar Heidi Beck said, “We’ve identified a lot of problems, so they’re working well.”
Beck said they have found some “kinks” in the system, but are confident they have fixed them all and everything should run smoothly from now on.
Starting April 11, all grades, transcripts, finance information, personal information and registration will be available 24 hours a day.
But around the clock access isn’t all Banner offers.
Banner makes registering much easier with just a point and click, rather than memorizing call numbers to enter into a worksheet. Banner makes it possible for thousands of students to simultaneously look up classes by professor, course level, term, or category, check the status of financial aide, pay tuition by e-check and fill out electronic drop/add forms and transcripts.
“It’s kind of like going from the old bank statements they send in the mail, to where you can go online all the time and see what’s going on,” Lisa Hancock, Program Administrator of New Student Orientation said.
Banner is made up of four parts: finance, students, human resources and financial aid. Before, each area functioned on a different program, causing students to make the run-arounds to change a name or address or take care of other business. Now it’s one-stop shopping, Beck said.
The finance section of Banner, handling all contracts, grants, accounts receivable, accounts payable and other accounting functions, opened July 1, 2004. Student services and financial aid will open on April 11, and human resources will be opening in the upcoming year.
Beck said it was important to space out the four areas in order to allocate resources.
Besides making it more convenient for faculty and students to obtain different types of information from one spot, Banner is much more secure than the QUAD, Beck said.
In correlation with the Banner system, each student will be given a new ID number, to replace using social security numbers. Students can get their new ID by logging on to a computer in any of the computer labs on campus. At the bottom of the student services Web site is a link in red letters that says, “get your A number.” That link will be available for students to get their new students numbers and memorize them. Sarah Reale, a sophomore majoring in public relations, was excited to see her brand new ID number.
“Ooohh, that sounds easy to memorize,” Reale said.
Reale said she felt protected with a new number replacing her social security number.
In addition to the new ID numbers, students will create a new personal identification number (PIN) number so that birthdates are no longer used as well. The new PIN numbers will be created when students log into banner for the first time, Beck said.
The old system was developed in the 1980s and new modules were installed in the early 1990s. Since then, the system has become very outdated and the need for a connection between students, faculty, staff, administration and the university was becoming more and more evident. The Banner Web site states the old system was much like a very inefficient automobile. It was expensive to use, slow and a gas guzzler. The new system will be slick, shiny and speedy.
USU is not the only school switching systems, every state-owned school is switching to Banner.
The state of Utah bought the license to Banner in about three years ago and administered it to all the state run schools. Each school had to cover the implementation and operation costs of the new systemm Beck said. At that time, public institutions began the conversion process except the University of Utah, who had just finished converting to a different system.The Board of Trustees approved $6.5 million over five years to be used for the Banner system, she said.
USU did not start on the conversion process right away, but rather waited to hire a conversion company to help in the process.
Beck said the conversion process has not been easy for any school, but USU did a good thing in hiring a consulting company.
Banner will also help the faculty of USU making it easier to access class lists, assign grades and viewing payroll deductions, without logging in an out of different systems.
“All the bells and whistles for faculty have not turned on yet,” Beck said.
The one problem with Banner is it doesn’t have an official name yet, Beck said. Self Service Banner is the official name of the program, but a new name is yet to be found.
The QUAD will still be used for summer registration and will continue to be available up to the last session of summer classes. The new system will need a different name to be able to distinguish the difference between the two.
Students can enter the “Rename the Quad” contest and submit their name suggestions at http://cs.sungardcollegis.com/takeSurvey.asp”SID=236.
The new name can be an acronym but does not have to be but can’t include the word student, because the Banner system is not only for students. All entries are eligible to win an Ipod.
Students are also encouraged to attend Banner training on April 5, in TSC Room 335 and April 8, in TSC Room 336. Students can drop in any time from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and get a sneak peak at the new system and get answers to any questions.
-etippetts@cc.usu.edu