The Forum
Editor’s note:
Students now have the chance to ask USU administration questions regarding the state of the university. Answers will be posted biweekly in this section on Fridays. Questions may be sent to editor@statesman.usu.edu.
The question:
Why in the world does the “QUAD” have designated business hours? An automated online system has the advantage over an office, eliminating the need for personnel who require sleep and food. This makes it possible for the database to be conveniently, endlessly available. For some reason USU chooses not to take advantage of this convenience, as the whole of the commercial world does. I, and many others like myself are very curious as to why this is so. Thank you for your time and interest in the well-being of us undergrads. We see it.
Jared Richmond
The response:
I appreciate your note and interest in bringing issues to the administration regarding how we can be more effective and efficient particularly in our business processes and the issue of access by our students.
The issue you raise regarding a 21st century higher education institution and the need for high levels of functionality and connectivity are exactly the goal we have set for USU. The need for 24x7x365 access in addition to Web-enabled access for business systems is critical.
As President Kermit L. Hall indicated, we were very close to beginning a multi-year conversion from our current legacy system to a much more robust and functional platform when the budget situation within the state became so critical.
We have spent the past two years working on the plans for such a conversion recognizing that to be competitive in the higher education arena we must offer a high level of functionality. As I understand it, the QUAD interface to the current legacy system, SIS+, was purchased by the State Board of Regents about 12 years ago for all of higher education in Utah.
It is a system of several hundred COBOL programs running on an IBM mainframe with some interactive and some batch components. Every night after the day’s interactive data is entered, the nightly batch processing takes that data and processes it into the databases, checking for consistency and generating reports requiring ‘down’ time to the student between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m.
In order to enhance functionality, a faster processor and disk subsystem was purchased the summer of 2001 to enable a shorter batch window processing time from previous years providing increased access time to users in need of the system.
However, until such time as we are able to complete a conversion process to the new platform, the batch processing will have to be continued and will run from midnight until 7 a.m. each day.
Recognizing the QUAD system is available during the same hours the Administrative Offices are open for those who wish to use the online capability, access to the system is also available after office closing hours until midnight.
The conversion to the new system currently being planned will enable 24x7x365 online access and will be Web-enabled in addition to increased functionality in a variety of other areas.
Our hope is to begin that conversion in the next few months recognizing that to convert the Student Information System, Human Resource System, and the Financial Records System will be a multi-year project. But it is a priority and we take very seriously the issues raised by the students and their needs.
Barbara White is the vice president of Information Technology and CIO. Comments can be sent to her at barb.white@usu.edu