Banner Student Implementation Project
Final Report: December, 2007
The final Banner module--the conversion of students’ academic history from SIS into the new information system--was completed on December 10, thus marking the end of the Banner student information system implementation project. In this final report, I want to recap project accomplishments and forecast plans for Banner-related enhancements in 2008.
The Banner student information system replaced eleven independent data systems, many of which were inadequate, based on old technology, and/or difficult to maintain. The single, integrated Banner information system now supports undergraduate, graduate and medical admission, financial aid, student billing and all aspects of records and registration, including the course catalogue, scheduling, transcripts, registration, and academic history. Students and faculty have online, 24x7 access to academic and personal information and academic administrative offices can rely on an integrated database for analysis and reporting.
The Banner project teams, which included well over 100 individuals from multiple academic and administrative offices, were uniformly successful during the 18-month implementation. Every team met its go-live milestone as scheduled; the technical execution at each milestone was excellent. Although a change of the magnitude of Banner is challenging for everyone in the University community, the individual and team efforts of project participants produced a remarkably smooth implementation.
The project’s approved budget was 23 million and the final cost was under 18 million. Remaining funds were returned to the University to support IT projects, including several important enhancements in the Banner student system. The IT Priorities Review Committee recently approved a number of projects in student administration services, to be completed during the next year. These represent the highest priorities of the Banner Steering Committee, but by no means all of desired functionality. Included are several projects to strengthen the Banner-related technical infrastructure and/or upgrade a software package. Second, there are a number of enhancements in the Banner modules; for example, the admission module will be adjusted to accommodate the common or universal application, and additional software to support student financial services will be implemented. Summer and Continuing Studies will come into Banner, first by merging credit-bearing summer courses into the system in 2008. Also, a grad school information management system will be developed for Fall, 2008. Finally, considerable production support has been reserved for all modules during the year.
Of particular importance to students and faculty are enhancements that support advising and registration. For next April, we will produce a new, revised course announcement designed to support faculty and students in the advising process and MOCHA or MOCHA-like functionality will be supported by CIS. From all of the feedback we received, a print announcement and a better search engine were far and away the highest priorities and both relate to advising, curriculum building, and effective communication between faculty and students. In addition, faculty and students have provided many suggestions for how to take advantage of the new system with refinements and enhancements such as streamlining the faculty override process, developing a waiting list functionality or adding student photos to class list. (A complete list of suggestion follows.)
Online registration requests
- Separate types of advisees in Advisee List by type, not just alphabetically; faculty want the ability to sort advisees and to email selected groups. Add semester level to faculty advisee page and the ability to sort/email by semester level.
- Revise the class list to show the conference of the course in which students are enrolled. Also add semester standing of students to the class list.
- The override process needs to be streamlined. There are too many steps/clicks, especially for faculty who have to do a lot of overrides.
- Investigate alternatives to XLIST. The current XLIST is inadequate to the needs of many departments. (Note: the printed CAB may provide improvement in this area, as the contents on a department’s XLIST will be listed.)
- Improve process/method for assuring that all relevant faculty are listed in Banner at the beginning of the term.
- Improve the method for getting faculty attached to student records as advisors.
- Add student photos to class lists.
- Add waitlist functionality that (a) allows students to sign up for a waiting list and (b) admits the first person on the waitlist when a spot in the course opens up.
- When one prints an advisee’s record the student’s name does not appear on the printed record; it should.
- Add functionality to record mid-term assessments from faculty.
- Create functionality to import grades from other sources (Excel, myCourses)
- Create links between Banner listings and departmental web pages.
- Change 590 to “no limit” and remaining to “n/a.” While the 590 enrollment limit only means that the course does not have an enrollment limit, it communicates a different message to faculty and students.
- Create a clearer distinction for the user between Banner Catalog and Banner Schedule.
- Translate error messages into English and make them appropriate to the context at Brown by giving the student an instruction on what to do next.
- Extend or eliminate the 5-minute time out during registration
- Add an “are you sure” window to drop course actions so that students cannot do it inadvertently.
- Add a message (or an email) to students confirming registration.
- Add an email to students when an override is issued (rather than relying only on the student’s “registration status” page).
- Make the default on catalog and schedule searches the current semester to reduce a click.
- Make the Primary Meeting CRN always the first one, not the last one, in catalog and schedule.
- Develop a means to have available up-to-date reports of First Year Seminars with available seats and the number of open seats.
- For courses with multiple conferences, students would like to be able to see the course and all of the conference times on a single page.
- Labs, conferences, etc. have grade options. Since these are not gradable entities, this is confusing to students and should be removed.
- Course descriptions need to communicate to students what they need to register for and to do so in a consistent, easy-to-read way. Examples: “students must also register for a lab and a conference.” “This course will have conferences which will be arranged by the instructor on the first day of class.”
- Students would like to be able to search for–or in some other way know–which courses are mandatory S/NC.
- Students would like to be able to search for–or in some other way know–which courses are limited enrollment.
- Students would like to be able to search for–or in some other way know–which courses require written permission.
- Students would like their most recent registration to be highlighted in some way.