SIS Level 1 Minutes of the 12/16/03 meeting: Heidi Dollard of OIT demonstrated the current prototype of the new version ("version 8") of the PeopleSoft Student Information System software. We are upgrading to the new version this Spring. Heidi was asked to demonstrate the different self-service modules: for instructors, advisors, and students. All modules shown at this meeting were initial out-of-the-box components, without any customizations and without the PeopleSoft Portal. Instructor Self-Service Heidi explained that OIT had invited faculty to focus groups to do an initial review of the instructor modules and provide feedback to OIT. Attendance was a bit sparse and the instructor group seemed quite quiet; the recently held student focus groups were more lively. Heidi explained the purpose of the Portal. It will improve navigation, allow functions to be categorized, and allow specified the most frequently-used functions to be presented on the first page for ready access. It also will allow the user to customize their navigation through the system to a certain extent, by allowing them to specify some of their own pagelets (little windows presented within a main window). The pagelets process is familiar to some instructors from working with Web products like WebCT and Prometheus. Heidi demonstrated some pages from the instructor module. The range of functions for instructors is the same as in the current version. Heidi was asked whether Mobius would still be used after the new PeopleSoft version is installed. Heidi reported that instructors will still have to go to Mobius to download rosters and for a nice print-ready version. She reminded us, however, that a real-time roster containing skeletal information about each student is available for view by the instructor online through SPIRE itself. Advisor Self-Service In Version 8, PeopleSoft has added two new self-service modules for advisor support. Heidi demonstrated the primary page for these. * One is a module that can be used by advisors who have already been named, in the system, as the advisor of a particular group of students. This module will be broadly available to departments which choose to use it. Department staff will record who is advising each student, and the advisors will then immediately have those advisees added to their online list of advisees. For every student on their list, an advisor can review grades, run an unofficial transcript or degree audit, see address information, and review schedule information. * Access to the second will be granted by application to the Registrar's Office and will be deployed much less broadly. It allows for the advisor to search for any student's record. The range of functions available is the same as the other Advisor module. Both advisor modules are designed to require little if any training to use. We hope that the availability and accessibility of these modules will encourage more advisors to use the system directly to gain access to the student information they need for advising. Heidi paused for questions. The group asked these: * How much will instructors be able to customize the content of their own pagelets? Heidi responded that some pagelets will be fixed and not removable. Others will be able to be customized by the user. She commented that one result of customization options is that it can complicate support, as the system will not appear the same to all users. * Will users be able to search for classes by General Education or RAP code in Version 8? Heidi responded that OIT plans to customize the system to handle this before Fall advising period begins. * Are there changes in the Course Catalog functionality? Heidi commented that a nice feature of the new version is a direct link between the a class in the schedule and its catalog information. Members of the group commented that it would be nice to be able to search for any word in the course description or at least any word in the course title. Others commented that perhaps a keyword search could be implemented. Heidi noted these searching suggestions; this is not functionality currently delivered in the current or new version and an idea to be considered with other enhancement requests after the version8 implementation. Student Self-Service Heidi reported again that the student focus groups to look at a Version 8 prototype had been well attended. OIT had presented a prototype of the student entry into the system and had received both favorable and useful feedback on the prototype. For example, students had wanted some information items made less prominent, so that they would be less visible to anyone looking over their shoulders in a computing lab situation. Heidi explained that a new email policy is going into effect as of mid-February 2004. There will be an official OIT-assigned email address for every student. Students will not be able to change this address, but the system will also allow them to record an unofficial non-OIT email address if they wish. The University will begin using email to distribute official communications to the OIT addresses. Students will be responsible for reading their email and for setting forwarding from their official OIT assigned OIT email addresses if they would prefer their email to go to an alternate email address. The conversation turned to general questions and information about the new version. * OIT is compiling a spreadsheet of the customizations requested for the self-service modules. In determining priorities, OIT looks at many factors: how much maintenance the customization would require, how many people it would help, how frequently it would be used, how much cost/effort it involves, the availability of staff resources with those skills, prioritization done by central office managers, this group, the SIS Governing Board, etc.. They also rely on feedback from the Help Desk and OIT trainers, as well as this committee and central offices whose data is being presented. * The Portal involves new and different technology from other aspects of the PeopleSoft system. OIT staff are learning new skill sets to manage it. * The Version8 software seems even less compatible with Netscape and Mozilla. This will be a disappointment to some. Unix and Linux also have some problems working smoothly with this product and PeopleSoft does not claim compatibility with these. OIT cannot take on extensive testing with all browsers. Internet Explorer is recommended for use with this product. * Will department staff have access to the Query tool? * In the initial roll-out, departments will have access to the query tool only to run a few pre-programmed queries for the most commonly- requested items (class rosters, major lists). We hope to expand that set of pre-programmed queries soon after go-live. * Access for a limited set of users to write their own queries will come later. It should be understood that writing queries on student data is very difficult and requires a large investment of both teaching and learning time. Its use will therefore be quite restricted and enabling this is not a near-term objective. * Heidi was asked about the prototype OIT is developing for uploading final grades through WebCT. She explained that OIT is working on the first phase of this project: passing roster data directly to WebCT from PeopleSoft using the delivered interface rather than a custom program. OIT is also writing specifications for the pass of final grade data back from WebCT to PeopleSoft. Faculty using WebCT could upload a file of grades from a spreadsheet product like Excel into WebCT. From there, the grades would be interfaced into the PeopleSoft grade rosters. The process will involve multiple steps. The committee then turned to other issues. Continuous Registration Elizabeth reported that the feedback to this change has been almost universally positive. Registration during the traditional Nov/Dec pre-registration period brought us to the usual registration totals. There is no evidence to suggest that the move to continuous registration has resulted in students' deferring registration. At our next meeting, we should compare notes on how continuous registration has gone in January. FSUCECC Rich, Chris, and John Dubach were recently invited to a meeting of the Faculty Senate Computer & Electronic Communications Committee. FSUECC feels that the avenues of Level 3 support (drop-in, call-in for direct support) are sufficient, and our group is Level 1. However, Level 2 appears to be missing. Level2 is meant to ensure a structured identifiable path for individual faculty members and staff to report issues and check the status of those issues and suggestions. Our group then discussed whether we feel Level 2 needs improvement. The consensus was that, yes, the path for reporting problems and for communicating their resolutions, workarounds, plans for fixing was not visible enough to users. We then discussed some ideas for improvement. * OIT could create and manage a list of all the reported issues, extracting from sources like the OIT Help Desk problem reporting log, the lists we've made in this group, the issues reported by business offices from their contacts with departments and students, etc. * A concern is that Level 2 may need to be very local, or it may be under- utilized. One idea discussed was to suggest that those with SIS concerns/questions route them to their dept schedule rep or undergraduate advisor. That person would then be able to communicate them onward. This was dismissed by the group as putting new additional responsibilities on individuals who in many cases are already overburdened and who don't regularly have exposure to all aspects of the system. * The group explored the idea of making Level2 a more "virtual" level -- with needs met through online services as opposed to more committees or groups. * An online suggestion box might collect input from anyone who chooses to use it. If we advertise this as a suggestion box, most people will understand that its function is quite distinct from a Help Desk. In other words, nothing that requires immediate, personal response should be submitted to the Suggestion Box. * The contents of the Suggestion Box could be periodically reviewed and, as in many businesses, responses to individual suggestions researched and posted. This posting board of responses should be searchable, encouraging others to search the postings before submitting a suggestion. This would become a kind of electronic knowledge-base. We note that quite often something reported as a problem actually has a quite simple solution or work-around. * We also discussed the possibility of making available on this site an inventory of the various projects/fixes that have been suggested, with disposition noted (is a fix is planned? if so, what's its priority?). We agreed this is an odd moment to formulate such a list, because with the transition to version 8 coming in the near future, the suggestions and issues reported to date may not be the applicable or highest- priority ones in the near future. We also agreed that it would be important for this list to provide a similar level of detail for all items, summarizing the issue and its planned resolution rather than expecting all details to be documented. * After this discussion, the consensus of the group is that an electronic Level II would be helpful. When it exists, department heads, faculty and staff need to be told how to find it and what it offers. * John Dubach said he would consult Heidi Dollard about compiling a list like this for version 8. Our committee would then want to compare this with our own internal working list of issues for discussion and see if any additions are needed. * We also recommended that there be a link to the Level II website from the Version 8 Portal for staff and faculty. We don't see the Level II website as the appropriate forum for collecting input to students or providing SIS information to students. * The group agreed that the plan for Level II must be feasible within existing resources and that it would better to be conservative in our planning for an initial Level II website than to set out an ambitious and wonderful plan that is not maintainable. A question was asked about maintenance plan for the online Course Catalog. Elizabeth said she and John Cunningham were working on that. Our Spring meeting schedule is Feb 3, March 2, April 13, and May 4 10-11:30. Ideas for our February agenda are: * report from John Dubach on Level II * check in on how continuous registration went * report from Elizabeth on what it would involve to "set grading at the section level" for courses where that would be appropriate. * report from Elizabeth on investigation of changing security for SPIRE B users so that they can drop students from other departments' courses.