SIS Project: What We've Heard (July 2023)

We are honored to continue our engagements with various divisions, schools, departments and units to learn more about their needs and concerns for a new student information system. In the month of June, the Student Information System (SIS) Project team was invited to present to two schools, Biological Sciences and Social Sciences. The SIS Project team delivered a presentation that included project context, impact and timeline as well as a Q&A session. 

Both of these groups were very engaged with the SIS Project presentation, and they asked many important questions and gave useful feedback. Here are some of the themes we heard from Biological Sciences and Social Sciences staff during the presentations:

• Quarterly Updates: Regular updates with the departments would be very useful because there is a general concern about staff’s future workload once the new SIS is launched and live. This will allow departments to appropriately plan in advance of changes and be prepared for the future impact. 

• Business Intelligence (BI) & Reporting: The ability to access and run student reports is a top concern, along with the desire to make the reports more dynamic and useful for day-to-day needs.
  • The SIS Project team confirmed that current Student Activity Hub (SAH) reports will remain, even once the the new SIS has been implemented. Additionally, the Report Remediation project team is working to ensure that there will be limited impact to the new BI tools for generating reports during implementation and after the new SIS launches. 

• Training: Thorough and individualized training on the new SIS will help to ensure a smooth transition and assist staff with the change. The groups provided the following suggestions in regards to training: 
  • Training on how the new system is different from the old system
  • Modular, short trainings/videos that are topic-specific so that information is easily accessible and digestible
  • A centralized and easily searchable resource with comprehensive training documents that include screenshots
  • Providing more than one synchronous training session for topics and also providing subsequent/ongoing trainings to help account for staff turnover