TABLE OF CONTENTS |
FRONT PAGE
| NEXT ARTICLE |
PREVIOUS ARTICLE |
UNC HOMEPAGE
When we think about what it takes to make the University function, we
think about the obvious: teachers, students, money.
You would think that covers the basics. But Carolina -- a 24,000-student,
9,000-employee institution -- needs something else to run.
Data.
Course scheduling, tuition payments, graduation -- to make all these
things happen when they're supposed to, you need data on students. And you need
to be able to access it.
And now deans, advisers, registrars -- and anyone else who needs that data
-- can get it on a web site: FacultyStaffCentral (http://FacultyStaffCentral.unc.edu).
Thanks to its intuitive web interface, making sure a student is registered
for the classes they need, getting the promised financial aid and paying their
tuition bills is a matter of mouse clicks.
Up until last summer, when FacultyStaffCentral was introduced, it wasn't
nearly that easy, according to Associate University Registrar Donna
Redmon.
For the previous decade, Carolina faculty and staff resorted to Student
Information Services (SIS), a rather impressive database that contains names,
PIDs, grades, majors, addresses, and scheduling and graduation requirements for
every student enrolled at the University.
By all accounts SIS has accurate data and functions reliably. Just what
you want in a database.
There's only one problem.
It's anything but user-friendly.
Suppose you're an adviser helping a student straighten out his or her
schedule. You need to access SIS. The first thing you're going to see is a
black screen with columns and rows of green acronyms -- reminding you perhaps
of a WordPerfect help screen, circa 1988.
In addition to the student's name, you're going to need to know a few
other things.
Let's start with numeric codes: "109" is the number of the screen that
gives you a student's current schedule. "104" gives you the
registration/drop/add screen.
And then you need to know the commands. In the arcane semiotics typical of
many pre-web databases and programs, "a" means "override" and "x" means "search
for all available sections."
And if you're accessing it from home, you need a Secur-ID card, mainframe
connection software and an Adminstrative Information Services (AIS)
account.
FacultyStaffCentral is just as secure as the old SIS database, according
to Redmon. It's just not as cumbersome a process for authorized users.
"Think global access, not local," said Dan O'Neal. As associate director
of Student Information Services in AIS, O'Neal managed the development of
FacultyStaffCentral.
"As long as you have [permission and passwords] and an Internet service
provider, authorized users can access FacultyStaffCentral from anywhere,"
O'Neal said.
Not only does FacultyStaffCentral require less software and hardware to
access, it's also incredibly intuitive.
You click in on the "For Faculty and Staff" link on the Carolina homepage.
Then you click on "Faculty/Staff: SIS Access." You plug in your assigned
Operator Number and Password. Other than the PID of the student in question,
you don't need any more secret numbers -- just select what you need from
drop-down menus, click on clearly labeled buttons and your work is done.
This isn't to denigrate the accomplishment of those who created SIS. The
system was born in 1968, and each revision incorporated the best interfaces and
software available at the time.
But thanks to the development of web browsers and JAVA (a language that
allows development of interfaces compatible with both Macs and PCs), this is a
new era of user-friendliness in databases, according to O'Neal.
The previous lack of user-friendliness wasn't just inconvenient, it was
also expensive, Redmon said. Using SIS required a minimum of three hours of
training. For faculty and staff whose jobs required more extensive use of SIS,
the complete training course was eight hours.
And different people were learning to use it all the time. People started
new jobs. Their current job duties changed. Often, those new duties required
use of SIS.
"I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that for much of the previous
decade, [in personnel hours] we had the equivalent of one full-time staff
member doing nothing but training people to use SIS," Redmon said.
The old SIS is still available, with online help information. A lot of
people are reluctant to abandon SIS, for understandable reasons.
"People spent a lot of time and energy learning how to use SIS," Redmon
said.
Plus, you can't perform all of the tasks on FacultyStaffCentral that you
could on SIS, but Redmon counsels patience.
"AIS is expanding FacultyStaffCentral's capacities constantly," she
said.
If you are a faculty or staff member who needs to use student data to
perform your job, Redmon encourages you to use FacultyStaffCentral.
"It's easy, easy, easy," she said.
For more information about the service, contact Redmon at 2-8289 or
donna_redmon@unc.edu, or O'Neal at 6-5813 or dao@email.ais.unc.edu
Sponsored by the Technology in Context Consortium
(http://www.unc.edu/faculty/tic)
Writer: Kevin O'Kelly
TABLE OF CONTENTS |
FRONT PAGE
| NEXT ARTICLE |
PREVIOUS ARTICLE |
UNC HOMEPAGE