At the end of September, Student Information System (SIS) team members started training staff involved in academic scheduling and the course catalogue — two key components of the SIS that went live last week, earlier than the full system implementation set for January 2015.
These components were implemented early so the university can use the new system to prepare for the 2015-16 academic year.
A significant step
“Launching a portion of the new system now is also a great way to test drive the SIS and perfect it before the big launch,” says Terry Too, the SIS’s project director. “ We took advantage of the opportunity to release the course catalogue and academic scheduling components for the upcoming academic year, since this information must be prepared starting in October. It was good timing.”
Those involved in creating the catalogue and academic schedule — administrators working in the dean’s offices, Enrolment Services and the Faculty of Arts and Science academic departments — are the first at Concordia to benefit from the training tools for the community of SIS users.
While training sessions are led by an instructor, there is also a complementary, virtual training package which was developed by the Concordia Training Team using software from Oracle called User Productivity Kit (UPK). The SIS training environment, with UPK and other materials, is available to the schedulers on Moodle, accessed through the MyConcordia portal.
“UPK is a great learning tool. It actually shows the user the physical screen that they're going to be using and it guides them through it,” explains Too. “It provides a total hands-free simulation. You can just watch, then you have the opportunity to try it yourself.”
Collaborative training: peers helping peers
Reham Mahdi, training coordinator for the SIS project, adds that the UPK makes it easy for users to keep learning when they return to their desks. “The easy-to-follow materials allow them to learn at their own pace — whenever they want to, any time they like,” says Mahdi.
An added advantage is that the staff members now involved in training will gain experience on how to use the new system, so they can share their knowledge with colleagues. This creates a peers-helping-peers environment of support.
In the next few months, they’ll enter information into the new system for the 2015-16 academic year. This means the completion of the schedules will be handled by the new system — well before students register in March 2015.
An institution-wide transformation
Excitement continues to build over the many improvements that the SIS provides.
SIS supports virtually all key business functions and processes across the university, including recruitment, admissions, enrolment, academic advising, registration, course and exam scheduling, student accounts, graduation, government reporting for funding purposes and invoicing.
As we progress toward full system implementation in January, 2015, watch for updates on how different components of the SIS will benefit faculty, staff and students.
