October 16, 2000

Planned changes in Student Information System summarized

The implementation of the new Student Information System (SIS) for the campus is well underway. What will the new system look like in operation?

On Thursday, October 19 from 2 - 4 p.m. and Tuesday, October 24, from 10 a.m. - 12 p.m., the Student Information System Project Team will host an all-campus meeting to present a tour of selected features of the new system. The meeting will take place in the Massachusetts Room of the Mullins Center. Directors and representatives from the Registrar, Bursar, Housing, Financial Aid, and Admisssions offices will be in attendance to address audience questions. All members of the campus community are invited to attend.

Under the aegis of the Striving for Excellence (SFE) initiative, the University has documented the functioning of the current student information systems and forecast the gains to be realized with the new system in selected student service areas.

Admissions: Web based application
With PeopleSoft, the Office of Admissions is able to offer a web-based application to prospective students. The web-based application allows students to view the application form and submit the required information on-line, at one sitting. Students will no longer need to request an application form from either Admissions Office. When they complete the application online, most elements of students' demographic data will be downloaded directly into PeopleSoft, obviating the need for entry of this data at the University.

In the future, Undergraduate Admissions expects to receive an amount of applications via the web which reflects the national norm of 15-20%. The Graduate Admissions Office anticipates that 30% of its applications will be received electronically within two years. The primary outcome of the implementation of a web-based application will be the reduction in the use of paper applications.

Bursar: Bill Presentation
The Bursar's Office issues approximately 44,000 bills each semester to students. To produce a consolidated bill including all charges for each student, the Bursar's Office must collect billing information from a number of different offices across the campus. The new technology will enable the Bursar's Office to review and change how and when a student's bill is produced and presented. Redundant charges can be eliminated from the printed version of the bill, thus reducing the number of two-page bills and their associated mailing costs. The Bursar's Office will have the ability to select populations for billing and generate bills on a more meaningful schedule.

The new system will also be able to generate letters notifying students of important messages regarding their account status. The University will also be able to consolidate its student account information so that transactions related to Continuing Education will be included on a unified record. These improvements in the presentation and responsiveness of billing will represent an improvement in the Bursar's customer-service capabilities.

Bursar: Billing Inquiry and Payment
In the current system, data may take from one to two days to move from one office to another. The lag causes students to wait for their accounts to be updated and return to offices at a later time to complete their transactions.

In contrast to the current system, PeopleSoft will have real-time account information available. Once the various PeopleSoft modules are on-line, all information from the Registrar, Financial Aid, and Admissions offices may be applied to students' accounts instantly as the information changes. Instead of travelling from office to office, waiting for data to be updated, students will be able to complete their business in a single day with fewer office visits and reduced frustration.

The new system will be able to print an individual student's bill on-line and produce many different views of the bill. PeopleSoft has the capacity to electronically store each bill it generates. Thus, it improves tellers' ability to respond to students' questions because it gives them access to the full history of students' transactions.

Bursar: Excess Funds Disbursement
Students who have paid more than they owe on their bills or students who have been awarded financial aid over and above the amount due on their accounts are issued excess checks. In some cases, the current system struggles to provide timely excess checks. Because PeopleSoft will enable information to flow from office to office in real time, the lags experienced in the exchange of data among the older systems will be largely eliminated.

Currently, students are notified at the end of the semester when an excess check remains for them to pick up at the Bursar's Office. With PeopleSoft, the notification and the check itself will be printed at the same time. For graduate students, the system will process tuition waivers faster and eliminate the cross-checking by financial aid that currently delays the production of excess checks.

Financial Aid: Records Verification
The University of Massachusetts awards federal, state and institutional aid to over 65% of the student population each year (approximately 14,000 students). Students' financial aid applications undergo an extensive verification process, involving the cross-checking of data in University and national databases.

PeopleSoft has the potential to greatly improve the verification process because of enhanced capacity to query national databases and confirm data. With these improvements in the verification process, there will be a marked decline in the delays students may experience in the awarding of their financial aid.

The new system will improve electronic access to students' loan records, eliminating the need for students to request paper-based financial aid transcripts from other institutions. Staff will also have more access to students' financial aid histories, thus improving service.

Financial Aid: Aid Packaging
The Financial Aid Office currently attempts to streamline the aid packaging process by using a program called PARS (Packaging Aid Resource System), and most undergraduate students can be packaged by PARS automatically. In recent years, though, the program has not been flexible enough to package awards for all students with non-standard enrollment profiles; consequently, many students' aid must be packaged manually, resulting in packaging delays.

PeopleSoft will enable the Financial Aid Office to automatically package all subgroups. The cycle time needed from the receipt of an application to the generation of an award letter will be shortened by two to three weeks. In addition, the implementation of PeopleSoft will greatly reduce the number of times students will be bounced back and forth between offices in order to complete transactions. Staff members in Financial Aid Services will be able to send updates to the Bursar's files in a more timely manner and reduce reliance on paper forms transferred by hand between offices.

Housing: Room Assignments
The University of Massachusetts Amherst provides living accommodations each year to approximately 10,000 undergraduate students. With 41 residence halls, UMass has the sixth largest housing operation of any American campus.

The current housing assignment process is highly labor-intensive, with many rounds of adjustments to accommodate students' requests. Much of the process is performed manually, with delays resulting between requests and final assignments.

Since PeopleSoft does not intend to produce a housing module, the University intends to develop its own module. In the new system, it is anticipated that returning students will make their own room choices, within appropriate windows of opportunity defined by their seniority points. It is envisioned that students will log onto a housing assignments website and do their own "room shopping" from the available choices in real-time. Students will be able to view floor plans and learn more about their options. The process will also feature roommate-linking, enabling students to "shop" in pairs. Students will choose their rooms on-line and log off with a confirmed room assignment.

The new system will also benefit residence hall staff. They will be able to check students in and out electronically, with far fewer paper forms. Further, the new system should provide Housing Services with greater capacity to monitor and learn from the assignment process. The new system will be able to provide data on a number of key variables and enable creative approaches to maximizing housing options.

Registrar: Confirmed Registration
Every semester approximately 17,5000 undergraduate, 4,400 graduate, and 1,000 continuing education students enroll in courses offered by the University. The process involves matching some 100,000 course places with student interest over the academic year.

Fundamentally, the implementation of PeopleSoft involves a shift from two-phase registration to a one-stop registration. In contrast to the current process of pre-registration and matching of student requests with available spaces, students will receive immediate, real-time feedback on course openings and can continue looking for available seats until their schedule is complete. Students will enjoy the ability to finish their registration, with confirmation of their enrollment, in one registration session.

The enrollment process will be equitable while enforcing the eligibility rules, capacity limits, and enrollment priorities defined by academic departments and academic policy. This should allow departments and faculty to have earlier information about confirmed enrollments, facilitating planning. The implementation of PeopleSoft will also enhance connections between the Registrar's Office and the Bursar's Office. More timely information about students' credit totals will be available to the Bursar's Office, resulting in more accurate bills for graduate students and the part-time undergraduates who are billed on a per-credit basis.

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