Unified Digital Campus
Wharton County Junior College
Path to Unified Digital Campus
• Where were we?
• Where are we now?
• Where are we going in 2004-2005?
• 2006 and later?
Where were we?
(prior to April 2002)
Older System with
Limited Capabilities
• “Central Administrative Computer System”
with multiple independent databases
• HP3000 (11 years old, unsupported,
discontinued by HP)
• All registration completed in person on
campus (no web registration, no telephone
registration)
• Only static information on web
Non-integrated MIS
• Student system – developed in-house over
20 year period
• Payroll system – developed by a consulting
firm in the 80’s; maintained in-house
• Business Office – Mitchell Humphrey
(unsupported and no A/R)
• Financial Aid – Computing Options
• Human Resources - none
Proprietary Hardware
• All systems ran only on Hewlett Packard
HP3000 hardware
• The database (Turbo Image) was proprietary
to HP3000
• Reporting tools and other software
maintenance cost was based on CPU
Business Office
• Paper requisitions
• Budget reports for departments printed once a
month and distributed by campus mail.
• Accounts Receivable on Quickbooks
• Printed student bill contained only one term.
• Did not have a method to send bills to students
• Limited access by budget managers to view
accounts online
• Limited integration with the Student System and
Payroll System
Fixed Assets
• Stand alone system on a PC in a DOS dBase
application
• No interface with Finance System
• Every item purchased that needed to be in
the system was hand-entered.
• No method for recording depreciation
Registrar’s Office
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All registration completed in person
No web registration
No telephone registration
Transcripts requested in person
Pre-printed an advising transcript and
degree audit for advisors
• Grade mailers
Financial Aid
• Financial Aid Office at the Wharton
Campus was the only source of student’s
financial aid status
• Limited integration with the “homegrown”
student system and the finance system.
• WCJC scholarships not dynamically linked
with students’ enrollment
Human Resources
• Everything maintained by hand.
• Attempt at creating a MicroSoft Access
system. Never fully functional. Never
maintained.
Budget Development
• In-house written system supported by
Institutional Research
• Static link to Payroll
• No link to Accounting System. All budgets
had to be entered by hand into the
Accounting System.
Planning and Assessment
• System developed and supported by the
Institutional Research Office.
• Existed on a stand-alone PC
• Annual updates for each department had to
be hand-entered in the IR Office.
• Only access was through printed reports.
Documentation for Users
• Registrar’s Office – no documentation or training
materials
• Financial Aid Office – vendor documentation only
• Finance Office – vendor documentation only except
for year-end closing
• Fixed assets – vendor documentation
• Payroll Office – none
• Purchasing (shining star) – well maintained
procedures manual
Feb 2002
Beginning of Project WOW!
–WOW! Wharton On the Web
Motto: “Whatever it take”
Board approved
– Purchase of SCT Banner and Oracle Database
– Purchase of HP9000 server and other required
hardware
Acceleration April 2002 WCJC
becoming an
Unified Digital Campus
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Hardware installed
Oracle database installed
SCT Banner System installed
Training from Hewlett Packard on HP-ux
for technical staff (Unix operating system)
• Start of functional and technical training for
Banner from SCT
Timelines Met
Implementation (Windows of Opportunity)
• September 1, 2002 – Finance
• January 1, 2003 – HR/Payroll
• February 20, 2003 – Financial Aid
• June 23, 2003 – Student and A/R
Upgrades
• December 6, 2003 - Oracle 8i to Oracle 9i
• February 23, 2004 – Banner 5.x to Banner 6.x
How did we get here so quickly?
• The choice of SCT Banner, an excellent integrated
software system meeting the needs of the College
• Team leadership, hard work, dedication to the College
from many, making the implementation successful.
• Strong support from the President.
• A well-designed network infrastructure that has
excellent support from the IT staff
• SCT’s commitment to our success
Banner Team Leaders
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Gus Wessels – Finance Team
Conrad Kieler – Payroll Team
Judy Jones – Human Resources Team
Richard Hyde – Financial Aid Team
Albert Barnes – Student Team
Bryan Ngo – Database Administrator
Dennis Barnes – Technical Team
James Bullock – Computer Operations Manger
Pam Youngblood – Texas Consortium Beta
Testing Coordinator for HR/Payroll State Reports
and Institutional Research Team Leader
• Bunner Fertsch – Coordinator of Training
Team Members
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Business Office Staff
Registrar’s Office Staff
Payroll Office Staff
Human Resources Office Staff
Programmers
Institutional Research Office Staff
IT Department
Continuing Education Office Staff
Student Services Staff including Housing
SCT’s Commitment
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Well-designed methodolgy for implementation
More than 25 module-specific list serves
Action Web
Action Line
Texas Consortium Connection
Support of SETA (regional users’ groups)
Summit
Fosters communication with SCT and users
Highlights of improvements in
functionality as a result of the
implementation
April 2002 – June 2003
Purchases
• Purchase orders entered on-line by end-users
routed through approval queues
• Eliminated requisitions by end-users, “lost in
campus mail” requisitions, data-entry by Business
Office staff.
• End-users can track and “push” Purchase Orders
through the approval process
• Acknowledge receipt of goods can be entered online
• Capitalized and computer purchases are
automatically added to fixed asset system
Finance End-of-Month Reports
• Reports sent to the “e-print” server.
• Security in e-print same as in Banner (fundorg-acct-prog)
• Budget managers can print, save as PDF, or
download into Excel
• Can select all, salary accounts only,
instructional orgs only, etc.
On-line Queries by End-users
• Online queries showing adjusted budget,
expenditures, encumbrances, and balance
• Budget managers have access to up-to-theminute budget/expenditure information
• Has eliminated all except emergency
insufficient fund (NSF) over-rides requests
Student Payments
• Web-payment with credit card
• Student can view charges and their payments over
secure website. (dynamic)
• Coming in August 2004, payment by personal
check on web
• Bills are printed with population selection for
mailing
• Bills show student’s current schedule and full
amount owed, even if from previous semester
Students
Web
• More than 65% of students are registering on the web.
• Grades are no longer mailed – available to students on
the web.
• Dynamic degree-audit for student on web
• View catalog description on any course in the schedule
• Request an official transcript on the web. It is
automatically printed in the Registrar’s Office.
• View and print an “unofficial” transcript on the web.
Other
• Student housing assigned and billed
• Only students accepted in an Allied Health program can
register for courses in the program.
Faculty and Real-time
Class and Student Data on Web
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Class rolls
Student’s schedule
Class roster with a student’s phone #’s
Student’s degree audit
Enter final grades
Can post office hours
Students and Financial Aid Office
• Students can view their awards on the web
• Students can view a checklist of additional
information needed from them regarding
financial aid
• Additional automation of award and other
letters to financial aid applicants in
progress.
Student Loans by EFT
Electronic File Transfer
• No more paper checks for Student Loans
• Credited to Student Account
• Excess will be included in student refund
check
• Improved tracking of checks and
verification by Financial Aid that student is
eligible for loan.
Payroll Office
All employees can access the web to view or print
– Their check history, benefits, retirement, sick leave,
vacation, personal days and job information
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941 Tax Reporting is simplified
Direct deposit of payroll checks
Vacation days, sick days are automatically tracked
Check stub has very detailed information
Human Resources
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Tracking of applicants
Each position defined in database
Interfaced with budget development
As in all Banner modules, excellent control
of security of records
Commitments Met
• Not hardware vendor dependent.
• Robust database with advanced capabilities
• No changes were made to base-line Banner in the
implementation.
• All modules were completed on schedule.
• We upgraded and are at the latest version of both Banner
and Oracle.
• We have training materials developed for all modules and
are adhering to our training plan.
• High-level of security of the database is maintained.
• In-house documentation development continues.
Benefits Realized to
Students, Faculty, Administration,
Employees, and Job Applicants
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Services available 24/7 from anywhere on web
Formerly manual tasks are now electronic
More information readily available
Increased staff time available to work one-onone with students, faculty, and staff as needed
Data entered only one time and shared by many
Significant improvement in data integrity
Communication Plans developed for modules
More Banner Modules
July 2003-June 2004
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Workflow
TracDat Planning and Assessment software
Strategic Enrollment Management software
State Reports
Develop local needs reports with new reporting
tools
– Internal Functional Reports
– Reports for decision-making
Workflow
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Electronically automates tasks and flow of
information based on user-defined rules.
Examples:
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Student drops below full-time  financial aid, housing,
and athletics are notified
Coordinate the New Hire Process with HR, Payroll,
Security, Office Assignment, Telephone, e-mail, …
Reduces processing time, errors, and omissions
Facilitate more effective communication campuswide
Assessment and Planning - TracDat
• Web based software allows the linking and
tracking of College Strategic Goals, college-wide
Operational Goals, college-wide Initiatives, and
department/office desired outcomes.
• Can track planning and assessment at a courselevel if desired
• Can link documentation
• Can track long-range and short-term projects
Strategic Enrollment Management
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Summarizes data to support both point-in-time and
longitudinal analyses of enrollment by individual
courses, majors and minors, degree programs, and across
the institution as a whole.
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Enables exploration and identification of critical demand
trends, model academic load relationships, forecast
expected enrollment outcomes based on recent history,
evaluate alternatives, and select the more effective
operational alternative.
State Reports
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Reports are developed by the Texas Consortium
Connection (TCC)
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Coordinating Reports for Students and courses
CB1, CB4, CB6, CB8, CB-A, CB-C, CB2
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State and federal reports for HR/Payroll. WCJC
is a beta partner with TCC to develop these
reports.
Reports for Local Needs
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Reports to check data integrity of data imported from
legacy
Reports for functional users examples
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Graduation
Check course fees
Veterans
Reports for decision making examples
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Enrollment trend reports to predict number of sections needed at
each campus
Predict revenue from student tuition/fees for next fiscal year
Implementing Banner
Changed our MindSet
• Increased understanding of the procedures, functions,
responsibilities, and inter-relatedness of each of the
offices in the Administrative Services area.
• We begin looking at other ways to use electronic
processes to help us
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Continue to improve services to students
Be more efficient
Save on paper and copier costs
Provide more timely and complete information to each other
Improve communication
College Internet (www.wcjc.edu)
• Added instructional department pages to better
communicate with current and prospective
students
• In the process of adding/redesigning
administrative pages to provide more complete
information
• Added a “celebrations” page
Instructional Web Server
• Faculty members will have course material
available to their students electronically for
each of their sections.
• Training is starting this summer so that faculty
can maintain the instructional pages directly.
• Planned to be fully operational for fall 2004.
Use of Intranet
• Committee Agendas and Minutes
• Forms (travel, equipment repair request, 51 other
forms…)
• Banner Training Materials
• On-line system for work requests to IT
• Board of Trustees packets
• Reports from Institutional Research Office
• Weekly calendar of activities
Eliminated “to everyone” e-mail
(almost)
Set up e-mail groups for target groups such as
• Faculty
• Technical Staff
• Administrative Staff
• President’s Cabinet
• Various committees
Monthly Board reports
• CD with Board agenda items and financial
reports
• Financial Summary Report presented with
data projector (and also displayed on Board
members’ laptop computers)
We have made substantial progress
toward our goal of an
Unified Digital Campus
these past 2 years.
But, we are not finished ….
Projects Scheduled for 2004-05
• Complete EDI.Smart Electronic Transfer of
Student Transcripts
• Web Admissions for CE Students
• Web Admissions for Credit Students
• Complete additional workflows
• Event Management
• Track Student Recruits
• Complete Faculty Workload Module
More for 2004-05
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Direct deposit of Payroll Checks
“Live” Employee Directory on Web
Continue training on the use of TracDat
Continue setup of meta data for analysis in SEM
Master syllabus on web for every course
Faculty grade book on web
Location Management
Continue to develop documentation of standard
operation procedures for Banner in each functional
office
How will be continue to move
forward toward our goal?
• Continued strong partnership with SCT
• Continued efforts to capitalize on the functionality of
Banner.
• Continued leadership, hard work, cooperation,
communication, and dedication to the College from all
team leaders and members
• Increased technical knowledge of Oracle, SQL-Plus, web
and reporting tools
• Stay current with Banner and Oracle upgrades.
• Maintain and enhance our network infrastructure.
Future Considerations
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“Luminis” is a campus portal system, that provides a single
electronic entry-point with comprehensive portal features,
applications, and infrastructure to supports student academic
and administrative communication contacts including email,
targeted announcements, and course management.
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SCT Connection for WebCT supports the faculty’s ability to
create and teach customized courses and provide campus and
academic information that is accessible 24/7.
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These two products are integrated with Banner Student thus
assuring privacy and timely information exchange.
Questions or Comments?
Wharton County Junior College
• Three primary campuses
– Wharton
– Sugar Land
– Richmond
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Fall 2003 Credit Enrollment – 5,906
Administration – 38 full-time
Faculty – 141 full-time
72 % of sections taught by full-time faculty
TracDat
Planning and Assessment Management Software
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Offers college-wide assessment capabilities and will support the
near-automatic generation of academic program planning and
accreditation information within a framework for continuous
review and quality improvement.
At every level of the College, we can define desired outcomes
and specify a schedule for review of improvements that are
“tracked” over a designated time cycle.
Supports academic planning using assessment data for course,
curricular, and program improvements. Assessment measures
such as teaching effectiveness, learner proficiencies,
instructional and clinical accomplishments, and other
accreditation and program measures will be related to specific
goals, which document progress.