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Banner frustrates students, staff
By Tom Cronin
A team of computer engineers has
been working to speed up the performance of Banner, the software
for the university’s $186 million integrated technology system,
after its slow performance this semester caused registration
delays and generated high levels of stress among UIS staff
members.
In a statement e-mailed to UIS
students on Aug. 30, UIS Chancellor Richard Ringeisen said that
Banner was performing at an unacceptable level, and university
officials were doing everything they could to fix the problems.
Normajean Niebur, a Secretary IV
in the criminal justice and public health departments, said that
Banner is not a student-friendly system, it is not efficient,
and it seems to have created more problems than it has solved.
 “It’s
just ludicrous,” said Niebur, who is also the UIS Chapter
President of University Professionals of Illinois Local 4100.
“It’s awful every day. It’s like Banner has become the
four-letter word on this campus.”
On Aug. 16-17, students, faculty
and staff at all three University of Illinois campuses logged
into Banner in mass numbers – many for the first time – to
register for classes, enter timesheet data and perform a number
of other tasks.
Marya Leatherwood, Associate
Vice Chancellor and Director of Enrollment Management, said that
the system became so congested during this two-day span that it
was taking students as long as 30 minutes to complete their
registration.
“There was a lot of confusion at
first because [students] were having to do everything from
obtain their Enterprise ID … to register,” Leatherwood said.
“Then once they got into the system, they were faced with a slow
system, and they didn’t know if they had done something wrong.”
UIS waived its $25 late
registration fee for students who registered from Aug. 25-31
because Banner’s slow performance made registration difficult at
certain times.
Leatherwood said that students
are still registering for continuing graduate credit and for
courses that only meet for the second half of the semester.
Banner still functions slowly, but not as slowly as it did last
month, she said.
According to Ringeisen’s
statement, software and hardware engineers from the university’s
Administrative Information Technology Services and the UI
Integrate Team have been working together to try to resolve the
performance problems with Banner.
The engineers have identified
and eliminated several bottlenecks, but they have not found the
problem’s “root cause,” the statement said.
On Sept. 16, Leatherwood said it
was her understanding that the engineers were still working on
some things and were preparing to implement some cluster servers
that might help improve Banner’s performance to a satisfactory
level.
“I think we all have a
commitment to make sure that the system performance meets the
needs of our students and our staff, and I know President Stukel
and Chancellor Ringeisen and the other vice chancellors on the
campus are very committed to that, very concerned that our
students and staff are able to get what they need in terms of
the services and to do what they need to do to provide the
services,” Leatherwood said.
According to Niebur, Banner has
caused stress-related illnesses in some UIS staff members.
Private physicians have been treating staff members for these
illnesses – a condition that Niebur identified as “Banner Stress
Syndrome.”
With many campus offices thinly
staffed because of budget cuts, the transition to Banner has
generated a lot of stress among employees who have worked extra
hours to submit payroll information and help students register
for classes, Leatherwood said.
Pinky Wassenberg, Interim Dean
of the College of Public Affairs and Administration, said that
the department secretaries in her college experienced a lot of
stress this semester when working with students who were also
stressed out because of Banner-related registration problems.
“One of the things that a lot of
people don’t know is that our department secretaries really end
up being the first line of advising for students,” Wassenberg
said. “They answer a lot of questions. They solve a lot of
problems. They were the ones with the Banner training, and they
did an awful lot of student services work. … If it hadn’t been
for them, we would have been in a lot more trouble than we
were.”
With the implementation of
Banner came some changes to the registration process, including
this year’s policy that students cannot register by telephone or
by filling out a paper application as they had in past years.
According to Leatherwood,
students can only register using Banner, either by accessing the
Web-based system themselves or by walking into the Office of
Admissions and Records for help with Banner registration.
Wassenberg said that she thinks
students should be given more registration options. The
requirement to register using Banner has frustrated many
students, especially off-campus students without personal
computers. Students with dial-up Internet connections have found
registration to be extremely time consuming, especially when
Banner was at its slowest, she said.
An increasing number of colleges
and universities have switched to exclusively Web-based
registration systems in recent years, and these institutions
have faced many challenges as a result, Leatherwood said.
However, Banner and similar systems also bring some benefits,
including easier access to billing information for students and
up-to-date class rosters for faculty, she said.
“For student enrollment
services, it is going to be, I think, a great asset to us once
we’ve had a chance to use the system and to really be able to
have all the information in an integrated way,” Leatherwood
said. “Right now, however, I think we all are just experiencing
all the challenges and frustrations. But I think in the long
run, it is going to be a good system.”
State
Schools Limited in New Student Enrollment, UIS Shines
By Chris Sabo
Total enrollment among state universities has
remained steady while new student enrollment continues to rise.
While total enrollment at UIS remains steady, the increase of
new faces on campus has risen to an all time high.
According to Cheryl Peck,
Director of Public Relations, total enrollment at UIS has
remained near its Fall 2003 total of 4,574 students, an increase
of 3 percent over 2002.
“Our fall 2004 numbers are
still being assessed due to ongoing enrollment for classes
beginning in October, however, we expect numbers to remain
nearly the same.”
Peck also noted some
discrepancies between numbers released by the admissions office
and the Provost’s office due to this late registration.
“We hope to get this matter
straightened out within the next week,” Peck said. “2nd
half” classes typically begin in October, eight weeks into the
semester. Since registration continues for these classes,
enrollment numbers are often inaccurate early in the fall
semester.
Despite a standstill in total
enrollment, new student enrollment continues to flourish.
According to Peck, “We have seen an increase in the number of
students living on campus and students enrolled in the Capitol
Scholars program. On campus housing now has a high occupancy
rate.”
When comparing enrollment figures with other
public, state-run universities, UIS has remained atop the list
by percentage. At the University of Illinois-Chicago, total
enrollment has decreased nearly 1 percent between 2003 and the
fall of 2004. New student enrollment has also shown a slight
decrease, from 7,657 students in 2002 to 6,773 in 2003.
On the contrary, Southern
Illinois University-Carbondale has shown a slight increase in
total enrollment since 2003. According to Linda Benz, Assistant
Director of External Reporting for the Office of Institutional
Research and Studies, enrollment has increased from 21,387 in
2003 to 21,589 in 2004.
The University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign has experienced a small increase in new student
enrollment since 2004. According to the UIUC website, new
students have increased from 6,366 in 2002 to 6,802 in 2003.
According to their website,
Illinois State University in Normal has seen total and new
student enrollment drop by nearly 300 students between 2003 and
2004. Despite this loss, minority enrollment has continued to
grow rapidly.
The enrollment numbers of the
larger state universities help UIS to set new enrollment goals
and compare the percentages of students attending universities
throughout the state. Peck believes with the increase in new
students and number of students taking online classes,
enrollment will continue to gradually increase. |
