With the implementation of PeopleSoft 8.9, some University faculty members are having problems accessing class rosters and initiating the drop process for students.
Sandy Friedan, executive director of Organizational Change Management, said the complicated system has "kinks" that need to be worked out and is being monitored by information technology specialists and technical team members. The IT help desk is also working with enrollment services to test and work the software.
"It is new, we have to get used to it, though we need the opportunity to put input back into the system," science instruction professor Eugene Chiappetta said.
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Sarah Fishman distributed an e-mail to the faculty to inform professors that they cannot drop students via PeopleSoft this week.
The process is now done manually when faculty members print the class roll, which indicates what students will be dropped and then the roll is sent to the registrar’s office, Fishman said.
Not all are fans of the new system, as some instructors have complained of problems when accessing their class rosters.
"I call it anti-people software. I have constant problems pulling up my roster," communication professor Frederick Schiff said.
Frieden said that based on calls received there have been fewer than 30 faculty members who have had trouble accessing their class rosters.
"I haven’t had any problems yet," English professor Barry Wood said. "We get mass e-mails about tutorials on how to view our rosters."
When IT specialists determine what kinds of problems arise, the person in charge for each module of a specific administration application, such as financial aid, gives specifics to the technical team to configure the software accordingly, Frieden said.
Frieden said the functional team tests it, and anytime a problem arises it is sent back to the technical team to be improved.
"A good example would be printing and downloading the class rosters. These functions were extensively tested, and we knew they worked," Frieden said. "We tested them in different environments and different users as well. But we couldn’t possibly cover every variation that a user might have set up in a browser, or what choices they might make (such as not knowing where downloads go on their computer)."
PeopleSoft 8.9 replaced the ADMIN system, which was used for 17 years.
"I can tell you that we had outgrown the old system, which had limited capacity to add data, ensure data integrity and extract the data," Executive Director of Institutional Research Libby Barlow said. "PeopleSoft enables us to store more information, store more accurate information, conduct more processes electronically rather than on paper and more."
