University Information Technology (UIT) and Student Services staff on July 1 will begin an almost two-year project to create a replacement for the current Student Information System (SIS) in an effort to link Tufts' campuses under one new uniform technology for functions like class registration, transcript requests and billing.
The project will involve UIT staff and representatives from across the university and necessitate the construction of a temporary building behind Jackson Gym and Pearson Hall to house operations, according to Vice President for Operations Dick Reynolds.
Tufts' current information system has long been obsolete, according to Executive Director of Planning and Administration Martha Pokras.
"Our current system is outdated and cumbersome and doesn't interface well with other new modern systems, like the new [online] housing system," she said.
The system has also been a hindrance to the university-wide consolidation of passwords that will begin this semester alongside the ongoing student and faculty transition to the Microsoft Exchange e-mail platform, according to Director of Communications and Organizational Effectiveness for UIT Dawn Irish.
Pokras said that uniformity across the school's campuses is the main goal in the push for a new system.
"It is terribly important at a place like Tufts, with a lot of different schools, to have one system for the whole university," she said.
Tufts' peer universities have been updating their student information systems since the first generation of SIS systems became obsolete eight years ago, Irish said, adding that the new system's developers will be able to learn from other school's mistakes when upgrading Tufts' systems.
"We're trying to see as many bumps as possible so we can avoid them, and one thing that our peer institutions have done has been sharing their experiences with us," Pokras said. "We're learning from their successes and mistakes and are going to try very hard to avoid as many mistakes as we can."
The current SIS has been in use at Tufts for 30 years and the system's original vendor no longer supports the system, according to Irish. The university will design a replacement system with students' needs and the need for uniformity in mind.
"A lot has changed in technology in the last thirty years," she said. "We're now looking for systems with a lot more functionality and integration between systems."
"Tufts is a little behind many of our peer institutions in putting in a new student information system," Pokras added. "We want to be in a position to provide the students and faculty with the most accurate, timely and secure information."
In the replacement process's initial phase, university staff will gather input from across the university about what aspects of a new system would be most beneficial, according to Pokras.
"To have the flexibility and architecture that we need to support all of our schools well into the future, the first nine months of this project will be getting the different requirements from all of our schools," she said. "Based on these requirements, we will be designing a new system."
Approximately 60 UIT and Student Services staff members will then begin working on the selection and development of a new system, which will necessitate the construction of a temporary facility to serve as the headquarters for the process, according to Reynolds.
The building will comprise ten modular units, each 700 square feet in size and linked together to form a single building behind Jackson Gym, he added.
Construction on the new facility will begin in May, according to Pokras. Reynolds said that there are no permanent plans for the project site.
"It just seemed a good place to put a relatively short-term project," he said.
