What is Banner Like?

By Jon Lewit, Asst. VP for Technology & Information Systems

Well over 80% of the functions of university data systems are common across virtually every campus. The remaining 20% or so are a combination of local policies, priorities, talents and idiosyncrasies. SCT has become the largest supplier of administrative software to higher education by building a generalized, rule driven system that does a credible job of addressing the initial 80%. When we install Banner we will define hundreds of elements (major codes, admissions categories, etc.) and then write rules to implement local policies. For example - we will define student levels and we will define course levels - then we will be able to write rules restricting or allowing certain level students access to certain level courses.

Most of what is in Banner is good news / bad news. The system can address almost all of what we do, but to adopt it we may need to change the way we do some things. Not only is everything going to look differently, but in some cases people's roles and responsibilities will change as well. We don't yet know how - stay tuned!

Everyone who has been through the process in the recent past has the same tale to tell - moving to Banner will involve some hard work, there will be many technical challenges along the way, but 'Banner is about people and change - it is not about technology'. That means - it's up to all of us to work together to make it work.

Banner is a highly integrated system:
Banner is a tightly integrated system. Whether you start with Admissions or Alumni, your first step is to define the same set of code tables, which are shared by all areas. After we move to Banner, there will be one 'person record' across all systems, one permanent address field shared by Admissions, Financial Aid, Records and Advancement. The good news - this is the proper way to manage the data and it will lead to greater consistency with less duplication of effort. The 'bad news' - offices will have to work together and keep their peers informed of changes within their area, they will have to keep data up to date because of the affects on other areas, and they will have to let go of the notion that they 'own' the data for a particular person. Actually, that's not 'bad', but it is different.

Banner is much more accessible:
Everything in Banner is accessible through the Web. The student and faculty pieces will run through a 'portal' which is akin to 'my.newpaltz' but with a bunch more stuff - it will be an umbrella under which you will be able to access e-mail and Blackboard as well. In place of our current transaction screens, Banner has similar transaction based panels that run via the Web - there is no special software to install and no PC vs. Macintosh issues.

Built into Banner is a general 'population selection' function which will enable offices to easily identify groups of students for generating letters, labels, or e-mails. When the system is fully implemented, there will be a Web-based report server to let offices generate their own reports as needed.

To control this accessibility, there will be a layer of security - people will have roles, be members of a department, etc. Permissions are based on roles with no tinkering and no exceptions. Life will be a little different, and a little more sane.