Administration/Staff September Updates

The Mercer Student Information System and BearPort (the student portal) will be replaced in March 2011.  This is huge and it has major implications for everyone at Mercer.

For students…how they register for classes, pay their bills, and interact with Financial Planning will all change.

For faculty and staff…how they register students, access student data, complete roll reconciliations, and more will change.

Training

• The intention is to train close to the go-live date and employ “just in time” training so that all are trained on the tasks they must complete within the first few months. 

• Training is scheduled for 3 weeks beginning the week of February 14th.  Staff will need to keep these weeks in mind.  Staff members will be contacted to give them training date options.

• The level of training will differ for staff members with different responsibilities.

• Training is set to take various forms: (1)  Web-based tutorials,  (2) Step-by-step information sheets/guides related to specific tasks, (3) Face-to-face training and lab work

• The tutorials and guide sheets will be kept on the new Web site. 

• How will staff members know what kind of training is best for them? 

Video demonstrations of the new system will be run.  Specific demos will be made available to students, faculty, and staff. The demos will outline terminology, basic navigation, and an example or two of a specific task relevant to the group.  Once the demo is viewed, one will have a feel for the system, and then will be equipped to choose the type(s) of training required. 

It is imperative that staff members view the demos and take advantage of the training. 

Important Changes

• The class attendance feature of the new system will be used for roll reconciliation. 

All faculty members teaching classes must take student attendance for the first three weeks of each term.
This information will be used for the University census counts. The Registrars will no longer send out reconciliation rolls.

• Counseling reports will no longer be printed by the Registrar.  Advisors can view/print Advising Reports in CVue.

• On February 25th at 5 p.m. the current SIS system will no longer be open for any type of action.  It will be available for view only.

SIS will remain that way.

• CampusVue is set to go-live March 7th. That means that for 10 days no student service activities will occur (Financial Planning, Bursar, Registrar).

• For those of you who use the Mercer Academic Research System (MARS) be aware that once SIS shuts down, MARS will be updated to reflect final SIS data and will be available through March 31st.

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness plans to work directly with the MARS users to direct them to CampusVue reports or custom reports built to replace MARS reports.  You will hear from Cindy Glance and Sarah May directly.

• Advising and early registration for summer and fall terms will begin at the end of March, as is our custom.  These activities will occur on the new system. 

Book mark this site as all of the information you will need
to make the move to the new system will be kept here.