Recent Project Highlights: Enterprise Applications

Here are a few recent projects performed by Enterprise Applications (EA) and how each contributes to student access and success at PNW.

These updates are from the second quarter of 2023-24.

Completed Project(s)

• Banner 9 Proxy Access: Implement proxy access for Banner 9 Self-Service. This will allow parents and other approved third parties to access and view read-only Banner 9 self-service pages for students.
• Digital Prioritized Equitable Access: Implement Equitable access for the Fall 2023 term. Digital Prioritized Equitable Access means all undergraduate and graduate students would be charged one flat fee per semester, covering texts and courseware for the semester. This is an automatic charge to the student’s bill, but all students would have an “opt-out” option that would allow them to choose not to take part in the program. Additional course materials, such as a laptop, can be added to the program for an additional charge. This is a multi-divisional, multidepartment.
• Papercut – Import Faculty and Staff IDs: Automatic import of Faculty Staff PUID numbers added to Papercut. Currently, we do this for students, but we will need to do it for Faculty/Staff. Faculty/Staff need to use their ID badges on the printers to release their print jobs.
• Unitime Scheduling Assistant: The Student Scheduling Assistant helps students build a workable class schedule. It takes a list of courses a student is interested in and determines the class sections the student needs to take to get as many requested courses as possible. The Student Scheduling Assistant tries to calculate a schedule for the student, making registration smooth and aligning it with their plans, which will help keep students on track, save them money, and help us retain students.

In Progress Project(s)

• CampusCommunicator: A leading student communications tool to streamline the financial aid process.
• Civics Requirement Dashboard: Develop a dashboard to meet the civics requirement that every PNW student starting Fall 2022 must meet.
• Cognos migration IBM Cloud: We are working on migrating PNW’s on-premises Cognos Analytics and Reporting tool instance to the Cognos IBM SaaS Cloud platform, along with Purdue Fort Wayne and West Lafayette campuses. Moving the instance to the cloud will allow easier administration, scalability, and flexibility for IT staff and resources.
• Grad Student Demographic Data Collection: Due to the recent Supreme Court decision, the West Lafayette Grad School has removed race/ethnicity questions from the graduate application. To collect this information upon admission, the Grad School recommends the creation of a form in SSB to update Biographical information so admitted students can enter their data. West Lafayette has adopted this model and has located this form in myPurdue. I would propose a similar form be located in myPNW.
• MyPNW Transformation: Migrate content and links from Luminis to Pathify so MyPNW would then point to the Pathify Student portal. Along the way, invite input from a to-be-formed steering committee to improve and move beyond Luminis and take advantage of Pathify’s capabilities. We also need to train with Pathify’s Product Trainer to build the content necessary to accomplish the purpose of this project.
• ScholarshipUniverse: A matching system that maximizes student scholarship opportunities. It allows you to create an academic profile that enables you to connect with various internal and external scholarship opportunities.

Proposed Project(s)

• Develop capacity for mobile digital engagement with students: Work with student focus groups, EMSA, and student support offices to develop digitally engaging ways to do business with PNW and track through the mobile app and myPNW web pages to improve retention and outcomes. The goal is to develop additional technical capacity to use Pathify capabilities for student engagement and support and to develop user experience techniques such as focus groups, effective feedback mechanisms, and analytics.
• Electronic ID – Student Photos in RegisterBlast: With the transition to electronic IDs for incoming students, the Testing Centers request a new project to include student photos in the data transfer from PNW to RegisterBlast. The centers check the IDs of all testers to verify their identity. We now have a scanner for E-IDs for check-in, but we would like to have student photos appear in RegisterBlast to verify identity using an on-screen photo instead of having to handle student devices or have them all in our faces at check-in.
• Master Course Creator Tool in Brightspace: PWL has deployed the Master Course Creator tool to the PNW campus. This tool allows a self-service option for instructors to create a DEV course shell in Brightspace that pulls the template from the “PNW Sample Course Template” course with pre-populated content. OIT requests that EA migrate this to use an API owned and supported by PNW…in the future.