BY: Reginald Carthen
"It's hard to stay on track, if you can't see where you are going"
We are all in a class titled Management Information Systems. The title of this course got me interested in the other various forms of information systems that exist. As we all know, people find any and every way to expand on one idea and create several derivatives of that idea to achieve success. The Housewives Series, the various levels leading up to sports on a professional level (college, little league, etc.). The list goes on and on.
My exploration through these fields, and frustration with Tigernet at a moment in time led me to discover the growing field of Student Information Systems. One evening I asked myself, "Why doesn't Tigernet show me how close I am to graduation and what other majors I should take up in order to strengthen my degree". This led to me visiting the IT department here at the college and finding out about a company called Ellucian.
Ellucian is the technological provide for various higher education institutions worldwide. They provide information systems that help simplify processes from the student registration aspects of a college all the way to creating an organized system for financial aid to be facilitated and distributed to those students. Currently Morehouse is a consumer of the Banner system that is operated by Ellucian. Other versions of these systems are Colleague and PowerCampus, which as you can assume cost much more than the Banner program.
Colleges such as the University of Nebraska Omaha have already fully integrated the Ellucian methodologies and systems into their daily operations. Students are able to track where they are, what they have left to complete, and what else they can complete based on these facts. Ellucian has an analytics program similar to that of Google Analytics that takes the data gathered from all students and uses that information to provide statistics on how nay students are on track for graduation and what can be done to assist those who are in danger of being side tracked.
All in all, this field of Information systems was something I considered a half baked idea at the time when I was frustrated about having to calculate by hand the total number of credits I have as I approach graduation. However this field is extensive and Ellucian is the leading provider of such services.
Here is the case study for the University of Nebraaska Omaha:
University of Nebraska Omaha Case Study Ellucian
And here are videos describing what Ellucian offers as a company:
"It's hard to stay on track, if you can't see where you are going"
We are all in a class titled Management Information Systems. The title of this course got me interested in the other various forms of information systems that exist. As we all know, people find any and every way to expand on one idea and create several derivatives of that idea to achieve success. The Housewives Series, the various levels leading up to sports on a professional level (college, little league, etc.). The list goes on and on.
My exploration through these fields, and frustration with Tigernet at a moment in time led me to discover the growing field of Student Information Systems. One evening I asked myself, "Why doesn't Tigernet show me how close I am to graduation and what other majors I should take up in order to strengthen my degree". This led to me visiting the IT department here at the college and finding out about a company called Ellucian.
Ellucian is the technological provide for various higher education institutions worldwide. They provide information systems that help simplify processes from the student registration aspects of a college all the way to creating an organized system for financial aid to be facilitated and distributed to those students. Currently Morehouse is a consumer of the Banner system that is operated by Ellucian. Other versions of these systems are Colleague and PowerCampus, which as you can assume cost much more than the Banner program.
Colleges such as the University of Nebraska Omaha have already fully integrated the Ellucian methodologies and systems into their daily operations. Students are able to track where they are, what they have left to complete, and what else they can complete based on these facts. Ellucian has an analytics program similar to that of Google Analytics that takes the data gathered from all students and uses that information to provide statistics on how nay students are on track for graduation and what can be done to assist those who are in danger of being side tracked.
All in all, this field of Information systems was something I considered a half baked idea at the time when I was frustrated about having to calculate by hand the total number of credits I have as I approach graduation. However this field is extensive and Ellucian is the leading provider of such services.
Here is the case study for the University of Nebraaska Omaha:
University of Nebraska Omaha Case Study Ellucian
And here are videos describing what Ellucian offers as a company:
Wow, this was a great blog post Regi. I am also a student that is constantly struggling with Morehouse's educational web provider. Ever since my freshman year I have struggled with tiger net and I cannot say that it has gotten much better. However I will say,I fully understand the importance of websites like tigernet. With the evolution of the Internet this market is very healthy and impactful on how we educate students in the future. If more colleges evolve and start using the products like Allusion, I feel that the educational experience will be much more efficient and it will take pressure off of staff and counselors. Lastly, as an entreprenuer I was very moved by this blog post. Educational systems and applications are an emerging market that will only grow in this day in age that has become more and more reliant on post high school education. Like I said before, this was an awesome read and I look forward to seeing how the industry evolves.
ReplyDeleteI will agree that Morehouse Tigernet is outdated system, and gives us all headaches. Though Ellucian is a great web service colleges, you have to remember that Morehouse College is a private school with limited funding, and certain services might be out of their price range. It just will take time for our college to join in on cutting edge thinking because we need staffing and funding. Schools such as Nebraska has a US$1.24 billion Endowment, so they can afford more opportunities to enhance on their old systems. I think the way to get around this financial disadvantage is to hire faculty to become IT service team. With great and helpful people to benchmark your time as a Student.
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