SIS Developing New Systems

e-Grades

• Using Bear Facts for Faculty and the Kerberos authentication system, instructors are able to securely see a roster of their class, enter class final grades, and submit grades to the Registrar. Students are able to see their final grades on "Bear Facts for Students" the following day. Faculty are able to upload their grades from an Excel spreadsheet. For the fall 2005 semester, 6,820 classes submitted 133,959 grades electronically.99.2% of all grades were submitted through e-Grades. The long-term goal remains to have all grades entered this way, eliminating bubble sheets entirely. Work continues to make the interface even more intuitive.

Graduate Admissions

• Enhancements to the Graduate Admissions system enables students to pay their application fees online using credit cards when they submit their applications electronically. Since the implementation of the credit-card capability credit cards were used to pay for the application fee. Since SIS developed the online Graduate Application system several years ago, increasing numbers of applications are being submitted electronically. In addition to the credit-card feature, staff in the departments, using PCs or Macs, are now able to view applications to their departments' graduate programs. The Graduate Admissions system runs on an Oracle database, using an Oracle Application Server. The system uses CalNet to authenticate authorized Graduate Division staff to process graduate applications.

Books in a Box

• Through Bear Facts, Tele-BEARS, Info-BEARS, and the CourseWeb site, students are able to access a link called "Purchase Books" that lists all the books available for their class. Books in a Box, linking to e-Follett, enables students to order and pay for course readings, and pick them up at the ASUC bookstore. Books in a Box is one of the first completed e-Berkeley projects. It runs on an Oracle webserver using PL/SQL. Books in a Box will be running book lists for regular semesters and Summer Sessions concurrently.

Black Lightning Lecture Notes interface

• Students are able to purchase lecture notes, select CARS billing, and then download the lecture notes. The system verifies registration and formatting for invoices on CARS. SIS provided the interface with the CARS system.

Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS)

• With DARS, students are able to see the status of their completion of degree requirements by accessing Bear Facts on the Web and requesting e-mail reports.

Transcript Request System on the Web

• Students are able to request their transcript over the Web in Bear Facts, instead of calling or faxing their request to the Registrar's Office. They can request a one-day rush or a ten-day mail delivery. The system can only be used by current students so that the request can be billed to CARS. Since implementation the percentage of requests on the Web has grown.

Fee referendum voting

• The first campus-wide election was implemented in Fall 2001. Through Bear Facts, students can view all the voting materials, vote on the referendum, make comments about the voting, and enter a raffle to win a Palm Pilot. The number of students that voted electronically that year — 9,590 (30 percent of enrolled students) — was larger than any of the three previous individual referenda votes, which were paper-based. Voting maintains the confidentiality of the voter, gives an accurate count, and quickly returns results.

Recreational Sports Facility (RSF) student membership fee on the Web

• There is now a $25 fee per term for a student to work out at RSF. Students can pay on the Web by having it billed to their CARS account, or pay the Cashier directly.

Additions to Summer Sessions

• Student fee buy-down. Last summer, UC student Summer Sessions fees were subsidized by state funds so that there were no registration or laboratory fees. Numerous programming changes were made and a new process was developed to interface with CARS.
• New student census for UCOP. Motivated by the need for increased enrollment at UC campuses, and in order to provide an analysis tool for the role Summer Sessions could play in serving more students, the Office of the President (UCOP) required a summer census for the first time. Creating a data extract for UCOP was challenging because Summer Sessions was never considered as a regular term. Collecting and coordinating the data for both regular students and summer-only students posed many problems.
• Batch Transcript System for other UCs. A batch program was developed to automatically print transcripts for all visiting and non-UC Berkeley Summer Session students, a requirement from the Office of the President.

New GPA process for California Student Aid Commission

• The GPA calculation process was redesigned to enable the campus to consider course work outside of the UC system. This process allowed the campus to receive $750,000 more in grant funding for continuing students, and provided financial assistance to more students.

Degree Verification System on IVR and the Web

• Employers or other service agencies can now verify enrollment and degrees over the Web or by calling an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) number. The system gives dates of the student's UC Berkeley attendance and the degree awarded.

Verification Transcript System on IDMS

• This system provides a customizable letter which verifies student enrollment and includes GPA information. A student can use this for car insurance, jury service, and loan repayment.

Online and print General Catalog

• The General Catalog was viewable on the Web in 2000. The print version is extracted every other year. The print catalog is produced from Oracle extracts of Departmental Data and Course Data, generating INPUT files for UC Printing Services to produce the General Catalog. With the data in Oracle, immediate updating is possible for the online catalog. The print version is based on the most up-to-date online catalog at the time of the extract.

Hepatitis B student blocks for Student Health Services

• Registration can be blocked for a student who is not in compliance with the Hepatitis B immunization requirement for UC attendance.

Additions to Masters of Financial Engineering Program

• This is a one-year business degree program with four quarters. Because the Berkeley campus is on a semester system, specialized programming had to be designed to handle the enrollment, registration, and fees for their students.

Per Unit Fee Program for Evening Masters in Business Administration

• In this masters program, students' education fees are paid by their employers. The cost has to be based on one fee per unit. This required a redesign of the fee structure to accommodate the cost to be based on units only.

The multitude of system implementations and enhancements are enabling the campus to fulfill its vision for operational effectiveness and web-enabling services to our students.