Tag Archives: web services

Banner/Web Prioritization Committee Introduction

We are writing to alert you to a new process for requesting web projects work from LIS.

When the new www.middlebury.edu site was launched this spring, with a new look and new features to support the activity of the College, we sifted through the many good ideas people had for improving our old website, and kept a running list of possible projects and improvements, which you will find here: go.middlebury.edu/web/projects. We are now turning our attention to that list. The new platform has also changed how our community thinks about the web, generating even more ideas. To make decisions about how we use the web to educate, communicate and run the business of the College, we need to engage in thoughtful planning that includes the perspective of all areas of the College.

To that end, we have formed a new group, the Banner/Web Prioritization Committee, that will look at medium-sized Banner and web programming projects to make sure we use our staffing and technology resources in ways that best serve the mission of the College.

The members of the committee are:

Joe Antonioli (Co-Chair), Library and Information Services
LeRoy Graham (Co-Chair), Registrar’s Office
Doug Adams, Center for Campus Activities & Leadership
Greg Buckles, Admissions
Tim Etchells, Communications
Donna McDurfee, Academic Affairs
Amy McGill, Monterey Institute of International Studies
Jason Mittell, Film and Media Culture
Jamie Northrup, Language Schools
Maggie Paine, College Advancement
Mike Roy, Library and Information Services
Susan Simmons, Budget Office
A student (TBD)

Once a month, this group will meet to look at project requests and evaluate them on the following criteria:

  • Does this help serve the academic mission? (teaching and learning)
  • How many people will be served by this? Is the technology reusable? Are there other departments that could, and should, use this? (all members of the campus community and beyond vs. one department)
  • How much time will it take to accomplish this? (One week or 18 months)
  • Are there other non-personnel expenses associated with this? (licenses, servers, training, etc.)
  • How hard will it be to support this on an on-going basis? Does it require deep technical knowledge? Will the solution grow with our needs?
  • Does it help promote administrative efficiency? Will it help members of the community to communicate? Will it save time? Will it remove complex paper-based processes? Does it keep us in compliance with the law or with campus policy?
  • Can it help us recruit and retain the very best students?
  • Can it help us raise money for the College more effectively?
  • Will it increase revenue for the College?
  • Have the appropriate departments been consulted?
  • Does it help the College toward its goal of carbon neutrality?

If you would like to submit a project request you may either use the online form:

online project request form

or you may download an electronic version of the form here:

web project request form

and email the completed form to Joe Antonioli ( jantonio@middlebury.edu ). Since some of the questions that need to be answered are technical in nature, we will be available to help you complete the form.

For the committee to have time to look at project requests, the form must be completed two weeks before the next meeting. The current deadline to be considered at the August meeting is July 22. You will be notified within a week of the meeting as to the status of your request.

We hope that this new process will ensure that we spend our time on the highest priority projects, and that the process itself will help us improve the College’s use of the web as a platform for accomplishing many of our ambitious goals.

Update from Database Applications and Systems

Submitted by Chris Norris

Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…

Mike Schuster
– Modifications to a Banner custom process for the Registrar’s office that creates student class codes to meet new business rules.
– Modifications to the “LS Stats- new” Hyperion report to display applications for students applying to language schools at Mills College.
– Assisting with applying the Banner financial aid SSB upgrade in the DEV2 database.
– Investigating issues with Banner custom database triggers that create “away” and “returning” general student records for students going on leave.

Rob Pekor
– Modifications to the Phone-a-thon data interface for College Advancement.
– Gathering requirements for the data feed for the Harris online community project.
– Refinement of the Banner/ListManager (Broadcast Email tool) integration model with Travis.
– Loading MIIS gift history for Monterey and College Advancement.

Travis Stafford
– Refinement of the Banner/ListManager (Broadcast Email tool) integration model with Rob.
– Transitioning the Alumni office and CSO towards use of the self-service WordPress cformsII plug-in for all “new” non-eCommerce forms.
– Clean-up of code and adding functionality to Project Tracker.

Liz Whitaker-Freitas
– Ongoing work related to the Hyperion System 9 Upgrade/Migration (one line item, but this is a BIG project).

Ian McBride
– Completed development on a News Dashboard for College Communications (http://web.middlebury.edu/systems/newsboard). This will soon replace the main Public Affairs News home page and aggregate news content from several sources.
– Supporting CMS content providers and other web-related requests.
– Participating in the Web Makeover team meetings.

Chris Norris
– Migrated GO.middlebury.edu to a more stable prod environment, implemented GO.miis.edu for Monterey.
– Refinement of service-level monitoring, including addition of escalation groups.
– Project Phoenix BIA reviews, planning, specification for remote DR web presence.
– Pre-migration configuration, testing, troubleshooting of eCommerce web forms.
– Supporting ListManager newsletters, conducting ListManager workshops (only a couple more to go!).
– Contacting various folks about outstanding FileMakerPro requests, pre-migration web forms questions.
– Working on updated SWOT analysis of the DAS workgroup.