Continuation of PeopleSoft approved

The Bloomington Faculty Council passed two resolutions Tuesday afternoon, one calling for the continuation of the PeopleSoft Student Information System and another allowing grade context reports to appear on student transcripts.\nThe system allows students to access their grade distribution reports online and have them appear on their transcripts. Grade distribution reports show how grades are allocated in a course.\n"A student representative at our last meeting spoke about the usefulness of this system, so I think this is something that we should maintain," said Chairman of the Educational Policy Committee David Daleke.\nThe BFC originally adopted a policy in 1976 that stated the Office of the Registrar should offer grade distribution reports for undergraduate courses to the various schools and departments. The idea behind the grade distribution reports was so students would be able to see the distribution of grades for their courses. \nThe PeopleSoft system will be used to record these reports and this will be the first step in the initial implementation of the SIS. \nIU purchased two systems from PeopleSoft in 1999 -- a human resource management system and a student information system. The latter is designed to manage data for over 95,000 students on all eight campuses, including enrollment, scheduling, advising and admissions. Prior to the transition, IU was operating on systems developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Currently, seven Big Ten schools use the PeopleSoft system.\nAs well as allowing students to determine where they stand with regard to the rest of their classmates, the grade distribution reports enable professors to monitor their grading practices compared with the rest of their colleagues. \n"This is an essential component of self-assessment for my department," said mathematics professor William Wheeler in his address to the BFC Tuesday. \nHowever, the PeopleSoft system has come under scrutiny in recent months partly because of the cost of the project, estimated at $40 million, but primarily because people are having to deal with the transition. \nMary Rothert, undergraduate academic adviser for the English department, uses the software but confesses to having difficulties with it. She also questions the impact it will have on the quality of service being provided to students. \n"We're all going to be struggling with the new software, but the question will be, 'What will we be losing?'" she said.\nOther issues that were discussed were policies on the use of e-mail for administrative mass communications and how it contributes to spam. The resolution, calling for the prohibition of using mass e-mail for commercial mailings and having periodic, targeted e-mails sent to any substantial portion of the campus be accepted by the appropriate campus officer, was approved.