The Tripod

With Advising Week well under way, Trinity College students and faculty logging on to TCOnline may be surprised at what they see. The school's longtime go-to web site for browsing classes, checking schedules, and registering for courses was recently upgraded.

The upgrade, which is the culmination of a year long effort by the Trinity Information Technology (IT) department, consists of a single supported version of PeopleSoft for TConline and all other administrative components, according to Director of Enterprise Reporting and Analysis Sarah Moriarty, a faculty member in the computing center and the head of the project.

"Students think of PeopleSoft as TCOnline," said Functional Analysis of PeopleSoft Financials Patrick Kennedy, "but really the entire college uses it […] Trinity uses PeopleSoft for nearly all administrative office functions, including payroll, financial ledger, human resources, admissions, student records (Registrar's Office), and [fundraising]," said Director of Information Technology John Langeland. "As you might imagine this is a massive software system, and although Trinity operates it, PeopleSoft is actually a product used by many colleges."

Like most softwares, PeopleSoft comes out with "patches" or upgrades periodically, which it asks its users to implement. Trinity had been holding off on installing these patches, Moriarty said, but felt it was time to bring all of its offices up to speed. "In the past, we've upgraded step-by-step, but we felt there were advantages to implementing a new system all at once for all our offices."

As far as how the changes to TCOnline will affect students, Kennedy believes little will change. "The functionality is no different, but there is more," he said. "The search function is better, you can click on a professor's name and automatically email him or her, and navigate between Blackboard and TCOnline more easily."

There is also a "shopping cart" to save courses in, the same as one might find on any shopping Web site. "We're in a position to start adding more features as the Trinity community gets used to the new system," Moriarty said, adding that her intern, Adam Fine '08, tested the pages over the summer and found them to be intuitive. In fact, unlike other IT projects in the past, the upgrade was not only tested by a student, but was approved by a five-person team from various departments.

One of the departments was the Registrar's Office, which Moriarty and Kennedy say played an integral role in the process and continues to do so. "Some people weren't paying attention to the Trinity Exchange, so they didn't know it was coming, " said Sophie Starchman '11, a student worker at the Registrar's Office. "So when they login, they think they themselves did something wrong, and then we hear from them."

"There are problems with it as with any new system, but those will be fixed eventually. Personally, I love the new 'Favorites' option," said Starchman.

Still, some students may be confused if they have not already had time to experiment with the new system. PDF- files on navigating the system and registering for classes has been provided for both students and faculty.

Overall, Moriarty believes the project was a success. "It only took a year, and I'm pretty proud of what we were able to do compared to some of our peers [at other colleges]," she said. "We were fortunate to have an excellent project team that accomplished this effort with no consulting resources."

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