Eastern students used to have to register for classes over the phone.

Since students began this self-registration process in the mid-’80s, Bill Witsman said much has changed.

The university is now nearing the completion of its Enterprise Information System Enhancement (EISE) project, which includes Banner, the new system students use to register for courses, and a Degree Auditing System (DARS).

Students began using Banner to look up courses and register in March 2007.

Christie Ruszkowski, council on academic affairs chairwoman, said she thinks Banner is easy for students to navigate around.

“I haven’t heard any complaints from my students,” Ruszkowski said. “It’s rather beneficial for them because it’s so user-friendly.”

Before Eastern implemented Banner, the university had been using an IBM mainframe since the 1960s.

“Typically it is a large computer that is good at doing computing for general business,” Witsman, EISE project director, said. “Generally mainframes are not used for playing games, they’re for your business operations.”

Banner is run on a series of Intel-based servers, or several powerful computers that are “tied together,” Witsman said.

The mainframe was fast, had a lot of disk storage and could process information very quickly.

Unfortunately, only a few people knew how to work with the mainframe if the system has a problem.

Witsman said this was one of the reasons the university decided to upgrade to a new system.

“Now we have not only a company that can help us, but hundreds of other universities that we can contact to say ‘How are you doing this? How do you handle this at your university?'” Witsman said.

The switch to Banner means not only an increase in resources when the university encounters problems, but also a decrease in costs.

Witsman said because of the new system, the university will spend less money on hardware and software than it did when it was using the mainframe.

However, the university is not done using the mainframe yet. Some of the old data on the system, such as payroll information, still has to be moved onto Banner.

“Once that’s done, we basically pull the plug on the thing,” Witsman said.

Since Banner’s implementation, Witsman said the new system has been able to “mold to the university’s needs.”

Five main modules are within the system: human resources, advancement, student, finance and financial aid.

The implementation of the program began with finance, which became fully active in 2006.

At this time, departments and administrators were able to begin using Banner for budgeting and purchasing.

Before the first Banner payrolls in January 2007, Witsman said the university had several consulting sessions with the software company. The group worked with the company to try and figure out how to get the software to work with the way Eastern processes payroll.

Witsman said programmers were eventually able to set the system up so it operated on the university’s pay cycle. A test run was then conducted to make sure the proper deductions were taken out of people’s paychecks.

By the end of 2007, time cards were replaced with automated time reporting.

Witsman said the three-year process of switching from the mainframe to Banner has affected everyone on campus.

Registrar Sue Harvey said Banner has made it easier for different areas of the university to work together.

“Banner is a more integrated system so offices can now more easily share information,” Harvey said.

The new system has also eliminated tasks that once had to be performed manually, such as checking that students’ meet prerequisite requirements, Harvey added.

While there have been some minor problems with the system along the way, Roszkowski said the switch from the mainframe to Banner has put Eastern on “the same page” with other universities.

“Hundreds of schools use Banner,” she said. “It’s the best thing that’s out there- it may not be perfect- but it is the best thing out there.”

Barbara Harrington can be reached at 581-7942 or at bjharrington@eiu.edu.