WeevilNet Continues to Adapt to UAM's Needs

Staff Writer

    One of the major technological changes this semester, the controversial and ambitious administrative software system for the University of Arkansas at Monticello called WeevilNet will adapt to the University’s needs over the next few years.

Out with the Old, in with the New

   Planning for the switch began in 2007, when a campus-wide committee with representatives from each department at UAM began researching what database platform would replace the aging People-Oriented Information System for Education platform which UAM used for at least 25 years.

   Bobby Hoyle, director of Information Technology, oversaw the massive transition and upgrade. “POISE was a very good product. The reason why we switched was because it was outdated,” Hoyle said.

   WeevilNet cost approximately $3 million to implement on the UAM campus. The funds came primarily from bonds issued through the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.

   UAM chose PeopleSoft’s Enterprise Resource Planning application over similar applications from DataTel and SunGard’s Banner higher education systems. Oracle bought PeopleSoft between the time UAM began searching for a new ERP and when UAM decided on PeopleSoft.

   UAM held a campus-wide contest to name the new PeopleSoft system and Bryan Daugherty, a network administrator at UAM, won the contest by submitting the name WeevilNet.

The Conversion Process

   UAM’s ERP conversion to WeevilNet will be a 15-month process. Normal implementations usually take two or more years to complete. Synch-Solutions, the consultation company working with UAM to complete the process, stated in a press release the rapid implementation will help “reduce costs while allowing the institution to better focus on strategic initiatives.”

   Three modules comprise the WeevilNet application:

• Student Services: Manages grades, calculates GPAs, manages class enrollment and   transcripts.

• Financial Services: Student work-study, purchasing, equipment inventory.

• Human Resources: Payroll, faculty and staff records.

   Hoyle said one feature WeevilNet contains that POISE didn’t, Portals, allows users to access their own information. “In the past, if someone wanted to know how many vacation hours they had, they would have to call Human Resources,” he said. Now faculty can find this information themselves.

   The new system went live in various stages this past year as a campus-wide update to software that manages services affecting virtually every aspect of campus administration. Financial Aid switched to the new system in February to correspond with Federal financial aid programs. UAM’s Finance department began using WeevilNet July 1 with the start of the new fiscal year. Admissions, the Registrar’s Office and Cashier’s Office all converted in July to prepare for the new Fall semester. The last department to make the switch will be Human Resources, which includes Payroll and Personnel. Human Resources will switch in January 2011 to coincide with the new tax year.

The Campus Controversy

   The switch to WeevilNet caused controversy among faculty and students this semester. Many professors complained the new system did not work as well as POISE, and the counter-intuitive interface slowed them down and frustrated students as well.

   “The major problem with WeevilNet is that it’s not intuitive,” Chris Wright, professor of political science, said. “For power-users, people who use it all the time, it’s probably a pretty good system, but for professors who don’t use it every day, it’s difficult to navigate.”

   Some professors complained pre-registration posed difficulties with certain default settings causing frustration and needless steps.

   “I can go back in my own history to see what I taught,” Wright said. “The capability of it is pretty big, but the ease of using it is pretty low. There’s too many things going on at once. I just don’t think it’s designed very well.”

   Hoyle looks at both sides of the new software.

   “The response of the faculty and the staff has been very positive. But I don’t mean that they haven’t found problems. It’s just that they understand this is a process. They understand it’s a big process and it takes a lot of time, but we will get there,” Hoyle said. “We still have a long way to go.”

   Diane Payne, associate professor of English, experienced frustrations during pre-registration as well, but she said she appreciated one important feature about WeevilNet.

   “What I like about WeevilNet is that I can register students from home,” Payne said.

   Online enrollment caused problems for some students, but others enrolled without incident.

   “There’s a learning involvement,” Hoyle said. “The challenge we’re facing right now is the implementation is requiring all of our resources ... We understand that the job will not be done until we have invested a substantial amount of time into the faculty and staff as far as training. We also understand using this out-of-the-box may mean that it is not quite as intuitive as to the way UAM does things,” Hoyle said.

The Bleeding Edge

   “Right now we’re on time and we’re on budget, and that’s extremely positive compared to other universities in the state who have gone through this process,” Hoyle said. “Some of them have gone over budget by 100 to 150 percent, so we’re very fortunate.”

    The IT department staffs ten full-time workers. Two of those staff members actually work with WeevilNet on a daily basis: Anissa Ross, project manager and Reba Riley, database specialist. Ross declined to comment about WeevilNet. The various departments on campus also rely on their individual support staffs.

   Hoyle said there were substantial hardware upgrades to bring UAM’s network up to standards for WeevilNet. The IT department uses Sun hardware running the Solaris 10 operating system. Systems administrator Darren Mayes works with just the ERP implementations. POISE used one server on campus. WeevilNet uses seven.

   When the core university committee picked the PeopleSoft platform, they decided to run it “out-of-the-box” as a cost-containment measure, meaning it would run as close to the way the developers intended it to run.

   “There will be customizations,” Hoyle said. “After we complete the implementation there will be a process over a period of years in which we customize the software to meet the specific needs of UAM.”

E-mail gets a facelift, too

   The campus e-mail system also received an overhaul this semester. Previously, the e-mail system used a dated Microsoft Exchange Server and support became difficult to receive. The e-mail system now runs Exchange 2010 and provides a lot of new features besides just providing a new interface. The web-based version looks much more like the client-based version faculty and staff members use.

   “We are seeing a lot more mobile devices on campus,” Hoyle said. Exchange 2010 supports these devices a lot better, allowing students and faculty to check their e-mail from anywhere, schedule appointments and meetings and access services like Blackboard through specific applications. Hoyle said these smart devices present a unique challenge because of their always-on capability as well as the possibility of security and privacy invasions.

   “Mobile devices pose the greatest danger to the university’s network in making personal information available,” Hoyle said.

Education is a Continual Process, and so is Technology

   Hoyle urged faculty and students to inform IT of difficulties and suggestions. The IT department holds tech briefings from time to time, and Hoyle said they will try to hold them two or three times per quarter to keep the campus involved in the technological growth.

   After the first three to four years Hoyle said the campus will grow comfortable and familiar with the new systems. “It’s a very competitive arena for universities. We’re judged by how successful our students are once they graduate,” Hoyle said. “All of these technologies are part of the process to make them better graduates.”

   “We want for UAM to be the absolute best university it can be using the resources that we have,” he said.

Editor's Note: This article was edited to change $3 million dollars to simply $3 million. The date January 2001 was changed to January 2011 in the following sentence: The last department to make the switch will be Human Resources, which includes Payroll and Personnel. Human Resources will switch in January 2011 to coincide with the new tax year.

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