Registrar's Notes

October 9, 2006

SISUpgrade Progress

Work on the upgrade to SIS7 has been progressing since Friday morning and we expect the database to be back up and functioning at 8:00 am on Tuesday morning as scheduled. You will see a different look with SIS7. If you would like training, please see the schedule on the bannertraining site.

Social Security policy change

The Michigan Social Security Number Privacy Act requires that universities institute a policy that protects the privacy of Social Security Numbers. The WMU policy regarding use of and access to Social Security numbers can be found on the Human Resources website: http://www.wmich.edu/hr/PPM/21SSN.htm#SSNintro.

Using a social security number to look up an individual in the Student Information System or any other database, does not constitute a valid need. Information should be found using the student's name, WIN, and/or birthdate.

Access to the field with the social security number is limited to personnel who need it to complete their job duties. Please note that the WMU policy on access both follows state law and is mandated by state law. The process to gain access to Social Security numbers can be found on: http://www.wmich.edu/registrar/pdf/SSN_Access_Policy.pdf

This means that if you have been given access, you will see the SSN in the SSN field in SISas before, if you do not have access, you will see asterisks in the SSN field.

New items in SIS7

Honors college code:

All students in the Honors College now have a campus of HC on their SGASTDN record. The HC campus identifies the student as a member of the honors college, allows priority registration and will be used to restrict course sections designated for honors students only. If trying to register a non-honors student for an honors only section, you will receive the error message "campus restriction" rather than the "test score/prerequisite" error message you are used to seeing.

This was done because previously if a student was given a prerequisite override to register for a course that override also overrode the honors college restriction. This campus designation is a way of separating a true course prerequisite and an honors restriction.

Vista Integration partner field:

In SIS7, the schedule type on SSASECT is no longer used to designate Vista enabled courses. A new field "integration partner" which is also on SSASECT, is now used to identify Vista enabled sections. Due to the timing of the conversion, fall course sections will carry both the Vista schedule type and the new integration partner code "EL" (e-Learning). The Vista schedule types for Spring, Summer I and Summer II 2007 course sections have been removed and will be updated with the new EL code.

Spring 2007

• I ask that departments run the cognos report on their spring offerings to do a final review of all course offering information. We can more easily make corrections now, before the start of registration for Spring.
• The Spring registration information booklets will be distributed across campus beginning today, Monday, October 9th.
• Students will be able to view Spring 2007 course offerings through GoWMU beginning this Wednesday, October 11th.
• Registration for Spring 2007 begins on October 23rd. The priority registration schedule is listed below, and can also be found on the Registrar's website:

1. Graduate students 10/23/06
2. Athletes, Honors, RA's 10/24/06
3. Seniors (122.000) 10/25/06
4. Seniors (112.000) 10/26/06
5. Seniors (103.000) 10/27/06
6. Seniors (94.000) 10/30/06
7. Seniors (88.000) 10/31/06
8. Juniors (80.000) 11/01/06
9. Juniors (71.000) 11/02/06
10. Juniors (62.000) 11/03/06
11. Last day to drop-no new group 11/06/06
12. Juniors (56.000) 11/07/06
13. Sophomores (47.000) 11/08/06
14. Sophomores (38.000) 11/09/06
15. Sophomores (30.000) 11/10/06
16. Sophomores (26.000) 11/13/06
17. Freshman (18.000) 11/14/06
18. Freshman (14.000) 11/15/06
19. Freshman (11.000) 11/16/06
20. Freshman (0.000) 11/17/06