The entire UCLA student records system was recently updated by the Registrar for Systems Office, marking the first time the technology has been changed in more than 20 years.
The UCLA system currently holds 16 million student entries, which includes all aspects of a student’s career from transcript information to library fines for every student in the past 30 years, said Nick Reddingius, the director of architecture and infrastructure practice.
The update allows for “a more flexible system where you can have a more detailed look at a student and his or her career at UCLA,” said Caroline West, the director of the Office of Analysis and Information Management. The new system update not only affects West, who supplies student data and statistics to academic departments, but also academic advisers and faculty who handle student records.
The update is estimated to have cost $15 million and was financed by the chancellor’s office, according to Reddingius.
Although the project began in 2005, the actual update occurred between Oct. 24-26 of this year, a weekend during which students use the UCLA computer system the least, according to Reddingius and Arun Pasricha, the associate registrar for systems since 2004.
The update was approximately a 36-hour process, Reddingius said. Considering that the thorough development and testing of the program had already been affirmed far in advance, the majority of this 36-hour period was dedicated to downloading the hundreds of programs that comprised the update, he said.
“The old system was based on an office shell product that we bought in 1981 based on technologies of the ’60s and ’70s,” said Pasricha.
Pasricha took the lead in developing the update termed SR2, the new student records system.
Pasricha, along with a team of about 25 people, created a new product that updated all computer systems at UCLA that hold student information. Although interfaces such as UCLA’s enrollment menus and Billing and Accounts Receivable accounts may appear the same, behind the surface, the system is entirely rewritten and more efficient.
Pasricha admits that with any huge undertaking such as this much-needed update, glitches are inevitable. Despite relatively small glitches that have been promptly fixed, the update has proven to be a huge success, considering the satisfaction among administration, faculty and academic departments which use the system as an integral part of their daily tasks.
The idea to update UCLA’s student record system began to develop in 1999, although the finite decision to commit to the update did not come until 2005 when Pasricha was chosen to lead the project.
By this time, the old system product had only four years left in its lifespan, meaning a new program would have had to be installed in the next four years in any case. Now, the newly updated system has at least a 10-year lifespan, Pasricha said.