March will be an exciting month, as students can say goodbye to the days of waking up in the wee hours of the morning and preparing for a morning of frantically refreshing the Student Web Self Services portal on myStevens, hoping to successfully achieve one of your seven pre-planned schedules. Workday Student is the new student information system that will be available to the Stevens community in March 2021, replacing the current, outdated system. To learn more, The Stute reached out to members of the Workday Student team, including the project lead and Cindy Chin, Associate Provost, who sent the responses on behalf of her team in this email exchange. The following is the Q&A response received, which gives greater detail of this highly anticipated project.
Q: How many years was this project in the planning?
“We began work in 2016. It took quite some time because we’ve been doing what amounts to pioneering work in helping build a student information system on the Workday platform. Furthermore, the Workday platform has been evolving over the last few years, which gave us a chance to add more enhancements to the system as our development work continued.
We also experienced some delays due to setbacks beyond our control: the cyberattack on Stevens’ systems in August 2019, and challenges brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud to say that despite all the upheaval caused by the pandemic, our team persevered and brought Workday Student to the point where it’s ready to go live. There are now five universities using Workday Student and another 17, including us, will be going live in 2021.”
Q: What are some of the key improvements and aspects addressed on Workday Student?
“Workday Student is a comprehensive system that will make it much easier for students to manage important tasks, starting from the time they enroll right through graduation. Students will use Workday Student for registration, scheduling, advising, financial aid, and more.
It will connect students, faculty, and academic staff, allowing professors to view and approve academic plans and monitor students’ progress toward completing their degrees, among other functions. It will streamline and automate processes that are now spread among several outdated legacy systems — including some processes that are still done on paper and require routing to different offices for signatures, among them: adding, dropping, or withdrawing from a course; resolving conflicts in course schedule times; changing majors; getting approval for credit overloads.
Another benefit of Workday Student is that it will evolve. Stevens and our partners at Workday will continue to develop and improve the system based on our users’ experiences.”
Q: How did the testing in November go? What was the feedback response like?
“The testing, which we called “Mock Registration,” went really well. We involved a range of undergraduate and graduate students, along with some faculty and staff. Everyone agreed that the system is easier to navigate than the current Student Information System (SIS) and it simplifies the way students register, manage their academic plans, and manage their student finances.
We received a lot of useful feedback that’s helping us improve Workday Student for launch. We’ve developed user guides for students covering how to get started, how to register, and how to handle other tasks. These will be available through Canvas.
Another thing we learned in Mock Registration is that we have to make sure student workers understand that they will access Workday Student using the same login and home screen that they currently use to submit their work hours. One of the real benefits of Workday Student is that it extends the Workday system we already use for human resources functions, bringing many different processes together in one place.”
Q: What can we expect during the scheduled launch in March?
“Faculty and staff will be able to access Workday Student functionality starting March 4. Students will have access beginning March 10. Announcements will be sent on these days letting the Stevens community know when Workday Student is ready for their use.
When you log in, you will find a fully functioning and tested system. Workday Student will have features and functions that were just not possible under the current SIS. We’ve been making adjustments based on the feedback from the Nov. Mock Registration and input from our “Project Champions,” a group of students, staff, and faculty members from across the university who have been learning all about Workday Student so they can help their peers make a seamless transition.
You can expect to use Workday Student to register for Fall 2021 classes beginning April 6, although Summer 2021 registration will still take place through the current SIS. Watch for information from the Office of the Registrar about when and how to register. Workday Student will become our system of record for the next academic year 2021-22. Check your emails and if you’re on campus, keep an eye out for posters, banners, and cards reminding you to get ready for launch.
Also, please continue to visit our Workday Student website: https://www.stevens.edu/workdaystudent for the latest information. Our intranet page also includes links to the latest training resources: https://my.stevens.edu/workday-student.”
If there are any questions, please contact the Workday Student project team at workdaystudent@stevens.edu.
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