Ohio State students are now one step closer to handling all their university records from one central location.

The completion of the new Student Information System project will prevent OSU students from trekking across campus to multiple offices looking for answers on financial aid, admissions and academic advising.

Though planning for the new SIS began in 2004, the project is scheduled to be completed in August of 2009.

According to Martha Garland, creating a system that would let students and administrators easily access information is one of the main goals of the SIS project.

“Student records were everywhere and in multiple systems,” said Garland, an SIS project sponsor and associate provost in the Office of Enrollment Services and Undergraduate Education.

“Many of those systems were old and not efficient.”

Garland also said the new system was put in place to better serve OSU students.

“Not only will this system be better for students, but it will also be better for the people who help the students,” Garland said.

The first of three phases will begin on June 2.

To prepare for phase one, the SIS project team spent the entire Memorial Day weekend converting more than 800,000 student records into the new system.

All converted records were assigned an OSU ID number.

The ID numbers will eventually take the place of using Social Security numbers as the main way to identify students.

Beginning in June, ID numbers will be imprinted on all BuckIDs for new OSU students.

In addition to the file conversion, the SIS project unveiled the newly redesigned Buckeye Link Web site.

The new site will serve as a one-stop shop where students can access all OSU resources.

“With the new Buckeye Link a student could drop a class and potentially see how it could effect their financial aid all at once,” Garland said.

Though the system will include several changes, they will not all happen at once.

“Everything will be gradually rolled into this new system,” said Rick Termeer, program director for the SIS project.

Termeer also said there will be a help desk to provide students and administrators assistance with the new system.

Ohio State is not the first university to take this approach. Several other universities including Michigan and Minnesota have already adopted similar systems, Termeer said.

“We’ve seen other schools go through the process and Ohio State can learn from their experiences,” Termeer said.

“We want to learn from other schools and their roadblocks.”

Nicole Staples can be reached at [email protected].