Comments on: They Should Call it Barrier not Banner

By: Fatigue is fatal | learning about learning

Fatigue is fatal | learning about learning — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:11:55 +0000

[...] Cogdog may be shocked to hear it, Banner is a vast improvement over our legacy system. Written by Ted Posted in Uncategorized [...]

By: Emily Strong

Emily Strong — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:25:39 +0000

It’s even worse when Banner has the wrong cap for a course – either students think they are shut out when they actually could get in once it’s fixed, or students end up getting dropped. The former happened to me once. Very aggravating.

By: Michael Branson Smith

Michael Branson Smith — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:24:22 +0000

Bullets three and four are the CUNY student information management system (SIMS) exactly. Live mode all the time, no pausing to build or buy.

By: Chris Lott

Chris Lott — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:55:25 +0000

I hear you…Banner is practically a four-letter word here.

By: Jon K.

Jon K. — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:59:35 +0000

It’s not just Virginia, most higher ed Universities and Colleges use one of two Student Information Systems, Banner or PeopleSoft/Oracle. Having used both they are both clumsy, and full of kludgy goodness. If you think LMS’s are bloated, wait til you see what garbage you have to deal with when you use the SIS.

By: Cathy Finn-Derecki

Cathy Finn-Derecki — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:29:21 +0000

Alan, I feel your pain. Having dug into the Banner interface, I can tell you that it is a system designed to crunch numbers, not serve individual users. Where these systems fall down HARD is on their front-end functionality. If they would kindly open up their data via secure web services, they could let real third-party web developers design workflows that would sit on top of the data and serve the users rather than the number crunchers. This is what happens when they try to crunch a legacy mainframe system into the web with the promise of ‘ta-da!’ instant usability. You can’t get there from here, and they never will, until they open it up with a decent API.

By: Tim Owens

Tim Owens — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:56:22 +0000

What’s absolutely insane about Banner is that (at least in Virginia) they have a complete monopoly on higher education. Every school I’ve ever talked to uses them. Big and small. For such an awful piece of software at such a massive expense, there is almost no competition in the field. Crazytown.