University of Georgia Chooses Banner by Ellucian and Services to Better Support Students and Faculty

FAIRFAX, Va., July 27, 2012 – The University of Georgia has licensed a suite of software solutions and services from Ellucian to help deliver personalized and intuitive online access for learners while also delivering key administrative functionality to help the university support student success.

The university licensed Banner by Ellucian and an array of tailored services following an extensive fit-gap process led by a third-party consultant. The process involved an interdisciplinary team that considered all options, including open source and building their own system, as well as other vendor solutions.

“We believe that Banner will benefit our students by providing greater accessibility and usability in an intuitive platform that can help them be successful from the very beginning of their college experience,” said Laura D. Jolly, UGA vice president for instruction. “Banner also will provide increased efficiency and productivity for our faculty and staff by connecting all the functional administrative pieces and streamlining business processes in order to improve student services, and support and administrative functions, and provide increased access to data to better support data-driven decisions.”

The university also expects that Banner will enable:
• New reporting capabilities like dashboards and early alerts that can lead to better decision making and improved student support
• Ability to leverage best practices supported by the Banner administrative system, and an opportunity to review existing business processes for areas of improvement
• A single integrated data system, eliminating redundancy and improving accuracy
• More communication and collaboration among departments fostered by an integrated, shared database
• Ability to respond to faculty requests for new functionality

The migration from the university’s legacy system to Banner, coupled with the reengineering of its overall internal information structure, also is expected to deliver considerable IT efficiencies. For example, accessing and retrieving data will no longer require extensive coding, and the university will need to interact only with one vendor for Banner software support.

Ellucian will implement and manage Banner through its Application Management Services as well as provide programming support for the institution’s current mainframe. This approach frees up the university’s internal IT staff from the enormous workload associated with implementing a new ERP and allows them to focus on delivering other key functionality in support of students and faculty.

“We are taking a strong multi-faceted service approach to our implementation and support of Banner,” said Timothy M. Chester, UGA vice president for information technology. “Ellucian offers economies of scale and specialized expertise around its products that we can’t create ourselves. They also have the experience and product knowledge to extract the fullest potential from a Banner application from the start.”

“The university took a very strategic approach to selecting a mix of services that meet their unique needs and that will give them maximum benefit in the shortest amount of time,” said Bruce Bleiman, senior vice president, customer relationships, Ellucian. “We are pleased to support them as they undergo this significant transition to a more productive and student-centered digital campus.”

Visit Ellucian at www.ellucian.com, follow Ellucian on Twitter (@EllucianInc), and like Ellucian on Facebook (/EllucianInc).

About Ellucian
Ellucian, the new company formed by the combination of Datatel and SunGard Higher Education, helps education institutions thrive in a dynamic world. It delivers a broad portfolio of technology solutions, developed in collaboration with a global education community, and provides strategic guidance to help education institutions of all kinds navigate change, achieve greater transparency, and drive efficiencies. More than 2,300 institutions in 40 countries around the world look to Ellucian for the ideas and insights that will move education forward, helping people everywhere discover their futures through learning. Visit ellucian.com.

About The University of Georgia
Founded in 1785, the University of Georgia is America’s first chartered state university and Georgia’s largest and most comprehensive educational institution. More information on the university is available at www.uga.edu.

For more information contact:
Ellucian
Laura Kvinge
Tel: 801.257.4158
laura.kvinge@ellucian.com

Trademark information: Ellucian and the Ellucian logo and Banner are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ellucian, Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other trade names and trademarks used herein are owned by their respective holders.