Triton Student System Video Transcript

Read a transcript of the video conversation between Interim Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Continetti and Interim Chief Information Officer Kevin Chou, answering questions submitted by AS and providing context on the project’s necessity and timeline.

[Continetti] Hi, everyone. We're here to talk about TSS, or the Trident Student System. I'm Interim Executive Vice Chancellor Bob Continetti, and I'm here today with Interim Chief Information Officer Kevin Chou to share more information about this project and help address some of the frustrations surrounding it. We want to thank our student leaders for giving voice to student concerns and questions and continuing to work with us to shape how we continue to engage with students in the future on projects like this.

[Continetti] Kevin, let's start with our first student question. Why are students upset?

[Chou] Students are upset because the transition is having a real impact on their lives. System outages, performance issues, technical glitches, all are making a process that's already really stressful, trying to get into classes, even more so. And I think all of us, including our students, expect more. And I think one of the things that we want to make sure people know is that we are very open to feedback. We want students to let us know what's working, what's not working. And we want everyone to understand that there are lots and lots of people working nearly nonstop, including nights and weekends, to make sure that all of those issues are being addressed.

[Continetti] Kevin, from your perspective, how did we get to this moment?

[Chou] We got to this moment because our existing or our legacy student information system, ISIS, which is built on the mainframe, was already on its last leg. We've had numerous system outages over the years, reaching on a regular basis at least once a month for hours at a time. The system was growing in terms of cybersecurity threats, and it's vulnerable to those, as well as it's just not keeping up with the demands of the university and the number of students that we have. And so with that, lots of people across the campus worked together to configure a new software for the student information system, and the transition has been affecting a lot of people.

[Continetti] Just for the record, how old was the software underlying ISIS?

[Chou] So the software, which runs on the mainframe, was implemented in the early 90s. And so mid, let's say, 35, 36 years old now. And so the system itself was developed and maintained by programmers, most of whom actually retired from the university already.

[Continetti] So it was literally as old as the Internet.

[Chou] It's pretty close. It's pretty close.

[Continetti] Who made the final go-live decision on this project?

[Chou] So any decision like this is tough, right? We consulted folks from all over campus, from staff, faculty, students, administrators, you name it, and ultimately having to balance between continuing to run on a system that was crippling the university versus transitioning this summer. I would say that I, along with many project leaders, ultimately made that recommendation to the EVC at the time, Elizabeth Simmons, and of course the chancellor. With their endorsement, we launched.

[Continetti] Now, we have encountered a lot of glitches. So was the team aware of the bugs before go live? Was there a deadline the team had to meet that drove this whole process?

[Chou] With any software launches there's always bugs and the team was aware of bugs that were affecting the system. At the same time there's also things that we discover right after you launch the system. From a deadline perspective it wasn't fixed, you know. We knew that the transition had to take place over the summer so it was this summer, next summer, or some other summer, but knowing where the system was at when we made that decision to launch this summer, it was very clear that continuing to kick the can just simply wasn't going to cut it.

[Continetti] So it really became a race against time.

[Chou] Yeah, it absolutely was.

[Continetti] What student testing was done before the launch? How did your team source and determine the size and hourly contributions of undergraduate and graduate student testers on the project?

[Chou] So we actually employ about 100 student workers at the department in IT services. So we had students that had worked on the system, had tested the system, but we knew that, you know, student employees and IT department probably wasn't representative. And so we partnered with our vice chancellor of student affairs as well as our graduate division to help recruit students. Now, student recruitment is tough, you know, it's hard to get people's attention and especially during the summer when people are not here but we definitely included students, invited them to help with testing, gathered their feedback. Now understandably not everything could be accommodated because of the tight schedule to get things across the finish line. But student feedback is one hundred percent a key part to any system launch.

[Continetti] Considering that there are additional initiatives IT wants to accomplish, would you be open to setting a student beta testing threshold, such as a number of participants, testing hours, that would need to be met before any new technology release?

[Chou] One hundred percent. Anything that's student facing should be tested by students, full stop. And I think what we want to do is rather than to apply a one-size-fits-all, because we're probably not going to be launching a student system again anytime soon, all things considered, I think working and partnering with our student leaders to help set that threshold for the types of technology implementations relative to the number of students and the hours that they spend testing the system would be great, and we would welcome that.

[Continetti] Has TSS been evaluated against the UC's IT accessibility policy?

[Chou] Absolutely. So as a lot of people may know, a new policy was implemented for the University of California to comply with accessibility standards that are set by the federal government. And so for us, we do the same thing. We assess TSS like any other system. And using our own user experience professionals, created a list of things that we want to address in order to improve accessibility so that way we can be more accessible. We want the software to be inclusive, of course, to all of our students, and this is no different. Right now, the priority is to make sure people can book, people can get into their classes, but it is definitely top of mind.

[Continetti] Kevin, people want to use web browsers other than Google Chrome. People want to use iPads and other mobile devices. What's the prospect for that?

[Chou] The prospect is great. So with web technologies, it's a matter of figuring out why some of the code isn't working well with Firefox, let's say, or Safari. And it's definitely one of the things that we will be addressing once we can address the issues that might prevent someone from booking a class, waitlist a class. In my mind, accessibility kind of goes both ways. It's one way is the accessibility of screen readers. From another perspective, it's just people wanting to use different technologies and devices.

[Continetti] Thank you.

[Continetti] Kevin, in the early stages of this project, there was the use of Triton GPT for the class planner. So people are wondering, what happens to student data entered into Triton GPT?

[Chou] So, of course, this is not limited to TSS. Early launch, Triton GPT was used for a natural language kind of chat bot interface for a class planner. And the information that gets entered is actually housed and stored at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. And it's protected by UC terms and conditions for anything that might go into our cloud space. But ultimately what we have done with Triton GPT is we partner with the Chief Privacy Officer and have a published privacy statement, which very clearly lays out all of the different ways in which information entered into Triton GPT is processed. And so, of course, Bob, as you know, after launch, we got a lot of feedback about the class planner using Triton GPT, and so our teams pivoted rather quickly to develop a new class planner, not using AI, It does not use AI in its functionality, but the idea is to provide students with functionality that's more akin to WebReg. And so the new class planner, which launched, gosh, now three, four weeks ago, since launch, the new class planner has had roughly 46,000 users use it to plan their classes.

[Continetti] Okay. Kevin, will fall financial aid disbursement be affected by the system?

[Chou] Financial aid disbursement is one of the most critical things, as you can imagine. Right now, our financial aid schedule for the fall is on track. However, we have had to make some adjustments for summer session two, and that, of course, has had some impact on students. So for us, it's critical for us to have contingencies. And so we do have mechanisms that will allow us to disburse funds to our students outside of the system should we run into any issues. But with that being said, right now we are not expecting any issues for fall disbursements.

[Continetti] Kevin, what is the remedy for students who lost seats in courses required to graduate? And how will you determine who this has happened to?

[Chou] Great question, Bob. It's a difficult question to answer for sure. We know how frustrating it is for our students who are trying to graduate on time and that they can't get a class. It's difficult for us to know. Is it because the class is full by the time they try to book? Is it because there's a system issue, right? And so one of the things that we know is that student advisors or academic advisors are their best resources to help them plan things out, figure out what classes they need to graduate on time, and to make sure that, you know, alternatives and various waitlisting functionalities are explored. And so with that, I would say that we are partnering with our academic senate as well to make sure that there's flexibility, especially if we determine that there is an issue with the system that resulted in someone not getting a class they needed to graduate.

[Continetti] Thank you.

[Continetti] Kevin, given that a majority of students have spoken and would like to go back to WebReg, is this an option?

[Chou] As someone who used WebReg when it was first launched as an undergrad many, many moons ago, I get where the students are coming from, right? Especially when the new software is not working as hoped. The short answer is no. And the reason why is because WebReg was simply a web interface for the mainframe, which is our previous student information system now. And because of that, now that TSS is the system of record, WebReg doesn't work anymore. And so our goal is to make sure that we can do even better and to create an interface for TSS that students like and want to use right and so with that the new class planner is our essentially new front end to TSS and we welcome feedback from our students to make sure that you know it is as good as if not better and that's going to be a goal for our teams and for everyone working on the system. And so that will hopefully not carry on the web reg name, but to have all the functionality and capabilities that students need. And capabilities even beyond. Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, talking to some of the students that have used it, some of the new features in the system now include, you know, knowing how far classes are from each other, making sure that students can get from point A to point B. These are all functionalities that, you know we really couldn't do in the old system and now in the new system there's a lot more possibilities and we're really excited to be able to bring that to our students.

[Continetti] Kevin, is the university administration committed to fulfilling the five requests that were received from the student leadership?

[Chou] One hundred percent. We appreciated the student leaders for reaching out for pulling together not just the five requests but also the list of questions that we're now using today, right? And so I think our commitment is to make sure that we continue to work with our student leaders. In fact, a weekly check-in has already been scheduled to make sure that we're going through each and every one of their requests so that we're tracking, making sure that we're hitting the mark. And I'm hoping that that actually will continue because it's not just about what they think we need to do now, it's also about anything that might come up in the future.

[Continetti] Well, thank you, Kevin. And I want to thank everybody watching this video today. I want you to know that as a university we are committed to making TSS a success. We also want to thank all the students who have helped us get there by submitting feedback for the enhancements to TSS that we're working on. We appreciate your willingness to help shape this system and your continued patience as we work to improve it. Thank you.