The University of Maryland’s Elevate Program hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday to discuss the implementation of Workday Student, a cloud-based module set to replace and consolidate multiple current student information systems.
Workday Student will replace online platforms such as Testudo, Venus and the Student Financial Aid Portal, according to Elevate’s website. Students will be able to register for classes, view transcripts and access financial aid information through one mobile app allowing 24/7 user access, Jennifer King Rice, this university’s senior vice president and provost, said during Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is a really great perk, a really important upgrade for our student users,” she said.
The new online platform will round out the third and final phase of the larger Elevate Program, which this university introduced in 2021 with the goal of modernizing and simplifying data access and management for faculty, staff and students, according to Elevate’s website.
Workday Student will eventually join two other Workday modules focused on finance and human resources management that went live in November and December 2024, Rice said.
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“The problem that we’re trying to solve is that our current systems are obsolete,” Jack Blanchard, this university’s associate provost for enterprise resource planning, said Tuesday.
During the town hall, Blanchard displayed quotes from students complaining about Testudo’s faulty functions and limited access hours to emphasize the need for system modernization.
Unlike Testudo, which has some services that only operate from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Sunday, Workday Student’s services will be available at all hours, he said.
Workday Student will also include modifiable four year graduation plans and ease the financial review process, so that students do not have to struggle to find information pertaining to billing and aid, Blanchard said.
The timeline for the Workday Student implementation runs through fall 2028, according to the Elevate Program’s website. The project is just about to exit its planning stage and enter into the “Architect and Configure” stage, during which advisory committees composed of students and faculty across academic departments will meet to discuss design and functionality expectations.
“This is not software that you buy, take it out of the box, load it up and flip the switch and start using it,” Blanchard said. “You have to make decisions about how you’re going to configure that to best meet your local needs.”
Beatrice DeBelen, the public policy school’s student services coordinator, asked during the town hall when students and faculty can expect to lose access to current data systems and make the formal switch to Workday.
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Because Workday Student is more complicated than the university’s other two Workday modules and involves various stakeholders, Elevate plans to implement the system in five stages beginning in 2027, Blanchard said.
The first stage is set to activate in summer 2027, and will deal with broader functions related to university admissions and curriculum management, according to Elevate’s website. The third milestone in spring 2028 is the first stage that will allow students to register for classes through the system.
The last milestone will switch on in fall 2028 for grading, transcript viewing and graduation tasks, according to Elevate’s website.
Blanchard emphasized that the Elevate team is working to form advisory committees of undergraduate and graduate students, meeting with student government organizations and planning to hold more informational town hall sessions to engage the student body.
“Engagement is an important part of the process along the way,” Rice said. “The input of students is essential so that we can build a system that truly works for the students that it’s intended to serve.”
