ETSU without GoldLink is hard to imagine, but for a few days at the beginning of October, ETSU was GoldLink-less. Many services within GoldLink were made unavailable from Oct. 1-5 for a “system update.” During that time, students could not add or drop classes, verify degree information, or manage student payments, among other services. Services such as submitting transcript requests and accessing D2L remained available.

“What we know as GoldLink is actually a system known as Banner, which is through SunGard Higher Education,” said B.J. King, associate vice president for Financial Services. “The entire Tennessee Board of Regents is going through the upgrade to Banner 8 to get on the most recent version of the Banner system. ETSU was part of the second group of TBR schools to upgrade to Banner 8.”

Three cohort sessions are available for schools in the TBR to upgrade, and ETSU chose the second cohort session. ETSU avoided the first cohort session because students register for both summer and fall classes in the spring semester.

The third cohort session takes place during the winter months. The school saw upgrading in the second session as an advantage should there be any issues with the first session.

“As far as picking Oct. 1-5, we tried to pick a time with a weekend,” said King. “That way, the ETSU Information Technology staff had Friday, Saturday and Sunday to migrate the system. When we came back on Monday, there were a few issues, but they were worked out.”

The fact that D2L remained up and running put away most concerns.

“D2L was still up, so it didn’t really bother me,” said Sucheta Raghavendara, a public health graduate student. “We were informed it was going to happen. I don’t really use GoldLink in general other than just at the end of the semester and the beginning of the semester.”

Some students appreciated the warning for the downtime, but it made little difference.

“If I hadn’t been told it was going to be down, I wouldn’t have even noticed it,” said Adam Worthington, a nursing major.

According to King, ETSU was prepared for the worst. A backup system was created should any of the emergency information require accessing during the time of the upgrade.

“We had a system in place in case there was an emergency – on the money side of things too, which is with this department,” said King. “It was practiced a couple of times. They had a test system which had just been cloned. We really thought it through.

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