ConnectCarolina: Enterprise Resource Planning

Starlight is a component project of ConnectCarolina. It is a new version of StARS (Student Award Reporting System), which is a comprehensive system to collect and report all funds, especially departmental awards, given to a student in support of their attendance at the University.

As PeopleSoft (PS) is implemented to replace the University’s legacy student systems, a new version of StARs is needed because:

• There is no component of PeopleSoft that provides the functions needed by campus users, and currently delivered by StARS
• StARS is written in an incompatible computer language and cannot be interfaced with PeopleSoft

The functionality provided by StARs must be maintained because:

• Audit requirements state that campus departments are required to notify the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid (OSSA) of departmental awards so that OSSA will not over-award the student’s financial aid package
• The University needs to maintain a system to administer Graduate School In-state and Tuition Remission Awards
• The University needs to enforce the policy for charging in-state tuition to the student’s salary source (Federal Circular A-21 Guideline, as interpreted by the Office of Sponsored Research)

Starlight will be implemented in two phases:

• Phase I: the data entry phase for Starlight; campus users will enter their data and it will be fed to PeopleSoft Financial Aid; the go-live is Feb. 2010
• Phase II: the accounting phase where we will take what is produced from Student Financials and feed data to the FRS accounting system; the go-live is June 2010

A Stakeholder committee has been formed to advise the Starlight development team; members include representatives from the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, Student Accounts and University Receivables, and the Graduate and Professional Schools. Starlight users are involved in the project by reviewing and providing input on functionality and on the selection of fields for reports. Team leaders are Beverly Wyrick, Director of Finance and Administration, Graduate School, and David Langham, Starlight Project Manager for ITS.