AO 103 finally junks SAIS

When he was selected as the next Chancellor of UPLB last November 2020, Chancellor Camacho stated that he will act upon the concerns of the studentry regarding registration involving SAIS.

After six years, the students’ call for #JunkSAIS has finally been heard.

The UPLB administration, under Chancellor Jose V. Camacho Jr., released Administrative Order (AO) 103 last March 14.

AO 103 mandates the creation of an ad hoc committee that will supervise the “development and implementation” of the UPLB DX Academic Management Information System, which will finally replace the Student Academic Information System (SAIS), the main MIS of UPLB since 2016.

Recall that in 2016, the administration of then UP President Alfredo E. Pascual pushed for a unification of all management information systems and databases of all constituent units through Electronic UP–or eUP as it is known today.

Full of controversies, this commercialization project meant the termination of SystemOne, UPLB’s homegrown official online registration system, which had been in service for 12 years after it was first developed in 2004.

Fueled with hundreds of millions of pesos, this project aimed to provide students with better management and facilities in their registration and enrollment, along with other features that will also help the faculty and staff.

Starting from the 1st Semester of Academic Year 2016-2017, SAIS was used by UPLB.

In an article published by the UPLB Perspective in August 4, 2016, a student was quoted saying “bukod sa sobrang hirap aralin kung papaano gamitin, ay napakamahal – mahal para sa klase ng serbisyong binibigay [nito].”

For so long, students have been criticizing the system for inaccessibility and inefficiency, especially during pre-registration and registration periods.

Expectedly, the latest enlistment of UPLB students for the second semester last January was plagued with issues.

Students shared various experiences while using SAIS–from the different error “variants” of SAIS due to system failures, to its inaccessibility, which left some students with zero units after the pre-registration period.

Quoting from an opinion article by the UPLB Perspective dated July 28, 2016: “Anong mas malala pa sa singko? Syempre, ‘ung dinagdagan–SAIS.”