Faculty, staff, alumni, students and anyone associated with Missouri Southern are welcome to participate in an upcoming contest.

Sandi Gieson, manager of the SunGard SCT Banner administrative software project, reports the opening phase of the two-year project was launched successfully.

The Banner software will replace the current mainframe system at Southern and all of its core administrative systems including finance, human resources, financial aid, alumni and foundation. The new Banner system will fully integrate those divisions.

It will be Internet-native and it will be an Oracle-based system. The administrative software project will include a content management system (CMS) for the University’s Web site.

CMS will provide a user-friendly interface for faculty and staff who worked with Web page development and provide a more uniform and navigation for the University’s Web site.

A contest is being launched to provide a moniker, or acronymic name, for the new system.

“Institutions typically provide with a clever name or acronym to build awareness and help promote the implementation phase.”

“The mainframe doesn’t really have a name,” Gieson said. “It’s just our system, just our administrative system.”

However, to personalize the project, she said the campus needs to bring its own touch to the software.

“But we’re trying to march a contest to find a name for the new system other than Banner,” Gieson said. “Banner is the name of the company that makes the software, and so we just want to find another like some schools have come up with.”

For instance, Wichita State has named its administrative software the WIN. W-I-N stands for Wichita Integrated Network because it means that everything is all together.

Gieson said Debbie Dutch Kelley in human resources has already submitted one suggestion from campus. Her suggestion was LEO (Linking Everything Online).

The names should ideally associate the software with Southern.

Gieson said the name will help the students relate to the project in a similar way students relate to the name LionLink. While LionLink will eventually switch over to the new software system, it will go by the moniker chosen.

“The contest is going on now and students, faculty and staff are encouraged to respond and it ends Feb. 10,” said Rod Surber, director of Public Information.

Entries can be submitted to Surber through campus mail or e-mail at [email protected] by 5 p.m. Feb. 10.

A panel of judges will select the winner and prizes will be awarded.

There are suggestions for words to use in the acronym available online at www.mssu.edu.