Good news, Penn Staters! The university has taken it into their own hands to replace ISIS! Now before you all turn to the comments section, let me explain. By ISIS, I mean the online integrated student information system, not the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Penn State’s ISIS is essentially the backbone of the irritating and inconvenient eLion we have all come to know and most likely despise. But now, the university is transitioning to Project LionPATH. It’s an initiative that was launched in February 2014 to replace the integrated student information system with a non-integrated system that is “vital to the future success of Penn State.”

The new system coordinated by Project LionPATH has a number of goals and guiding principals that “will allow Penn State to better support undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, as well as faculty and staff, at all University locations” according the Project LionPATH website. This project will ultimately replace the eLion functions that allow students to access their admissions applications, billing and accounts, financial aid functions, course schedules, transcripts, and advising records.

Project LionPATH is using a number of guidelines to ensure the new system is up to par and exceeds the expectations of students left by the original eLion functions. These guidelines include, but are not limited to:

• Maximizing self-service functionality
• Providing easy, consistent and well supported electronic access to important student and faculty information
• Developing a common online student process, while still supporting the unique needs of all campuses and colleges
• Making informed decisions through easy-to-use processes and technologies

The ideas presented by Project LionPATH have been a long time coming. The new system began integration in August of this year, and will be close to completion by September 2016. Penn State’s ISIS will no longer be available in December 2016, and the new information system will be the only and primary system for student and faculty use. The fate of eLion as a whole is yet to be determined.

Now all that’s left to do is wait for Penn State’s Blackboard contract to end in hopes that ANGEL will finally be vanquished. For more information about Project LionPATH, visit the system’s website here.